Tagged Posts

ID Cards fail

I'm not a lover of the Daily Mail, but their article today on how easy — and fast — is was to clone and write new data onto the supposedly 'unforgeable' national ID card is just scary.

This is the ID card that the Labour Government insist is fully and absolutely secure. This is the ID card that the Labour Government insist will protect us all from terrorists. This is the ID card that the Labour Government insist will stop people accessing services they have no right to access. "Yeah, right."

Disturbing image

The picture below, displayed on flickr , was taken during the G20-related 'activities' on April 1st in Threadneedle Street, outside the Bank of England. At first sight one wonders why a policeman has raised his baton — and clearly about to use it — when the people in front of him also appear to be wearing police yellow. Then one notes the label on his back …

Photo by amjamjazz

09-Apr-2009 21:38 · Trackback ·
tags: state v society · law

Ian Tomlinson assault video

From www.guardian.co.uk …

The Guardian newspaper has an article on its website today from Paul Lewis showing video of the unprovoked hitting from behind of Paul Tomlinson — who died some moments later of a heart attack — by a member of the Police Service.

From the video it is clear that he was walking away from the police and had his hands in his pockets; not a threat or problem for anyone, one would consider. However one of the men in yellow riot gear chose to use his side-handled baton to strike this man on the back and behind the knees, knocking him to the ground. No assistance was offered by any of the police present as he sprawled across the pavement.

I take no pleasure in viewing this and concluding that a member of the service sworn to uphold justice and the Queen's Peace violently and without cause knocked this man to the ground, quite probably bring abut the cause of his heart attack and death moments later. I have worked for the police in the past and, from my personal knowledge and experience, most officers are good and fair people.

I regret that this particular individual has brought their good and capable service into such disrepute.

07-Apr-2009 21:58 · Trackback ·
tags: state v society · law · politics

"Suicide is a human right"

From news.bbc.co.uk …

Ludwig Minelli, founder of the Swiss organisation Dignitas — which helps people to commit suicide — has argued that voluntary euthanasia is, or should be, considered as a human right. I tend to agree. We may not choose to be born, but surely — with the exception of dying in an accident, which nobody would actually prefer — the date of our passing should be something under our control. Whether the reasons for an individual concluding they have lived as long as they wish to are for health reasons (physical or mental) or because they consider that they have 'had a good innings' and life would be otherwise downhill from then on, shouldn't that be our choice and not not something outwith our control, requiring us just to wait, possibly for many years without any desire to do so? A friend once commented "suicide is the ultimate in selfishness" after the death of someone they knew. The argument being that those left behind suffer. I would argue that by pressuring someone to stay alive against their own desires then society is being inconsiderate of that person's needs and, by making their impossible life continue that their relationships will suffer anyway. There is a reason why we put some animals out of their pain and suffering in their best interests. We certainly aren't animals, but people deserve no less a consideration of what may be the best outcome for them as an individual.

02-Apr-2009 08:39 · Trackback ·
tags: human rights · law · state v society

An update on the UK blocking of Wikipedia

08-Dec-2008 11:00 · Trackback ·
tags: Wikimedia · censorship · state v society

Albums and Abuse

Child abuse is, clearly, something that nobody considers acceptable and would want to prevent. Whether it is recent court cases like 'Baby P' in Haringey or the kidnap of Shannon Matthews by her mother we all rightly find such behaviour abhorrent. But are their limits to what should be considered 'child abuse'?

The Internet Watch Foundation is a non-statutory organisation — though funded by the UK government with additional funds coming from the EU — to block "potentially illegal child sexual abuse content". Whilst it doesn't have a legal mandate to do so (though the IWF says they assess sites according to the Protection of Children Act 1978) twice each day they publish a list of URLs (websites) which they say contain "illegal child sexual abuse content" — 'child porn' by any other name. This list is not made public anywhere and if your website is on it you won't be told about it, but the list is used by many of the UK internet service providers (ISPs); the people who provide your connection to the world's internet. Even if you think you have a 'direct' connection to the web your ISP can — secretly and without your knowledge or permission — block your access to websites.

In some ways this may be a good thing. Libraries often block access to salacious pages from their public terminals (although it often has the side-effect of blocking access to support services too) but at home or work you rather expect that as an adult you are treated accordingly and not stopped from accessing whatever you wish to see.

There is a US band called Scorpions and back in 1976 they released an album. An old-fashioned black record in a sleeve. Called 'Virgin Killer'. I am told it sold fairly well, especially in Japan. The cover was, for its time, quite risqué depicting a naked young girl as if behind a cracked glass screen, where the crack covered those parts which would not be on display in polite company. Her breasts, or what there is of them, are quite visible. The cover had overtones of 'Houses of the Holy' by Led Zeppelin, or the self-titled album by Blind Faith with its own young naked girl on the cover.

Now although I would consider an album cover to be art work (whether I liked the particular music therein or not) it appears that not everyone thinks alike as a number of ISPs — on the say-so of the IWF — have blocked access to the English Wikipedia page for ' Virgin Killer', apparently because of the image of the album cover therein. I use Virgin Media cable broadband and cannot access the page, so I can't really comment.

The IWF don't tell site owners when they are blocked, so it is partially guesswork, however a Demon Internet user has noted that in trying to access the page about the record they received the message "We have blocked this page because, according to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), it contains indecent images of children or pointers to them; you could be breaking UK law if you viewed the page."

Yet where is the problem here? This is not a 'child porn' image, it is an album cover. If you go to buy the record from Amazon.com they will happily sell it to you and show you the original album cover too (three different copies, in fact).

Some might wonder why this matters and, of course, as an album cover of over thirty years ago — before the Protection of Children Act 1978 even came into force — it doesn't. However it does matter when it happens without our knowledge. How are we users to know what other websites are being silently blocked by the government and police? Our ISPs, to whom we pay substantial amounts of money each month for access to the internet, aren't telling us they are blocking our usage. We are regularly told to beware of being redirected to 'phishing' websites trying to get our details yet we now find that the very ISPs are doing exactly this!

There is then the freedom of speech element. The IWF state "potentially illegal". These are not images nor pages which are confirmed as being unacceptable in law, just that someone has complained about them. And as they haven't been tested in a court we again return to the question of where is it to end. Our museums and art galleries are full of images by old masters and new painters and sculptors examining the human form, and quite rightly so. We are not elderly Victorians even covering up table legs!

I'd never heard of Scorpions before this story broke earlier today when Wikipedia administrators were receiving increasing numbers of complaints from users unable to access Wikipedia at all because of the massive collateral damage this one-page block is causing — it is blocking edit access from everyone on these ISPs who is not logged in. I've no desire to listen to or buy this album (or, indeed, look at the cover again). But this is an abuse of my rights as an adult human, and as the purchaser of a service.

I am a customer of my ISP and, as a customer, I pay for the connection between my computer via the internet to those websites and services running on other computers which I choose. It is not for my ISP to restrict my service to a limited selection of sites and services that they approve of (and without telling me) any more than it is for my phone company to tell me which other phone users I may or may not call.

I do not support child porn, but nor do I support unreasonable hidden restrictions posing as 'safety' when they are anything but.

07-Dec-2008 00:10 · 4 Comments · Trackback ·
tags: Wikimedia · censorship · state v society

Average speed cameras

From www.timesonline.co.uk …

"Orwell himself never imagined anything quite as observant as the Specs 3 camera. It represents the probable future of British speed cameras, and by communicating thousands of times a second with identical machines arranged in networks across the national road system it will be able to measure motorists' average speeds, detours included, and fine them if they ever break the limit."

picture from Wikimedia Commons

I'm getting quite used to keeping to a 50mph for ten miles or more as I drive through the roadworks for the M1 widening quite regularly (when I don't see a stoppage ahead and detour around them, anyway!) and whilst I accept that
"In Nottingham, average speed cameras appear to have delivered a 53 per cent long-term reduction in deaths and serious injuries on one stretch of dual carriageway, and a 75 per cent casualty reduction on another. Data from similar projects in Northampton and South Yorkshire are even more impressive."
is a good thing™ I can't help but concur that because we lack the cruise control found on US cars drivers here can spend too much time concentrating on their speedo to the detriment of their road safety.

Too many times I have seen minor bumps on such stretches were the driver in front suddenly decided they were over the limit and hit the brakes hard to be hit from behind by another driver looking at their speedo, not at the road.

Drive carefully!

10-Oct-2008 00:11 · Trackback ·
tags: tech · state v society

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Alison Wheeler

(caveat lector)

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