His experience at TNT is ultimately disillusioning ¨C contriving happy endings so that the population: ¡°Keeps watching the TV, while everything turns to shit¡± and so his book is born.Nothing is True and Everything is Possible introduces a cast of characters from the New Russia, including oligarchs, gold diggers, Christian fascist bikers and plain survivors who give voice to the reality of living in 21st century Russia.¡°This isn¡¯t a country in transition, but some sort of postmodern dictatorship that uses the language and institutions of democratic capitalism¡± gives way to ¡°A market organised by a still feudal state structure¡± and ¡°The country¡¯s leader imitates gangsters¡­¡±Peter Pomerantsev proves himself a skilled journalist and he gives his interviewees free rein. Although there are a few loose ends and non sequiturs, their voices seem unfiltered by the author¡¯s prejudices.Pomerantsev inserts a few nice incidentals. ¡°Neon soft drink signs that reflect in our Lipton¡¯s tea and Dustam¡¯s glasses¡± contrasts agreeably with how the ¡°corruption and kleptocracy of the Russian regime¡± is revealed through the struggles of its people, both ordinary and super-rich, where ¡°everything is PR¡± and ¡°the state is the great coloniser you fear and want to avoid or cheat or buy off¡±.

All this is nothing new. I once read a fine book by Tibor Szamuely called The Russian Tradition, which was a roll call of despotism and revolution stretching back to Ivan the Terrible. What is new is that the Russians have adopted our methods and succeeded in showing Western capitalism a side of itself that it would rather forget.As Pomerantsev states: ¡°London is the perfect home for money laundering¡­ terrific lawyers¡­ great bankers¡­ weak cops¡±. In fact, to our Russian oligarchs: ¡°London and the West can be said with a light disgust as the place that shelters and rewards and strengthens the very forces that oppress them.¡±Pomerantsev¡¯s views are insightful and holistic. His book does not omit the role of the rest of the world, as when he describes the oligarch¡¯s tastes for ¡°fake art confirmed by Western art historians¡­ they play the same role as the Swiss and English lawyers who act as ¡®nominal beneficiaries¡¯ for money-laundering shell companies.¡±

This is a most excellent work that brings to life the reality of modern Russia. But the great thing about this book is that by focusing on a distant and extreme place, Pomerantsev brings into sharp focus the inequities and absurdities of modern capitalism worldwide, without pulpit or soap box.This work poses more fundamental questions than the recent, more parochial offerings of Owen Jones and Russell Brand combined, without any apparent agenda. Peter Pomerantsev is a fine observer and an engaging writer. I hope this work frees him from the tyranny of the television, lest he suffer the fate he has in mind for future Russians: ¡°We begin to live in a parallel reality of video ghosts¡±.Something for the Weekend, Sir? Remember BYOD? Well, it¡¯s BYODded off into the sunset. It was the Next Big Thing, just before the next Next Big Thing that came after that and it followed hot on the heels of the Previous Big Thing. Without doubt, BYOD was big and it was a thing ¨C but the party is over.

For the benefit of occasional readers of this column who are not familiar with the expression BYOD ¨C that is, my Mum and the professional dullards who Google me after we meet at boring business networking events (hi, guys!) ¨C it¡¯s an acronym (pronounced "bye-odd") for "Bring Your Own Device".It means using your own shiny new laptop, smartphone or tablet in the workplace so that you don¡¯t have to put up with the computer supplied by your employer ¨C namely, a third-hand, six-year-old Dell weighing 5kg with cracked screen, loose keys and a missing power cable that you consequently have to keep borrowing off other people.Quite obviously to anyone with half a braincell to spare, it¡¯s simply a means by which slave-owners wealthy employers absolve themselves of any obligation to invest in your basic work tools and make you pay for them yourself. As I wrote a while back, BYOD really stands for "Buy Your Own Device".

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After a couple of years during which employers have been royally shafting you with BYOD, I have noticed a very sudden withdrawal from the policy. In fact, so sudden is this figurative pulling out from this figurative shafting that they are having to figuratively finish themselves off in a figurative sheet of tissue paper.Since the second week of January, I have seen emails bouncing around from various IT departments that ask employees not to use their own kit at work any more. It turns out that inviting all and sundry to plug whatever they liked into the company network could prove to be a security risk. Shocking, I know. Who¡¯d have imagined such a thing?Some of these emails hide the failure of BYOD behind some limp-dicked, already-shot-my-load bravado about strengthening security measures in the wake of the Sony hack. One set phrase that appears again and again is: ¡°Internet threats are constantly evolving¡±.I hope such evolutionary smack-talk won¡¯t offend badly bearded Aussie creationist nutball Ken Ham. Who he? Here¡¯s our Ken explaining how Noah snuggled up with 50 heterosexual vegetarian pairs of baby dinosaurs on the Ark because God:

I¡¯m glad that¡¯s all cleared up. Fox News should invite him on as one of its science experts.One of the emails that crossed my inbox was from a big company whose IT department had, to its credit, tried to make BYOD work even though its own staff knew the policy was ultimately doomed. The email purports to be a round-robin about the doubling of enforced password change frequency, but down at the bottom is a little throwaway paragraph that begins by saying: ¡°No immediate action is required for users of company-supplied equipment.¡±The next sentence is the stinger: ¡°If a device doesn¡¯t have our security policies and controls, it will not be allowed onto a wired connection.¡± Even that doesn¡¯t sound so bad until perky young-gun Johnny Ive Jnr runs upstairs to Helpdesk with his Macbook Pro, only to be told to get stuffed because these particular ¡°security policies and controls¡± turn out to be kludgy add-on routines tied in to Active Directory logins.So now it¡¯s not so much ¡°Bring Your Own Device¡± as ¡°Leave That Bloody Thing At Home¡±. Unfortunately, that gives us an acronym of LTBTAH, which isn¡¯t so much an acronym as an initialism because you can¡¯t pronounce it. Well, OK, you can pronounce it if you try really hard but it sounds like you¡¯re trying to stifle a sneeze and it¡¯s blurted through your mouth.

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Surely this is my opportunity to coin a brand new acronym and donate it to the computing world. I was thinking of something easy to pronounce such as KYDISH, which stands for ¡°Keep Your Dodgy Insecure Shit at Home¡±, but I fear the naughty S-word might hinder ISO adoption.Besides, the situation is more complicated than that. While organisations are drawing back from full-on BYOD, this is only for cabled connections. Apparently, connecting your own kit to the company network via Wi-Fi is not being restricted, since Wi-Fi connections are not a security risk.You don¡¯t have to know anything about network security to be aware that open password Wi-Fi is about as secure as a gaping handbag in a shopping trolley. Yet this is what is being offered: we should all now connect our own devices for work using the same vulnerable wireless connection as the one foisted on visiting guests. Yes, that¡¯s the Wi-Fi connection labelled with your unmistakable company name and appearing in everyone¡¯s lists alongside ¡°BT-Starbucks¡± and ¡°_theCloud¡±, without a padlock symbol next to it and prompting you for a password that¡¯s probably ¡°guest¡±, ¡°hello¡±, ¡°password¡± or the name of the street outside.

Now all my emails to and from senior management and production departments ¨C I can be dead important at times, I¡¯ll have you know ¨C can be picked out of the air by anyone planted in the next room or even sitting outside on the steps and looking up at the street sign on which someone has so conveniently printed the company¡¯s Wi-Fi password.So this means I need to invent a more qualified acronym for the BYOD withdrawal since it turns out I can still use my own device after all, just not with an Ethernet cable. I came up with ¡®Keep Network Open But Computer Hardware Ethernet Externally at Zero¡¯. Unfortunately, it has been pointed out to me that this would be pronounced KNOBCHEEZ, which by remarkable coincidence is my least favourite flavour of Pringles.Given the tone of the emails flying around on this topic, I also suspect there may be more stick than carrot in the implementation of this massive IT policy U-turn. They should put up posters: ¡°BYOD beware!¡±