I read Privacy and Big Data by Craig and Ludloff towards the end of 2013. The first chapter is called “The Perfect Storm”. The book lists a number of consumer and corporate computing trends, from Google’s search solution and their clustered file systems, the consumer adoption of cloud storage and the realisation of parallel computing models. There is no question that data is growing at an explosive rate and that new computational models are being developed to use these new volumes of data in timescales appropriate to the human. These new models are of interest to both the new internet companies and to Governments yet because of both social media and the distributed nature of modern computing raise questions of privacy. …
pictfor: the European Debate
The Parliamentary Internet Communications and Technology Forum held a meeting entitled “The Europe Debate” and headlined it by inviting Bill Cash MP, not some one who I’d identify as an expert on ICT nor on the European Union. The three speakers were Julian David of “tech UK“, Graham Hobbs and Bill Cash MP, Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee . The key questions asked, were to be, Do UK technology companies benefit from EU membership? Is the Digital Single Market good for UK business? They also produced a Briefing Paper for delegates. …
Web Blocking in the UK
An internet safe for kids, plebs and Tories
The phone companies’ Tory inspired “safe content” filters are coming online. While the road to and strong arming of the ISPs into voluntary agreement was well covered over the summer, although not be me, it seemed the Surveillance stories were more important, the New Statesman in an article published last week by Martin Robbins, entitled “Cameron’s internet filter goes far beyond porn – and that was always the plan” shows the bleeding obvious that it’s not possible to build “safe” filters for other people. The article has provoked some noise on twitter since these privately implemented filters are a non-accountable overreach, there is no appeal, no democratic oversight and they are implemented using crude ineffective technology which reinforces such overreach. Taken in conjunction with the Gagging Bill, also known as the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill currently going through Parliament, this should be seen as an attack on our democratic systems in that it will deprive citizens of the information and evidence that they need to vote. …
Destroying Value
Building another W8 laptop as Xmas present for someone. I am really unsure that Microsoft did the right thing in trashing so much of the XP/Vista UI. Stuff that was easy is now hard, not because it’s hard, but because no-one knows how. They have destroyed the value of the world’s Windows self administration knowledge which was one of its key competitive advantages in winning the desktop. While the battleground for consumer mindshare has moved to the the phone and Microsoft needed something that worked there, the amount of learning required by consumers is very high and not required of Linux nor Apple users. Neither Apple nor Google have one user interface for the laptop and phone, why do Microsoft think they need it. …
An iTunes appliance
I have over the last couple of weeks, upgraded my Apple Macbook pro from Mac OS 10.6 to 10.9. It’s been pretty easy until it came to Macports. There is/was a rumour that stopping at Version 10.8 was the best answer but this wasn’t available to me; they’ve stopped shipping it. The new version of MacOS was easy enough to install, just a download from the Apple Store which is good, although the consequent performance was shit and then we have to move Macports forward. This wasn’t so easy, and I document the steps I took at an article called Macports on my companion wiki. The fact there is so much mucking around is another proof point that Apple are not building a general purpose computer, but a desktop appliance and iTunes host.
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Why I gave up on Snipsnap
It can be summed up as a lack of future, cost to host and missing functionality. For more detail, check out my full article on my wiki. …
Google deleted five million index entries in a week
Earlier today, Torrent Freak published an article detailing the number of take down requests that Google receives and acts upon, in the previous week, they report
Google received DMCA notices from 5,407 copyright owners and reporting organizations requesting the removal of 5,310,080 URLs spanning a total of 37,413 domains.
Obviously, I have been exposed to the copyright maximalist’s constant propaganda at #lab13 and further with the press coverage of the Select Committee, so its great to see this reported. The Torrentfreak article ends, …
Nokia exits the mobile market
So Nokia have given up and sold their mobile handset and presumably the mobile infrastructure to Microsoft. Last year, Nokia, the World’s No. 1 mobile phone manufacturer but were struggling to meet the onslaught of Apple’s iphone and the rapidly alternative growing of Android decided to shit-can their two Linux projects and exclusively throw in their lot with one of the then weakest phone operating- and eco-systems, Microsoft! Coincidently they had just hired Steven Elop as CEO, whom they had poached from Microsoft. …
Backdoors
Earlier this week, the Guardian in conjunction with its partner publishers, New York Times and ProPublica ran an article, Revealed: how US and UK spy agencies defeat internet privacy and security. As we’ll see, the title is a bit misleading, but the agencies certainly gave it their best shot. This story builds on the initial Snowden leaks that the NSA has been using computer technology to spy on everyone using the internet in the USA. The story rapidly came to the UK where it became clear that Britain’s GCHQ was tapping the UK/USA telecom links, sharing intelligence with the USA and providing the NSA with a slightly more legal way of spying on US citizens. There is little doubt that the US & UK’s intelligence agencies have outsourced their own domestic spying which is legally restricted to each other. …
Hyperloop and Hope
In California, they have been planning a San Francisco – Los Angeles bullet train. This was brought to my attention by a story by Molly Woods at CNET, which points at an alternative, the Hyperloop.
For some reason the politics of developing infrastructure in the USA is tortured and this project is no exception. It has the economic and environmental objections which we have all begun to get to grips with as the national debate about HS2 begins to take off. In California this debate is exacerbated by the US’s unhinged dislike of government and taxes. …