Amidst the growing furore about HP's attempt to overtake the CIA, KGB and Mosad as the world's least popular spying operation, Sneak has to admit at least a grudging admiration for the stunning chutzpah of Mark Hurd's evil empire.

Plenty has been written about modern multinationals' ability to ultimately overtake nation states in the power stakes but no one ever envisaged conservative old HP would be among the first to develop its own secret services arm.

Sneak is even now expecting a terrifying IT arms race with the superpowers of the technology industry desperate to close HP's early lead. It is only a matter of months before Redmond starts to build its own private militia, IBM begins long-range ballistic missile tests out of Armonk, Google cranks up its enriched uranium programme, and Oracle's Larry Ellison, stroking a white cat, unveils a new laser capable of destroying the moon from a hollowed out volcano in the Pacific.

Meanwhile, Sneak wonders if HP has introduced a new standard by which all IT journalists will be forever judged. Forget the Pulitzer Prize, you really know you've made it when a vendor decides it needs to tap your phone. Sneak imagines even now that some morally suspect IT spooks are carefully monitoring how many times a week Sneak calls Dominos.

08 Sep 2006