But I've Been Nice!: The Truth Behind Santa's Shocking Lack of Accountability
We are staunch advocates of accountability over here at NDItech. And in the 25+ years our organization has worked in more than 110 countries around the world, the one thing we've found in common? Children everywhere can be both naughty and nice.
So it's fair to say we've been a little distressed by some recent revelations from our friends at at Sunlight Labs. It seems that kids in some countries may not be getting visits from Santa (regardless of their likelihood to actually, you know, believe in Santa or celebrate Christmas).
Can you imagine? Nothing to show for 365 days of good behavior: not poking siblings when parents aren't looking, not pulling the cat's tail, not sneaking a taste from the dinner pot, not skipping school. That's a tall order, even for some of us slightly-older-kids here at NDItech.
The backstory: the Canadian/American institution NORAD - the North American Aerospace Defense Command - has been tracking Santa's globe-trotting since 1955. In the process of checking NORAD's latest tracker for good open data formats and the like, Sunlight made a startling discovery:
In the rush to create more interfaces, NORAD's engineers appear to have committed a crucial security breach. If you inspect the code to the iGoogle gadget, you'll find a reference to http://www.noradsanta.org/js/data.js. Click through to that file and you'll find Santa's complete flightpath, with destinations that begin in Russia and end in Hawaii. They know where he's going to be -- and when.
Now, NDItech is not going to speculate on why Santa is filing flight plans ahead of time with the US and Candian governments. This may be standard North Pole good practice - perhaps the Workshop does this with lots of governments. There could be super-secret international Santa flight path treaties we know nothing about (and if you do know Santa secrets, we certainly wouldn't suggest you leak them). UN-SANTA may or may not exist - at the time of this post, no confirmation.
We just demand accountability, Santa. 365 days is an awfully long time to go without back-talk. We know you are not a democratically elected institution, but if kids around the world are holding up their end of the bargain, you'd better be too.
Places Sunlight have identified for visits:
Yokohama, Japan; Edinburgh, Scotland; Denver, Colorado; Morgan Hill, California; Kyoto, Japan; Santiago, Chile; Ashland, Oregon; Madrid, Spain; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Islamabad, Pakistan; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Millennium Stadium, Wales ; Jakarta, Indonesia; Johannesburg, South Africa; Barcelona, Spain; Manila, Philippines; Seoul, South Korea; Tehran, Iran; New Delhi, India; and Florence, Italy... By the time you read this, the destination list may have changed again.
Places kids may need help organizing and advocating for better good-behavior gift/service delivery (you know who to call):
Gone from the list: Port Elizabeth, South Africa; Palembang, Indonesia; Medford, Oregon; Puerto Natales, Chile; Aomori, Japan; Valparaiso, Chile; Multan, Pakistan; Running Springs, California; Aparri, Philippines; Melo, Uruguay; Cartagena, Spain; Qom, Iran; Cordoba, Argentina; Marshall Islands, Micronesia; Daegu, South Korea; and Dundee, Scotland.
(Read the whole Sunlight Labs story here) & Happy Holidays from the NDItech team!