Picture the scene: the year is 2016 and ID cards have been embraced by the British public, with most UK citizens now carrying their very own card.

This increasingly unlikely scenario is how the government initially envisaged the ID card scheme would turn out way back in 2006.

Shared services delivered through the cloud will help the public sector shave billions from its annual IT spend, according to a leaked Whitehall report.

The leaked draft document, Government ICT Strategy: New world, new challenges, new opportunities, sets out priorities for public sector IT chiefs through to 2020.

The Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, California, is a community of hackers who have come together to work on projects, collaborate, and share expertise in technology and entrepreneurship.

The Dojo, which opened in July, offers classes and a place to share ideas. Earlier this month the Dojo hosted the Random Hacks of Kindness event, which brought together thinkers and coders to try to solve real-world problems related to disaster relief.

The privileged users that manage your IT systems must be monitored as closely - if not more - than standard users, says Bob Tarzey.

Within any organisation, a small group of employees have the ability to wreak havoc on its IT infrastructure: the privileged users that manage it. Granting privileges to such users is necessary for them to be able to do their job but when things go wrong the consequences can be serious.

Losing a mobile device is a common occurrence - but that's doesn't mean it's not serious. Jon Collins looks at what businesses can do to protect themselves from this vulnerability.

These days, it's no surprise to anybody that staff mobility - everything from home working to being able to pick up email when out and about - brings with it a business advantage.

Four men have been sentenced to prison time for being part of a gang that stole just under 500,000 from UK bank customers.

The men were sentenced last Friday at Southwark Crown Court in London for their part in an international criminal network that stole the money from 138 account holders.

The controversial ID project has hit another delay, with the government missing its own deadline to get the cards into the hands of Manchester residents.

The Home Office announced today that people living or working in Manchester will now be able to enrol their details for an ID card from 30 November, with the first cards issued around 10 days after enrolment.

Organisations that lose individuals' data could face a fine of up to 500,000 under proposals being considered by the government.

From next year, the privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) will be able to fine companies that recklessly or maliciously breach the Data Protection Act (DPA). The Ministry of Justice yesterday launched a public consultation on the maximum amount such fines can run to - a figure it proposes should be set at 500,000.

IT leaders may not be fully responsible for workers' actions - but they could take more responsibility than they have been, says the Naked CIO.

We often talk about the power of technology to unite colleagues, boost collaboration and improve working processes to increase efficiency and allow companies to produce more with the same amount of staff - all of which I believe in as a technology prognosticator, if done properly.

The work of the Bletchley Park codebreakers is credited with shortening the Second World War by two years. But for three decades, those who worked on decrypting Nazi communications could tell no one what they had done.

Such was the secrecy in which the codebreakers operated many did not even realise the true importance of their work until Bletchley's wartime activities were made public in 1974.

Fraudsters have attempted to steal an estimated $100m from corporate bank accounts using malware and money mules, the FBI said yesterday.

The FBI is seeing several new victim complaints and cases every week, according to an Internet Crime Complaint Center report.

Customers are responsible for their own wi-fi security, according to hotspot operators.

BT Openzone, The Cloud and T-Mobile all recommended wi-fi users adopt VPNs to help protect themselves while using hotspots.

The European Commission has said the UK government doesn't have adequate communications privacy legislation and must step up its efforts.

The announcement follows complaints by UK citizens and privacy groups over the government's lack of action after telco BT conducted trials of the Phorm behavioural advertising service without getting consent from its customers.

CIOs spend hours listening to suppliers pitch their latest technology. How would these vendors fare with just one minute to get their message across?

silicon.com turns up the heat and gives vendors only 60 seconds to impress a panel of CIOs with their products. The IT chiefs then quiz them before delivering their verdict on the technology in the form of a red or green light.

The Guardian Jobs site has suffered a hack that could have exposed the sensitive data of some users.

Personal details included in users' job applications may have been accessed by the hackers, according to an email sent to affected users by Guardian Jobs on Saturday.

2009 may not be over yet but analysts have already revealed the top 10 strategic techs that CIOs should be looking at next year.

According to Gartner, the 10 strategic technologies will have an impact on the enterprise over the next three years, with IT chiefs encouraged to make decisions on them within the next two.

With software spending down 16.5 per cent year-on-year, Windows 7's launch tomorrow will see it enter the market amid one of the toughest squeezes on IT budgets for some time.

The outlook from analysts, however, is a positive one.

Windows 7 is to go on general release this week. Here's a look at the security features of Microsoft's latest OS.

The System and Security sub-section of the Control Panel acts as a clearinghouse for backing up data, preventing security breaches, and maintaining system performance.

Thousands of UK citizens have registered their interest in getting their very own ID card.

According to the Home Office, to date 10,000 people have asked for further information on applying for a card through the DirectGov site.

Although the number of screens the user sees when installing AVG 9 has been cut in half, the installation process is still time-consuming as the program attempts to configure itself best to users' answers. Users can opt out of installing the security toolbar and changing the default search engine.

Screenshot: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET