The PAT man cometh

I’ve had bad experience with PAT testing companies in the past – a service of dubious merit often run on disingenuous lines because people believe something terrible will happen if they don’t have a bi-annual test (or annual if they can be persuaded there’s some law or other stating they need to). Still, if it makes the punters happy why should I deprive them of portable appliance testing companies of a living.

But, PAT testers can damage kit. They don’t do it often but once is too much, and their automated boxes and tick sheets are banned hereabouts – replaced with a proper inspection and assessment of all aspects of electrical and mechanical safety, not just earth leakage.

Unfortunately one site we look after had a visit from a PAT tester in December. Then, this month they had a power cut, and all their PCs went blank in spite of maintained UPS units, which had all been serviced in November. My heart sank when I saw the green label of a PAT tester on our UPS units – had they blown up all the inverters or what?

The batteries tested okay, both in the units and on the bench when I opened one to check. Then the penny dropped: The idiots had plugged the PCs in to any old socket on the back of the unit. Some of the sockets are surge-protected, some are maintained (battery backed). They’d just reconnected the cables by starting at the bottom and working up, so it was pure chance as to whether the PCs were on a maintained socket or not – in fact most weren’t.

Do I blame these “fully trained” PAT testing operatives? Well no – they haven’t got much concept of what they’re actually doing and the training consists of plugging something in, pressing a button, and checking to see whether the red or green light comes up. (Some may be competent electrical engineers, but its certainly not a requirement). But please keep them away from me and my equipment.

FBI VoIP system conference call intercepted by Anonymous?

Major embarrassment today as Anonymous intercepts a conference call between several European and American law enforcement agencies, according to something I’ve just seen on the BBC. It’s on YouTube right now if you want to hear it for yourself, click here.

It got my attention – someone breaking into a VoIP system would. But on further investigation it’s pretty obvious to me that it wasn’t an intercept at all. The clues are in the intercepted emailĀ  and the start of the recording – Anonymous read an email circular inviting people to the conference call, where the access number and password were given.

This makes the authorities concerned seem even more incompetent that if they’d had their VoIP service compromised.