President Obama
Brings Happiness To A Child
US President, Barack Obama,
today brought a delighted smile to the face of a
ten year old English girl.
‘I lost my mobile
phone last month,’ explained Sophie Harris
from Cornwall, England. ‘I was really,
really upset as it had details of all my friends
on it and lots and lots of messages that I was
saving.’
Sophie heard that President
Obama was keeping an eye on all communications in
Europe and so she wrote to him at the White House
asking if he had a copy of the data she had lost.
‘I wasn’t really
expecting a reply from Mr Obama,’ admitted
Sophie to BBC News. ‘I thought he’d be
very busy trying to borrow zillions of dollars
from somewhere or bombing foreign countries or
stuff like that. I was really surprised to get a
letter back containing a memory stick that had
all the stuff from my lost phone on it.’
‘The letter was on
White House notepaper too,’ said
Sophie’s mother, Barbara Harris. ‘I
think it was a really kind thing for the
President to do. In his letter,’ she added,
‘he even included a note saying my NHS
records showed I was due for a routine screening
appointment. My husband was also pleased to be
reminded in the same letter that his current
account was nearly overdrawn. The President could
not have been more helpful.’
A White House spokesman
admitted that, whilst they had been delighted to
help Sophie and her family, the response was part
of a wider public relations initiative to counter
recent bad publicity about monitoring by the US
National Security Agency (NSA) of all forms of
electronic communication in Europe and beyond.
‘We were perplexed, and perhaps a little
hurt,’ said Dwight Digistein, ‘when
people all over the world started to accuse us of
massive and unprecedented intrusion into their
private affairs. We would like to re-frame the
activities of the NSA as a form of benign cloud-backup.’
Mr Digistein went on to
explain that, despite the existence of backup
systems for digital data, both in the form of
removable hardware and in the cloud, remarkably
few people ever bothered to backup anything.
‘We hope that people can be more relaxed
about the use of IT systems,’ he continued,
‘confident in the knowledge that everything
they write or say, and any digital information
that is held about them, will also be stored for
safe keeping in Washington.’
Google and other companies
involved in cloud storage have expressed concerns
about the NSA placing them at a commercial
disadvantage. ‘The NSA does not charge for
this backup service and it is very easy for
consumers to use,’ said a spokeswoman for
Google. ‘There is no need for consumers to
register to use the service, they are
automatically enrolled, and, indeed, most
don’t even know about it. It could not be
simpler for them. As a result, the NSA also saves
money by not needing to provide any technical
support to users. In addition,’ she
concluded, ‘the NSA system currently seems
more secure than its competitors who are
regularly the victims of successful hackings.’
It is reported that Google,
Twitter, Facebook and other major providers of
assorted Internet services, while expressing
reservations about the NSA cloud-backup service,
have also found it valuable when they, themselves,
have experienced catastrophic server failures and
needed to recover vast quantities of user data.
The debate continues, but,
for the moment, at least one little girl in
England is happy with the NSA. ‘Thanks to Mr
Obama,’ concluded Sophie, ‘I can now
text all my friends to invite them to my birthday
party.’
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