Britain is 'surveillance society'

Britain is "waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us," the government's Information Commissioner has said.

I have to admit that I find this quite something coming as it is from the government itself! This government (and the preceding Conservative one) has resided over the eroding of personal privacy, an in some cases, gleefully added fuel to the fire, reducing our right to privacy.
Meanwhile, people who have been watching this with a massive sense of despair must feel driven to say "I told you so".
I do...

Blair refuses to 'undermine troops' with Iraq inquiry

Tania Branigan, political correspondent Tuesday October 31, 2006 The Guardian

The prime minister has refused to give in to demands for an inquiry into the war in Iraq because it would undermine British troops on active service, his official spokesman insisted before today's Commons vote on the issue.

Undermine who? The troops in Iraq are already undermined by the Labour government due to being improperly supplied.
No the real worry for Tony Blair isn't the undermining of UK troops, but the undermining of his government, and more specifically himself. That puts the fear in him more than any possible outcome in Iraq.

Failure to pay attention main road crash cause

Drivers' failure to pay attention, rather than speed, is now the main cause of road accidents, according to government figures published yesterday.
Motoring groups campaigning against speed cameras urged the government to shift the emphasis of safety campaigns from speed to drivers' concentration and avoidance of distractions such as phones, music and satellite navigation systems.

And speed cameras?
I personally find that my attention is, on occasion, distracted from the road, by suddenly having to check that I am not driving at 3mph over the limit. At lease one set of figures show that road accidents have increased in areas where speedcams have been installed. Personally, I feel that reducing the speed limit in sensitive areas (outside schools, hospitals etc.) would be a far more effective way of reducing accidents.

Apple sues more pods

Apple is taking action against more companies it believes are using the word "pod" unfairly.

The company behind two services - Podcastready and Mypodder - has received cease and desist letters ordering it to stop using the phrases which, lawyers claim, consumers could confuse with Apple products.


Wow, talk about arrogance! When they eventualy get round to suing Santa pod, should we remind them that it has been in existance much longer then the iPod, and perhaps the owners should instead be suing Apple?

Spike Milligan

Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use earplugs?

Campaign in Iraq has increased terrorism threat, says American intelligence report

· Views of 16 government agencies pooled
· Study contradicting Bush was not made public

An authoritative US intelligence report pooling the views of 16 government agencies concludes America's campaign in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism.

I have trouble beliving that anyone who hasn't benifited financially from the war in Iraq could contend that it hasn't increased the likelyhood of terrorist attacks. The rise of islamic fundamentalism in the UK is the most obvious and immidiate result, as young islamists see what they feel is the repression of their religion.

EU denies Vista vendetta

Red tape vs Redmond...the never ending story

The European Commission has hit back at suggestions it has got it in for Microsoft over security features built into the heavily-delayed Windows Vista.
In a letter to the Financial Times, competition commissioner Neelie Kroes protested: "I have seen it suggested that the Commission may seek to prevent Microsoft from improving the security of its operating system. This is categorically not the case.

And after saying something sensible, the EU comes up with something ridiculous. Of course they have it in for Microsoft, it is pretty obvious from recent events that they have. The important thing is that they regulate the likes of Microsoft, not legislate against them purely because they are the dominant force in OS manufacture. I feel that recently, the EU has slipped towards the latter rather than the former.

Terrorism no excuse for privacy breaches, says EU regulator

No need to change laws
Terrorism and organised crime should not be used as excuses for passing laws which undermine people's privacy and data protection rights, according to the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS). Existing laws do not need changed, he said.
In an update on data protection in Europe, EDPS Peter Hustinx said that security concerns were not an adequate reason to undermine data protection principles.

Wow, common sense coming from the EU, who would have thought?
Of course, it is unikely that Tony Blair will take any notice of this, as it gets in the way of his plans to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!!! Ahem, er no, get in the way of his plan to snoop into every private conversation held by E-mail.

Teachers break silence on fingerprinting children

The National Union of Teachers has said that schools should not fingerprint children without the consent of parents.
But UK teaching unions are being slow to formulate firmer policies on the issue because, it appears, teachers have not complained to their unions about the fingerprinting schemes that, according to parents' campaign group leavethemkidsalone.com. has already fingerprinted 700,000 primary school children in 3,500 schools without seeking parental consent.

I am still amazed that this has been allowed to continue unchecked. If I had children of school age and was told that they would be fingerprinted without my permission, I would withdraw them from the school, and relocate them at a school with a "no fingerprinting" policy. Actually, I can see that as a USP that schools should promote, along with good grades etc. "We promise not to criminalise your children" might be a good slogan.

Simon Cameron

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.

Schools can fingerprint children without parental consent

Parents cannot prevent schools from taking their children's fingerprints, according to the Department for Education and Skills and the Information Commissioner.
But parents who have campaigned against school fingerprinting might still be able to bring individual complaints against schools under the Data Protection Act (DPA).

DfES admitted to The Register that schools can fingerprint children without parents' permission.

Frankly I am stunned. I feel that a society that can sit by and let this happen is not a society in which I wish to live.

I took the "how evil are you" test today, the results below confirm what many have thought....


How evil are you?

Microsoft Research Builds 'BrowserShield'

"Researchers at Microsoft have completed work on a prototype framework called BrowserShield that promises to intercept and remove, on the fly, malicious code hidden on Web pages, instead showing users safe equivalents of those pages. The BrowserShield project, an outgrowth of the company's 'Shield' initiative, could one day even become Microsoft's answer to zero-day browser exploits such as the WMF (Windows Metafile) attack that spread like wildfire in December 2005."

Of course, this has to be a good idea.. Until they get a flood of complaints from webmasters as it incorrectly fingers their websites as containing malicious code. I will stick with Opera as a web browser thanks.

Lester B. Pearson

Politics is the skilled use
of blunt objects.

Blair to tackle 'menace' children

Tomorrow's potential troublemakers can be identified even before they are born, says Tony Blair.

No one could have told how much trouble he would eventually cause, after all he came from a good solid middle/working class background, but he grew up to be one of the worlds most disliked men. Declaring war on other countries, then standing by while innocents were killed in the name of his so-called "war on terror", Tony Blair would certainly have slipped through the net that he proposes to spread in a misguided attempt to solve social problems that are (largely) of his own government's making.

Oz 'pseudo-ID card' database racked by identity fraud claims

19 sacked, 92 resigned

Australia's citizen database was routinely searched for personal reasons by
government agency employees, some of whom have been sacked. Police are now
investigating allegations of identity fraud resulting from the security
breaches...

And remember, "you only have something to fear if you have something to hide"
Further proof if needed, that you simply can't trust those who watch over us with our personal information, for who watches over them?

Men removed from jet for 'speaking Arabic'

Passengers act swiftly to tackle terror threat pair

Two men removed from a Monarch Airlines flight from Malaga to Manchester last Wednesday were targeted because of passenger concerns over their behaviour and the fact that they may have been speaking Arabic, the BBC reports.

Perhaps I can get myself kicked off a plane for speaking a different language...

George Bernard Shaw

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other
countries because you were born in it."

An internet service that allows users to trade files and use the internet
anonymously launches in Sweden

An interesting alternative given the amount of cracking down there has been
recently on filesharers. Wonder if this idea will take off...

The UK's foreign policy is not to blame for people becoming "indiscriminate terrorist killers", a minister says.

Then perhaps the good minister would enlighten us as to what is the cause of the sudden increase of terrorist attacks in the uk? As opposed to the ones in the US, which has until recently had a more belligerent approach to the middle east. Until recently, when the UK joined the US in what seem from a laymans point of view to be blatantly anti-Muslim polices. So enlighten us minister Browne, what is the real reason?

UK anime conventions.

OK, I promised (threatened?) to include a few posts about anime, so here goes.
I have just came back from one of the UK's largest anime conventions (appx 1200 people, small by comparison to many US conventions), so I thought I would get down some of my thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind.
I am not going to go into the organisation of the con, suffice to say that there were a few organisational decisions that I found odd. Like having the dealers in the largest room in the con, and squashing the masquerade into three much smaller rooms. Also the lack of seating during the masquerade. I guess there were operational reasons that I was not aware of for these decisions, but the lack of seating made watching the masquerade untenable for me.
Of greater concern to me is the recent trend at UK anime conventions only to show videos that have been licensed for release in the UK. I was in several video rooms during the weekend (there were six at this con), and I never counted more than ten people in any of them (I have since been told that several of the rooms were well attended, but I must have missed those). Over the last few years there has been a downward trend in the number of people attending the video rooms at anime cons due to the easy availability of broadband and the use if Bittorrent. The policy of essentially using video rooms as a weekend of free advertising for the distributors seems to me to be certain to hammer the final nail in the coffin of the video rooms at UK anime cons. I can't see why anyone would bother with the video programme when they have already earmarked the series they would like to buy on DVD after having downloaded part or all of it on Bittorrent.
Overall, I enjoyed the con and would like to say well done to those who organised and ran it, it must be very difficult running a con of this size, so a big thanks to the committee and the gophers.

Ernest Benn

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy."

Unfortunately, far too true. How can you tell when a politician is lying? Their mouths are moving....

'Plot to blow up planes' foiled

A major terrorist plot to blow up planes in mid-flight is disrupted by police, Scotland Yard says.

While I am glad that the plot has been foiled (and hopeful that it doesn't turn out to be another false alarm like the one that triggered the raids in London earlier this year), I have to be concerned by the government's knee jerk reaction to this. Expect to see further inroads into human rights in the UK soon. Remember, once the government has taken away rights, it will be loathed to give them back!

Bigger, dafter, creepier - Gordon Brown's ID scheme rescue plan

Get the shops to pay for it, and catch villains for us...

Analysis 'Sources' close to Chancellor Gordon Brown are floating plans to finish off ID cards entirely in the UK - although that isn't quite how they're putting it. Instead, the advance men for the Prime Minister in waiting are offering a nightmare pitch that harnesses the private sector to implement a total surveillance system while raking in revenue for the Government


From the insane to the lunatic. Given the prevous posting here, I feel really safe about the thought that virtually everything you do could theoretically be traced and monitored by these cards....

Hackers crack new biometric passports

Flaw in passports used by Britain casts doubt over ID cards plan.

Just keep on banging those nails in the coffin...
There is nothing now to be gained by continuing on with the fallacy that biometric passports and ID cards are going to increase security in this country. What is needed is a partnership between the population of this counry and the government and not the "big brother" option, where the feeling of being constantly watched means the general law-abiding population are made to feel like criminals.

MPs want to postpone ID

Better late than never, they say

The government has been advised to further postpone the introduction of ID Cards until it can be sure the scheme will work.…

With a bit of luck, we won't be seeing it in our lifetimes.

Judges rebuff Reid on anti-terror laws

Politics: Appeal court confirms human rights ruling  Minister says judgment puts public safety at risk

Round three, Govt vs Judges. Who will win? Well if the government doesn't like the ruling, I guess they will just look to chage the law so that the judges have no choice but to obey. Much the same as would happen in a totalitarian regime. We are not there yet, but I bet this government have been looking for reasons to reduce human rights in this country, and the attacks last year in London have given them the excuse they needed.

Millions of children to be fingerprinted

EU rules could make it compulsory for all UK children to have their fingerprints stored on a database.

You know, maybe I was wrong in my previous post about this not becoming a Big brother society. I realy can't see why anyone would think that this is a good idea unless you had some kind of "control freakery" driven agenda. This is the kind of thing that gives the EU a bad name, and drives calls for the UK to leave it. It is a shame that the UK newspapers don't publicise all the good that being in the EU does this country as well as they do this kind of stupid thinking.

Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later?

gabec asks: "This weekend my mother bought a grille lighter, something like this butane lighter. The self-scanner at Kroger's locked itself up and paged a clerk, who had to enter our drivers license numbers into her kiosk before we could continue.

Has gabec even read 1984? While I have to admit that I feel that this government has pushed invasion of privacy to new and unacceptable levels, they are still a long way from declaring unautherised sex a crime. No, they will probably be doing that next year...

"Invisible" Rootkit found in the wild

"Invisible" Rootkit found in the wild

It was only a matter of time before this happened. I guess that whoever invented rootkits is not feeling very clever now...

Isaac Asimov

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them."

Alfred E. Newman

"Crime does not pay ... as well as politics."

Charles Lamb

"Lawyers, I suppose, were children once."


That is a vicious rumour!

U-turn on Guantánamo rights

White House says all prisoners in US military custody entitled to protection under Geneva conventions.

And about bloody time too. I wonder if the prisoners will be allowed to sue the US government for imprisoning them without tirial for so long, but shouldn't think it is very likely. I would like to bet that this has nothing to do with human rights, and everything to do with officials worrying that it makes them (Bush, whose approval ratings are lower than they have ever been) look bad.

Home Office stands by ID cards

Says project is not on the rocks

The Home Office has denied claims that the national identity card programme is on the skids.…

So that is the final nail in the coffin for ID cards then... Good!

Terror warnings to be published

A system that will warn the public about the threat of a terrorist attack is to be announced by the government.

Becouse we obviously just aren't afraid enough for some people.

Threats prompt Mac switch advice

A leading security firm has advised that computer users should think about using Macs to avoid malicious threats.


This has to be some of the dumbest advice I have ever heard! So we all switch to Macs, and the next thing that happens is so do all the virus writers... Then we will really see how secure OS-X is.

Paul Fix

"The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory."

Bill Vaughan

"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."

Kelvin Throop III

"Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"

28-day terror limit 'inadequate'

MPs say the 28-day limit for police to hold terror suspects needs to be extended - but with safeguards.


When will they learn that no, you can't have carte blanche to lock people away for a month without charging them, means no!
This shouldn't even be re-occuring after the government voted against it.

Paranoia appears more common

One in three people in the UK regularly suffers paranoid or suspicious fears, clinical psychologists have found.

Just because....

James Branch Cabell

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true."

Internet users face congestion charge

Technology: Britain 'could be next' as US businesses seek pay-for-speed scheme.

And then what happens when people decide not to route through areas that have a two tier system? Could those areas actually become internet backwaters, where users simply don't go unless they have to to avoid paying charges?
And then it is of course possible that some US telcos will use the lack of a two tier system as a selling point, meaning that parts of the US there will be two tier, and other parts it will be as it is now, with an open system. Confusion reigns.

German experts want search engines to be monitored

Google too powerful?

German experts at a Berlin seminar this week argued that search engines need
to be more regulated. They want companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!
to exercise editorial control over their search results and filter out sites
with x-rated content or that glorify aggression.

Strange, I seem to remember just recently reading somewhere, that one of the very worst things that the likes of Google could ever do is exert editorial control over search results....

'Blue Pill' Prototype Creates 100% Undetectable Malware

A security researcher with expertise in rootkits has built a working prototype of new technology that is capable of creating malware that remains "100 percent undetectable," even on Windows Vista x64 systems.

Oh, that is SUCH a good idea, I feel so much better now. At this point, you just have to ask why did they even bother?

Penis pump judge faces stiff sentence

Used device 'while sitting in judgment of others', court hears

A retired US judge is himself before the beak in Bristow, Oklahoma, "on charges he used a penis pump on himself in the courtroom while sitting in judgment of others", AP reports.

Of course, judges are themselves not above the law...
I hope they put him away for a long stretch!

Net neutrality rejected in tie-vote by panel

A U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday rejected with a tie-vote a proposal that would have required broadband providers to give their competitors the same speeds and quality of service as they give to themselves or their partners.

As someone living in the UK, I can't help but wonder what the implications of this are for people living outside the US. If net neutrality looses out to big business in America, will we find that our connections to sites held on servers in other parts of the world be affected, if say, the data is passed through US parts of the net?
Also, I would imagine that telcos outside the US are watching the outcome of this with great interest, as I am sure that they would love to follow the American companies into a two tier system.

New blow for Home Office as judge quashes six terror orders

Judge quashes six terror orders System 'incompatible with human rights'
Angry Reid to appeal against high court ruling

Episode 2, the Government strikes back
It seems that this government is absolutely determined to turn this country into a police state, slowly but surely.
I don't feel that this response is in proportion to the threat. After all, it is not as if this country hasn't faced terrorist attacks in the past, and somehow we managed well enough then without massively increasing the police's powers. I think that this is yet another ill thought out, knee jerk reaction by the labour government.

Judge quashes anti-terror orders

A key plank of the government's policy to combat terrorism is thrown out by the High Court.

Looks to me like the UK judiciary and the government are pretty diametrically oposed on this. I have to admit that I would be nervous about living in a country where the police have the right to essentially put you under house arrest just because they suspect you of something, but don't have enough evidence to charge you. And anyone who says "if you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to fear?" simply must be ignoring the fact that administrative mistakes are being made all the time. Well done the UK judiciary for standing up for human rights.

Weapon of Mass Diffraction

A new technology that corrects for the distortion of light through the atmosphere could help make the doomsday devices of tomorrow. By Noah Shachtman from Wired magazine.


If they do build inside a volcano, all we need are a bunch of ninja and a British secret agent (plus a cute japanese girl in a bikini) to take it down...

MPs condemn plans to limit freedom of information

Media: MPs to condemn lord chancellor's proposals to limit act only 18 months after it became law.

Freedom of information.... as long as you are rich enough to afford it!

Jackal sues agent over 'kidnap'

Carlos the Jackal files a kidnapping and illegal restraint claim against the French agent who captured him.


Rendition anyone?

Scientists Blocking out the Sun

Ashtangiman writes to tell us The New York Times is running an article about geoengineering in which many solutions to global warming include decreasing the amount of sunlight that the planet sees.

I hope they decide to put some solar panels on them, as this could also solve our energy problems, the very thing that is causing the earth to heat up. Meanwhile, back in the real world...

Will Durant

"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."

Obviously not following his own advice :)

Joan Klempner

"To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep."

Defeating China's National Firewall

Bruce Schneier is reporting on his blog that a recent paper is discussing how to defeat China's national firewall. From the article: "However, because the original packets are passed through the firewall unscathed, if both of the endpoints were to completely ignore the firewall's reset packets, then the connection will proceed unhindered! We've done some real experiments on this -- and it works just fine!! Think of it as the Harry Potter approach to the Great Firewall -- just shut your eyes and walk onto Platform 9¾."
----

Nice. If this works, it is one in the eye to the Chinese authority. I still can't understand how the Chinese government can possibly hope to keep their populace in the dark, while allowing them to have access to the internet. Really, if the people want to get information, they will.

Never fight an inanimate object.

P. J. O'Rourke

I wonder if he meant local government? :)

War is much too serious a
matter to be entrusted to the military.

Georges Clemenceau

This coming weekend will include my monthly visit to the London Anime Club (hereafter refered to as LAC).
LAC is the UKs largest anime club, and attracts members from quite a large area surrounding London (some come from Cambridge and Oxford). The attendance is usually 150-200 people, so it is pretty healthy. As well as anime showings, there are dealers and a bring and buy. The bar is open to club members, and there is an extensive library of anime.
Many people use LAC as a meeting place and jump off point from which to explore London, and go to restaurants.
I usually go to meet friends, and scan for new and interesting manga.

Welcome!

This is my first atempt at blogging, so please bear with me.
I am hoping that this blog will become a place I can comment on current affairs, be these serious or humourus, and share a few of my own thoughts, whatever they may be.
A little about my background seems appropriate, I live in Cambridge, UK and work in media content management. I used to be a graphic artist, but times change.
I am originaly from the North East of England, and moved to Cambridge for the work, however now I am here, it is almost as hard to find work as it was while I was living in the North East.
Such is life.
I am a long term anime fan, so it is quite possilble that part of this blog may turn out to be anime related, but it certainly won't be exclusivley so. I read quite a lot of online news sites, and I often wished that I had somewhere to comment on the things I read.
Here it is.