Dear silicon.com... Ageism, broadband row, ID cards…

What's got silicon.com readers reaching for their keyboards this week? Reader Comments of the Week showcases how our users are responding to the latest tech news and views on the site...

Young vs old…
Thousands of tech newbies needed to plug skills gap

So how come I am still unemployed after redundancy four months ago when I have 12 years VS C++ following 25 years management and direct sales experience? Maybe the skills do exist but are embedded in mature professionals?
-- Michael King, Fareham

Having left the IT sector five years ago due to not being able to find suitable contract or permanent employment due, I think, to my age - 57 - I reskilled and became a driving instructor.

Many of the pupils I teach are taught ITC in college and the level of subject they are taught appals me as, in my opinion, it bears no relation to what the industry appears to calling for.
-- Brian Hughes, Gloucestershire

I agree with all that has been said - one of the problems I face is that employers seem to only want young people - even at 48 I am deemed too old, [despite the fact] I have 20+ years of experience and still have at least 12 years working life left.

Fresh knowledge is good but coupled with experience it's even better.
-- Anonymous, London and South East

I have seen IT teaching to the National Curriculum in Schools and it is appalling, the content and depth are nowhere near to approaching the skills needed for the most mundane office tasks - let alone working in IT.
-- Roger Huffadine, Worcester UK

Editor's choice

silicon.com editor Steve Ranger flags up his picks on the site this week...

♦ Video Cheat Sheet: ID cards
♦ Photos: Zoom in on London from the air…
♦ Photos of the month - January 2008
♦ Legal Eye: Scrabble-Facebook row spells trouble
♦ The McCue Interview: Dave Lynch, CIO, Go Ahead Group

Data blunders
Gov't fails to keep court data locked up

It's about time that data was only moved around by courier only. This simply isn't good enough and the practice of sending by post confidential data on this scale should be made illegal.
-- Steve Lawson, Hellmail.co.uk - Postal News

Forget couriers. It's about time they got their act together and banned any rendering of this kind of information on a physical transportable medium. [Data] should only ever be moved by secure network links.
-- Chris, Cambridge

They used Royal Mail to send sensitive data CDs - are they mad?

Mail theft and tampering are now endemic in the UK, with CDs a common target.

In my experience one in five packages gets interfered with in some way and one in ten fails to arrive at all, with CDs and DVDs most commonly targeted.
-- Richard Marshall, London

Why when failing systems are usually designed and run by expensive external contractor firms do we keep perceiving this as a public sector IT failing?
-- Cassandra, Embra Scotia

[In answer to Cassandra] Because the public sector specified and paid for the product they received, in short if you don't know what you are buying then you don't buy it.

I'm blaming the people who sign the cheques. The ones who listened to the contractors and experts, didn't understand a word, and still paid for the product without clarifying what it was they were paying for.
-- Karen Challinor, UK

Student guinea pigs
Students revolt against being ID card guinea pigs

My children have already opened accounts and set up as many services as possible to avoid being forced to carry ID cards - we all used to live in a free country now we don't (CCTV surveillance, ID cards, 2003 licensing Act…).
-- Chris Tolmie, High Wycombe

This is a disaster and typical of a politically inspired concept where it is driven through regardless of the problems and issues that get raised. Apart from anything else, why on earth is it costing so much? How do we know that the original ID card is actually with the right person? What happens if the identity thief gets in first? Where are the safeguards?
-- Nick Cole, Scotland

The problem here is that people still like moaning about things, but they never do anything about it. I think the public now agrees the ID cards system should be abandoned. Trouble is, people always asks what's the point because you're only one person and then don't get involved themselves... If only everyone stood up and said no to this entire scheme, what are the government going to do?
-- Richard Davies, North Yorkshire

If you can stand up and say no publicly now, and try to persuade your neighbour to do the same, then that's all we need.
-- Guy Herbert, London

As present day students are a bunch of wussies the Government will probably get away with it.

But I can't imagine that they would have had any success in my day. In the 1960s and 1970s we were mostly a revolutionary lot! Protesting about everything and anything.
-- Galley Slave 41, London

Strangled fat pipes
Is online TV throttling broadband networks?

It seems simple enough to me !

The content providers (such as the BBC) already pay (quite a bit I expect) for their end of the network. The individual consumers pay for their bit. In between, the UK ISPs all peer with each other (mostly at LINX).
-- Simon, Cumbria

ISP's should foot the bill. The BBC will be paying for a leased line to upload / make content available etc. and so in a way...content providers are already paying. We then as customers are generally paying for bandwidth to download from ISP's for either bandwidth which we never receive or 'fair usage' policies which are only fair to the ISP. This to me means that ISP's are already being paid by everyone...content provider and end customers.
-- Richard Davies, North Yorkshire

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