Earlier this week the Prime Minister was making a lot of noise in the press and elsewhere about filtering the internet (under the dubious cover of protecting children. Ed.).
His pronouncements have been met with almost universal condemnation from anyone with a bit of technical knowledge, as well as those concerned with online freedom, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who have dubbed it the ‘Great Firewall of Cameron‘.
A couple of days ago, the Pirate Party UK sent the open letter below to the PM, which speaks for itself.
The Rt Hon David Cameron, MP, Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA
Tuesday the 23rd July 2013
Dear Mr Cameron,
As a movement that includes many technically literate individuals, parents and young people, we are writing to you to express our concerns about your recent announcements about internet filtering. It is the wrong way to tackle the impact that you believe the internet is having on, as you put it, “the innocence of our children”.
It is striking that your approach makes dealing with a social problem into a primarily technical exercise to be solved by Internet Service Providers. Many experts have already made clear that the issues you have raised are not just complex, but impossible to deal with effectively with technology alone.
The suggestion that fool-proof filters can be provided to deal with something as difficult to define as obscenity online is foolhardy at best, misleading and damaging at worst. Your proposals will ensure that we don’t properly deal with the problems you claim to want to address.
It should have been made clear to you from your advisers that filters will be ineffective and that they cause a number of serious issues in accomplishing what you aim to achieve. Filters will either fail to block the content you would prefer they blocked, leaving parents with a false sense of security, or they will block far more than intended, and will be turned off by many parents so that they can continue to access legitimate content in an unhindered manner.
These points appear to have been accepted in the Government’s response to the consultation on parental internet controls, published in December of 2012. The approaches outlined in that document; that the government would work with industry, charities and experts in relevant fields through UKCCIS to promote parental engagement and ensure that that parents have options, are the right ones. They are based on your own evidence and seem to be supported by industry. It is also noteworthy that most parents who responded rejected a default-on approach to filtering.
The result of that consultation was one that emphasised informed choice; that the Government would not prescribe detailed solutions to ISPs or parents. Instead it would expect industry to adapt the principles of this approach to their services, systems and devices and would empower parents rather than giving them a false sense of security. We do not understand why you have abandoned this direction.
We urge you to reconsider and refocus your efforts into areas where they can really have an impact. It is vital that you accept the recommendations from your own consultation to ensure parents are well equipped to deal with the issues that you have outlined, using evidence not insinuation to support your assumptions. We would also argue that rather than the potentially harmful and narrow route you seem to be taking, even if it grabs the headlines, you need to ensure that your approach is a holistic one.
It may be more complex, but ensuring that sex education and the teaching of technology in schools is fit for purpose is vital, and needs real support. Ensuring that parents are equipped to properly guide and supervise their children online may be less eye-catching in the media than imposing filters, but it will work.
We would also ask that you provide more support to organisations like the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre to track down offenders and bolster support for local government departments that provide support for victims of abuse.
The Internet has been a driver of massive societal change over the last two decades; as a result we have a society that has far more access to information and media than ever before. That situation is not going to change. Ensuring that we give our young people the skills to deal with this new reality, and supporting parents to ensure they are able to properly guide their children in an informed manner is vital.
It is becoming clear to many people that your Coalition, both Conservative and Liberal Democrat members of your government, are failing when it comes to the digital age. You have failed to deliver the frameworks required in education to ensure that we are bringing up a new generation of innovators in technical fields. You have failed to properly invest in the few initiatives that do show promise in developing the UK’s digital scene, leaving those that do succeed doing so despite, not because of, your best efforts.
We would ask that you not compound those failures by suggesting technical solutions to societal problems that they cannot solve, but instead listen to those with whom you have consulted. It is right that you should work ensure that there are options available to parents, but to deal with legitimate problems that arise from our society being more connected than ever before, you must adopt an approach that will actually do some good in the long term.
The GNOME project, one of the purveyors of the 2 main desktops and software for Linux, has announced that it reached its goal last weekend of raising $20,000 to help make its software even more secure and privacy aware.
Individual software projects will now be invited to bid to secure some funding to make their products more secure and private. Areas that the GNOME project is interested in pursuing include the following:
The third release candidate (RC) for LibreOffice 4.1.0 is now available for download for all platforms – Linux, Mac OSX and Windows – for evaluation, QA testing, etc.
Potential users are warned that this build is in a release configuration and will replace any existing LibreOffice install.
LibreOffice for all your office suite needs: word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, database, drawing and formulas
Furthermore, it’s a pre-release build, which the developers do not recommend for ‘mission critical’ purposes.
There are some major improvements in LibreOffice 4.1.0, including lots of bug fixes, news features and better interoperabilty; a full list of these can be found in the LibreOffice 4.1 release notes.
Today’s cock-up by the Bristol Post, from a story entitled ‘Man on lilo rescued after drifting out to sea off Weston-super-Mare’, has gained Bristol’s newspaper of record a seat in homophone corner.
For the benefit of passing Post journalists a homophone is “a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of “rise”), or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too.”
Now let’s see (or sea. Ed.) what landed the Post this particular accolade.
Evidence continues to stack up on the Court Delays website about Capita Translation & Interpreting’s continuing failure to meet the terms of its courts and tribunals interpreting contract with the Ministry of Justice (posts passim).
This blog has previously highlighted Capita’s tactics to save its own skin when challenged; back in May it seemed to imply that the Clerk of Nottingham Crown Court was being untruthful when it failed to provide an interpreter for a murder case (posts passim).
9/7/13
Defendant in robbery trial not produced from custody. Then no Punjabi interpreter for witness. Capita claim on telephone to CPS that no booking has been made. This is clearly not correct, because they later send an e-mail giving the exact details of the booking as the subject heading! They say they only have 2 Punjabi interpreters, one of whom is busy and the other cannot be found (!). It is suggested that the interpreter cannot attend before 12 noon the following day because he/she is based 100 miles away. Options offered are that the interpreter could be available at “around 12″ the following day or else a possibility that another could be found who might be available for 10.15 am.
Identity of defendant withheld – case not concluded.
First Capita T&I tell an untruth to the Crown Prosecution Service and then contradict themselves: you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried!
As far as I can see, honesty and integrity are important qualities to possess for undertaking work in the courts. Capita T&I clearly has neither.
Today’s a sad day in the IT news world: The H is closing down. For the last few years it has been an excellent source of IT news in the fields of free and open source software, security and software development, or as it said in its own words: “The H brings you the in-depth coverage of the world of IT, communications, data security and the politics of technology.”
Earlier today editor DJ Walker-Morgan (aka Codepope. Ed.) posted the message below on The H’s website.
Although The H has produced many widely read stories, it has not been possible to effectively monetise that traffic to produce a working business model.
Because of this, after four and a half years as The H and six years online, The H is, sadly, closing its doors. We thank all our readers for their deep interest and engagement. Work is taking place to create an archive to ensure that the content of the site will remain publicly accessible.
Best regards
DJ Walker-Morgan and the entire team at The H
The H was produced in association with Heise Online, a major German IT news site and one I’d recommend.
So farewell, The H and thanks for providing quality news for the last few years and best wishes for the future; you’ll be missed.
The second AshesTest match is currently underway at Lord’s in London between England and Australia.
Over the years I’ve become a fan of the live coverage provided by the Test Match Special team on Radio 4 LW; local Bristol community station BCfm interferes with the signal on Radio 4’s FM signal where I live.
Geoff BoycottAs a consequence, I’ve got to know and appreciate the consummate broadcasting skills of Aggers, Blowers and company, including Geoff Boycott, regarded by some as the ‘greatest living Yorkshireman’.
One of the joys of listening to the coverage is the banter between the team, especially the ribbing of Boycott and the interplay between him and Aggers in particular.
Now Geoffrey is not known for keeping his counsel to himself, being a man of strong opinions. Like all of us, he’s got little foibles in his speech and recurring phrases, affectionately known as ‘Boycottisms‘. These Boycottisms have been used to produce ‘Boycott bingo’ cards like the example below.
Le Monde Informatique reported earlier this week on the release of the Dirty Dozen survey for the second quarter of 2013 by IT security company Sophos.
The United States of America continues to lead the rankings, whilst the French IT news website seems relieved to note that France has dropped out of the leading spammer rankings along with Peru and South Korea.
The world’s top 12 spamming nations are now as follows in descending order:
The GNOME project, one of the purveyors of the 2 main desktops and software for Linux, has announced that it reached its goal last weekend of raising $20,000 to help make its software even more secure and privacy aware.
Le Monde Informatique reported earlier this week on the release of the Dirty Dozen survey for the second quarter of 2013 by IT security company Sophos.