The European anti-trust case isn’t the only controversy hanging over this year’s IDF. The sudden departure of well-liked senior VP Pat Gelsinger last week, after 30 years with Intel and with no real explanation, has been the subject of much gossip among delegates – and a grassroots graffiti campaign.

Now, before you imagine that IDF has been overrun by vandals, let me explain that Intel has installed whiteboards all around the conference centre, and has invited attendees to use them to share their visions of the future. It’s on these boards that the graffiti have been appearing. Some visitors have obligingly written up their hopes for new technology: a few arty types have even provided illustrations.But amid these contributions, there’s also been a spate of comments, on boards all over the centre, simply demanding: “Where’s Pat?” It’s a bit of mischief, but it also makes a serious point about corporate politics.

Predictably, Intel’s stewards have been erasing such scrawls wherever they’ve found them (adding to the whiff of Stalinist purge surrounding his departure). But my hat is off to one enterprising scribbler who correctly realised that he could sneak his protest past the censors by simply writing it in the international language of engineering…