Mark Gilbert’s Blog

There are few things that get me more annoyed than politics, when I watch the news or read the paper you can guarantee that the stories that will annoy me the most will have a political element to them.

I recently read an article that really really annoyed me, SNP set 20-seat Westminster goal . Basically the SNP or Scottish National Party would like to get 20 seats in parliament at the next general election. In itself not a problem, but it is the motive behind this goal that I despise. Their motive is that with the Conservatives gaining a lot of ground on Labour in the polls the SNP anticipate a hung parliament and they feel that 20 seats would give them a key position in Westminster. SNP leader Alex Salmond said in a BBC Scotland webchat

“We could make Westminster dance to a Scottish jig.”

Hold on just one bloody minute, they already have a National Assembly in Scotland, do we English get any chance to make that “dance to an English jig”? Do we hell as like. Why is there a Scottish Assembly which decides on matters which only affect Scotland, yet we in England still have to have all our decisions made by Westminster where people in Scotland can influence policy which does not affect them? Please tell me how that is fair.

Why is education better in Scotland with smaller class sizes and lower University fees? Because the English subsidise them.

Why is healthcare better in Scotland, with people having access to life saving cancer drugs, and drugs that prevent eyesight loss through macular degeneration? Because the English subsidise it.

Why is £1800 more of tax payers money spent per Capita in Scotland than in England? because England subsidises it.

This all seems a little unfair on the already over stretched English tax payer, why should a small group of people get the most money from the Chancellor, rather than the vast majority of people who generate this money. Perhaps because the previous Chancellor and the current PM is Scottish, as well as seemingly half the cabinet, this may go a long way towards explaining the discrepancy in public spending between the two countries.

So, the solution, with North Sea oil revenues declining sharply of late Scotland is in even less a position to support itself, meaning even more tax money will have to be diverted from Westminster towards Edinburgh, this then would seem to be the ideal time for a complete devolution of power, move control of Scotland to Scotland, along with responsibility for funding their own public spending. This would cut the burden of support on England and he English taxpayer, meaning better facilities and greater spending on England.

Why not do it, the Scottish seem to bang on about devolution of power on a fairly regular basis, why not give it to them, cut them loose. Stop this half hearted approach that we’re currently stuck with.

Cheers

Most of the time I’m a fairly happy and content person, but every so often someone does something that really winds me up. For example Internet Exploder only sites really annoy me, HP’s Channel Services Network site only works correctly in IE. Firefox, Opera and other all fail to render it correctly. Is it beyond the powers of HP, one of the largest technology companies in the world to write standards compliant code? Of course it bloody isn’t but they just can’t be bothered to do things right.

I also find myself quite annoyed by a lot of things the government and it’s minions say and do. Appointing Michael Martin as speaker of the house, for example, mean that an incompetent buffoon who deserves to be removed from the post for his disgraceful conduct. At times during commons debates he seems to have very little grasp on what is going off, and since his position is to enforce and keep some kind of decorum, knowing what’s happening would seem like a key part of his role. During the newly appointed Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s second PM’s questions The Speaker completely forgot to call his name. The Speaker has to have wigged clerks pass him advice during parliamentary debates, nothing immediately wrong with a bit of advice but this is becoming all too regular. Besides if the man at the top needs constant pointers on how to do his job, you have to wonder how well suited to the task of advising him the people below him really are.

I could go on down this line but I’d be moving at a tangent away from my main point, which is the latest piece of legislation to come from Whitehall regarding ISPs policing their users. The government has said that ISPs who do no take steps to curb illegal downloads of music and films will face legal sanctions. The suggestion is that ISPs operate on a disconnection after ‘three strikes’ rule. Under the proposals, the first strike would be an e-mail warning from the ISP with the second strike resulting in suspension and finally termination of contract on the third strike.
It would seem that the Labour party has been receiving some rather large donations from the BPI and FACT.
Really how can this be enforced? An ISP would have to block access to every site thought to be offering links to illegal music of films, but this would not do anything to counter the so-called “deep web“. Therefore this would have to be paired with a policy of inspecting individual packets traversing their networks and then block users based on this data. However false positives would be a major problem for all approaches. What recourse would users have if they were wrongly identified as downloading illegal music? What happens when multiple people share the same network, who gets banned? If the person whose name the account is in then another account with another ISP could be opened in a different name.

However the point I think ISPs will be most concerned about is this effectively removes an ISPs “mere conduit” status as set out in the EU Electronic Commerce Directive (Terrorism Act 2006). “Mere conduit” status means that ISPs are not responsible for the traffic going over their network when they are not aware of the content, for example an ISP cannot be held liable if a terrorist attack is planned via e-mail or Paedophile ring is run on it’s network. The same applies to telephone companies such as BT and other similar organisations such as Royal Mail. “Mere conduit” status relies upon the fact that the carrier has no idea at all what is being carried, they are simply there to deliver the message, regardless of what it is. Without “mere conduit”, ISPs face legal action over traffic that’s outside of their control. This could drive ISPs out of business or drive customers out of the EU to ISPs based elsewhere.

In my opinion ISPs should not inspect any traffic traveling across their networks. I would not expect Royal Mail to open my post or BT to listen in on my phone calls. It violates my privacy as an individual. Nineteen Eighty Four was supposed to be a warning, not a guidebook. How far can an ISP go before they lose “mere conduit” status? Is spam filtering going too far? Messages have to be inspected to perform this task. Would blocking spyware infested machine that were spewing spam constitute waiving “mere conduit” status? Are ISPs which throttle bandwidth to P2P apps going too far towards monitoring traffic on their networks?

Will ISPs want to enforce this legislation? Probably not, but if it’s the law they will have very little choice. Will businesses be exempt from this monitoring. I work for an IT Services company which uses remote VPN links to other businesses including insurance companies, pension companies, banks and accountancy firms. I think some of our customer would be most upset that our ISP and their own was looking at their data. In some cases it may even be illegal for ISPs to inspect data since it could be in violation of confidentiality or data protection laws. Will ISPs even be able to inspect data that is encrypted? The government has clearly not thought this through properly, which leads me to either one of a few conclusions. Either the law will come into force and be ignored by everyone. The law will be shot down in the commons as it should be. The law will come into force, and will be enforced rigorously, then the whole UK Internet will simply melt down.

Which ever outcome actually happens this just goes to prove that the government is either not aware of the implications and practicalities of legislation it is proposing or is fully aware of both of these but chooses to ignore them anyway.

If you feel as strongly about this as I do then I suggest you sign this petition to the UK government.

Cheers

The EU Competition Commission have conducted anti-trust raids against both Intel and large retailers in Germany and the UK. Intel’s Munich offices were raided on Tuesday and German retailer Media Markt-Saturn and UK retailers DSGi plc.

This comes not long before Intel has to answer to charges alleging that it abused its dominance of the market for processors. Jonathan Todd, a EU Commission lackey spokesman was quoted as saying,

“Commission officials carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of a manufacturer of central processing units and a number of personal computer retailers (believing they) may have violated EC Treaty rules on restrictive business practices and/or abuse of a dominant market position.”

The Commission has powers to fine companies up to 10 percent of their worldwide annual revenue if they are found to have committed competition abuses.

Cheers

While browsing The Pirate bay today, I noticed that they had changed their logo to include a url, http://iwouldntsteal.net/. I thought it might be worth checking it out and they actually have a really interesting video on there, done as a take off of the FACT trailer shown at the start of most DVD’s and films now.

Have a look.

Cheers

Zimbabwe has fallen off the world as far as the Internet is concerned. Only one company provides their connection to the world and since the government run telco is behind on it’s bill to the tune of $700,000 they have dropped the connection speed.

Government owned TelOne had a deal with Intelsat to provide coverage with the Internet at large, but due to the huge ammount of money owed Intelsat has limited bandidth as a result.

Really though since that git Mugabe is looking at an inflation rate of 1200%, and a lack of foreign cash, food, fuel, plus an unemployment rate above 70 percent his connection to the InterGoogle is probably a low priority.

Since he has removed all of his opponents since he came to power in 1980 he really has few other people to blame, so he blames me. Mugabe blames Britain for fronting a campaign of economic sabotage. Well since you have no net connection and can’t “remove” me, FUCK YOU MUGABE.

The only way I can sum that up is ROFL

Cheers

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) has been updated and seems to be giving off some very odd signals. The upgraded act, which has the blessing of the entertainment industry and the Bush government, chnages maximum sentences and updates some other issues. It would appear that the DMCA will provide a maximum sentence of ten years inside for the crime of software and music piracy. Less related to us here is the fact that the FBI will be given the powers to wiretap suspected pirates. Worse still the update gives 10 years for attempted piracy, suggesting you only have to try to pirate a film or music.

10 Years imprisonment is a very long time, and sends the wrong message to society.

For example assaulting a police officer will earn you five years, downloading child porn will attract you seven years, assaulting without a weapon will get you ten years and aggravated assault carries just six years.

So if I copy a music CD I am deemed a worse person and a bigger risk to society than a paedophile who distributes pictures of sexual attacks on children?

If I copy a DVD I will get 10 years or if I punch someone in the face and then pound them into a coma I’ll get off with 6 years.

All seems wrong somehow. But this is the kind of upside down world we live in. A world where law makes are in the pockets of big media organisation. A world where little Timmy who copies a Disney film would get a longer sentence than a man who sexually assaults him.

Worse still, the bill would expand section 1201 of the DMCA that bars trafficking in or distributing software capable of bypassing DRM systems to make it a crime to �make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess� such software. So that means if I have a DVD that I want to transfer to my iPod, I’m a criminal for using Handbrake to do it. The route they’re going down is that if you want a DVD you buy a DVD, but if you want to watch it on your iPod you have to buy another iPod version. Why the fuck should I have to buy the same film again in iPod format when I already own it on DVD? This is what the entertainment industry wants though. They want me to buy a CD in digital format from iTunes then buy it on CD to use in my car.

This madness really has to stop, it’s getting well beyond a joke now. I hope you all agree with me on this.

Cheers

Well it’s almost time for our local council elections. This means it’s time to elect the people who really affect our day to day lives. The people we elect in these elections will decide things like when our rubbish is collected, when our recycling colections happen, and when our local services get overhauled. They will appoint the people who carry out these services and ensure they are carried out to a high standard. Admittedly this is an important job, however these same people who get to retire at 60, much earlier than people in the private sector. Then these same people take industrial action when they find they may have to retire at 65 with the rest of the working population, and the change would only affect people starting the job now and those who have only been there a short length of time.
Well pardon me for not feeling any sympathy for these people. What makes them think they have the God given right to retire before the rest of us? What makes them so certain they deserve a government pension which is linked to their final salary while other people’s pensions are crashing down around them, leaving them with too little in it to even retire at 65.

Government workers too get gold plated index linked pensions, so the money they get paid on retirement is tied to the stock market. If a civil servants pansion falls short, they get it made up from the budget which is supplied by the UK tax payers. Is it fair, that we pay pay their luxury, job security and first rate pension? No of course it’s not, but this is how things are.

Anyway when you put your cross in the box on the ballot paper come local election time, think of the hard up councilors, and council workers whose pensions need your support. If we dont support them, who will? The same goes for when Mr. Brown becomes leader of the Labour party and challenges Blair for the position of Supreme Overlord Of Great Britain, which Blair will have turned the PM’s job into by then if he gets his way. Please think of Mr. Brown, he needs your votes so he can have that huge pension, a 6 figure salary and free house in Central London, otherwise he may not be able to eke out a meagre existance on his standard ministeral salary, expense account and perks.

Right that’s my rant over with now,

Cheers

I read over the weekend that due to a merger by the two largest French gas companies, Gaz de France and Suez, gas prices could rise further than the 22% rise already imposed on British Gas customers only a few weeks ago.
This giant company would control nearly all the gas supply for France and Belgium and control almost 30% of the interconnecting pipeline through Europe. This would create a much less competitive market in Europe, and it is this which could lead to more price hikes in the UK.

Really with the problems we have with supply, the UK currently gets a large portion of it’s natural gas from eastern Europe and the former Soviet countries. With production in the North Sea declining faster than expected the situation is set only to get worse. The difficulty arises since the gas which is imported has to transferred through massive pipelines, increasing the costs.

So what’s the solution? Well one option which has fallen out of favour in many people’s eyes of late is nuclear. Currently nuclear power accounts for approximately 20% of the UK’s total power supply. It has massive advantages, it can produce a steady supply of energy without producing the usual CO₂ emissions that come from burning hydrocarbon fuels such as gas and coal.
The prices of uranium, which is the fuel used in nuclear reactors has stayed fairly constant for the last 20 or 30 years and so presents a more reliable source of energy than fossil fuels.
While there have been problems with nuclear fuel, the situations that arose with regard to the 1957 Windscale fire in the UK, Three Mile Island incident in the US in 1979, Chernobyl have killed massively fewer people than the oil and coal industries combined.

One of the largest problems with nuclear power is the highly radioactive waste produced, to which the only solution so far has been to store it underground for years until it breaks down due to radioactive decay.
Another criticism of nuclear power is that there is only a limited supply of uranium on earth, and this supply will run out soon. While this is true for uranium²³⁵ which is used in the current generation of light-water reactors, U²³⁵ accounts for only 0.7% of all the uranium on earth, the more modern breeder reactors use the much more abundant U²³⁸ which accounts for the other 99.3% of natural uranium. The Russian BN-600 reactor in Beloyarsk, Russia is currently the worlds only breeder reactor producing electricity.

Nuclear power could provide the UK with a long term reliable supply of energy, but the UK government abandoned nuclear power many decades ago. The UK’s nuclear reactors have been neglected of late by successive governments too afraid to make the tough choices and have the relevant sensible debates. Our most modern nuclear reactor, Sizewell B began construction in the 80’s, while Sizewell A is due for decommissioning next year. Sizewell B is due to be phased out in 2023 with no replacements on the board. The energy supplied by these reactors has to be replaced and by looking to gas or renewable sources such as wind power we are in for many more shocking energy price hikes like we’ve seen over the last few weeks.

Perhaps this is all of our own doing? Did we over-react to situations like the one at Chernobyl or Windscale? Maybe we wrote nuclear off too soon, perhaps with continuous investment we would be closer to the Holy Grail of nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion produces no CO₂ emissions, no radioactive waste and with no chance of a run-away chain reaction causing a meltdown would seem a very good source of energy. The by-product of the reaction is helium, and the fuels can be found in abundance. One of the fuels, deuterium, can be extracted from water, while the other, tritium, does not occur naturally but can be produced from lithium which is be extracted from the earths crust.

My granddad when he was at work spent some time working on the EFDA-JET project which is based in the UK. It is a fusion reactor which has been used to research optimisation of plasma stability and confinement. This has led to the design of the ITER which is a collaboration between a number of partners including the EU, Japan, USA, South Korea, Russia, China and India, and is a more advanced, larger version of JET. It will be capable of producing 500MW of fusion power. After much political debate, the go ahead to build ITER at Cadarache in France was given in 2005. ITER will take ten years to build and should operate from 2015. France is already one of the world’s most nuclear reliant nations since it has hardly any natural resources to speak of.

We should be watching the development of ITER very closely, as soon it may be the only way forward while avoiding massive energy bills. A UK Royal Academy of Engineering report in 2004 looked at electricity generation costs from new plants in the UK. It added on to it’s figures the cost of standby capacity for wind, as well as carbon values up to �30 (�45.44) per tonne CO₂ for coal and gas. Wind power was calculated to be more than twice as expensive as nuclear power. Without a carbon tax, the cost of production through coal, nuclear and gas ranged between �0.22/kWh and �0.26/kWh and coal gasification coming in at �0.32/kWh. When carbon tax was added, which was up to �0.25/kWh coal came close to onshore wind at �0.54/kWh, offshore wind is �0.72/kWh. Nuclear power remained at �0.23/kWh either way, as it produces negligible amounts of CO₂. Nuclear figures also included decommissioning costs.

We need more sensible debate on this subject, too often debates are hampered by the political arm flailing of green groups who whip up a storm over the environmental side of the issue which then distracts from the potential benefits of nuclear power.

Comments as always welcome

Cheers

I was having a chat with Steve and James tonight, and the point came up that someone we all know is now pregnant with a third child. This girl has no job, and lives in a council house. She doesn’t know who the father of two of the three children is.

It just would seem to me that one “accidental” pregnancy can be genuiely classed as accidental, but the other two are simply either, stupidity, she didn’t think she would get pregnant again, or malice, she felt she could take advantage of the system by having another child and recieving more in benefits. As far as I’m concerned neither of them is acceptable, if she was stupid then she needs to be taught a lesson, you should learn from the first mistake, once is a mistake, twice and thrice is just carelessness.

The mistake can be forgiven, government benefits should be given for those mistakes to help the individuals support their children. So what happens for twice and thrice, when people wither don’t learn from their mistakes or just try to use the system? As it currently stands these people are given more benefits. If they were stupid a second time they are not taught a lesson for their carelessness. If they try to abuse the system they are allowed. These types of people have to be stopped.

There are two methods for this. The first method is since they didn’t learn from the first mistake, teach them the hard way, they were supported first time around, this time simply dont give them any extra benefits. Demonstrate to them that they cannot be so stupid in the future, the lesson would work and they would not have any more children until they could afford to support them themselves.
The second method for this is this. If they were trying to abuse the system by having another child which they thought they would get more benefits for then again they have to be sent a message that this is not acceptable. The state can no longer support people who will not take resposibility for their own actions. Again this is the only way these people will learn. If they are deprived of their privileges then they would quickly either regret their actions or suffer.

If things are not done then there are a lot of people who will grow up believing that they can simply rely on the state for all their needs. This cannot happen. The state is funded by tax money collected from people who work, if people feel they can rely on the state for every little need they have then the whole system will come down. People who do not work and live on benefits need to understand that they should live within their means. If they cannot support children then they should not be able to look to the state to provide that support. I don’t try to buy a house on a Carribean island because I cannot afford it, and no one is going to support me if I do. People need to understand that the same is true of children, if they cannot support them then they should not have them.

Anyway that’s just my opinion, feel free to comment and disagree, I always enjoy the discussion.

Cheers

A few follow up items of news for the last post about Google selling out to Chinese demands. I’ll keep it brief since due to one thing and another it was nearly 5 a.m. when I went to bed last night and I was up for work at 8:30 a.m.

The BBC is running a follow up article on the move, written by one of their technology analysts Bill Thompson. He feels that the decision to censor results isn’t such a bad thing, since Google will actively inform the user that certain results have been restricted. If the government does the filtering there is no hint that anything is amiss.

Censorship also goes on all over the world in other countries,

“In some countries the controls are obvious and oppressive - everyone who wants to use the internet in Cuba must register with the government, bloggers in Iran are gaoled and their websites are blocked, and governments from Saudi Arabia to Singapore decide which websites their citizens can see. In other countries it’s a bit more subtle. Search for Falun Gong using Yahoo! in China and you’ll find that the results list is rather sparse and consists mostly of government-sponsored sites which oppose the group.”

Bill Gates has also put a comment in on the Google decision which was published by The Times.

He said

“the Internet is contributing to Chinese political engagement as access to the outside world is preventing more censorship”

However Irene Khan, the secretary-general of Amnesty International said when writing for The Times that Google had“reinforced the trend in the IT industry of kowtowing to Chinese demands of censorship”

She said “Last year, Yahoo provided the Chinese with details leading to the arrest and sentencing of a journalist; Microsoft has barred a blog critical of the government and launched a portal blocking the use of words such as ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Now Google has weeded out websites that China does not like.”

I still personally feel it is a bad thing, and Google could have done more

Cheers

With a company mantra of “Do No Evil” it would seem extreemly ironic that Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin would sell out to the oppressive Chinese government.

For those of you who havn’t read about this, Google on Tuesday said that they would comply with the Chinese governments repressive request to censor it’s search results in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC, another irony calling yourself the “people’s republic” for a country run through a dictatorship, would like Google search results to be doctored to meet with the governments approval. While Google has offered a Chinese translated version of its search engine for many years, it’s users have been frustrated by government blocks on the site. Google will set up a new site, Google.cn which it will censor to satisfy the Chinese government.

The first question which should be asked is why? Why would Google go against it’s own doctrine and do something such as this? Well the answer more than likely is that old chestnut, money.
Money and lots of it too.

At first glance this would appear to be incorrect, Google is expected to turn in $4.03 billion in sales for 2005 and to produce $6.55 billion in sales this coming year. Standing in stark comparison, Baidu.com, the current search engine market leader in China produced $38 million in sales in 2004 and $72 million in 2005.
However with the Chinese econommy set to literally explode in the same way the Taiwanese economy has done since the 40’s. Taiwan has the 17th largest economy in the world and has been one of the fastest growing economies for the last 50 years. With China set to do the same Google decided that China was a market they wanted to be a part of.

Another irony lies in the fact that just last week Google sid they would resist a U.S. Department of Justice subpoena to obtain it’s search query data on behalf of the US government. On the light of the Chinese choice, Google’s decision to withold the data was more about not wanting to be bullied by the US government than it was a privacy issue on behalf of it’s users.

Google decided that it would be more damaging to pull out of China all together than it would be to comply and censor itself. Is this true though, is partial information better than non at all? Well that depends wholely on whether Google wants to stick to it’s principals, and further a free and unrestricted flow of information for all the world’s people, or whether it wants to position itself to cash in on the next big Asian “Tiger Economy”.

“The real question is whether Google could have done better - using its market power to support free speech and influence the Chinese government to allow the broadest range of speech to reach the Chinese people,” said Kurt Opsahl, an attorney at Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Perhaps some results are better than no results, but at the same time, it places a single gatekeeper between the people and the information, which is easier to regulate and control.”

I personally am not sure whether limited and controled information is really better than no information at all.

I do think they could have done better. The Chinese government is only communist when it suits them. If for any given descision at any particular time, capitalism is a better choice they go with capitalism. If they are honest they would like to be a bigger power in the world economy and are probably jealous of Taiwan, Google can help them achieve that goal, in the same way that Google wants to partner with China, I would wager that China also want’s to partner with Google.

Google is one of the largets companies in the world, their stock value puts them far ahead of Microsoft and other such tech giants, I just feel they could have done more or tried harder instead of caving in so easily. But I guess I’m not sat in the boardroom of Google like Page and Brin having to choose between my principals and billions of Dollars.

Cheers

Recently I have seen on quite a few sites such as Engadget, Slashdot, and one more which I cant remember. I didn’t pay much attention at the time since I’d seen it already, I even wrote about it in the middle of November, but since it’s coming up a lot, I thought a shameless plug to my previous writing was in order.

Cheers

Sony were warned by Finnish anti-virus company F-Secure on the 4th October that the copy protection software was actually a rootkit. This came almost a month before Mark Russinovich went public with the information on Sysinternals.com on 31st October.

“If [Sony] had woken up and smelled the coffee when we told them there was a problem, they could have avoided this trouble,” says Mikko H. Hypponen, F-Secure’s director of antivirus research.

On the 20th October a conference call was held between Sony, F-Secure and First4Internet, the company who developed the rootkit for Sony. F-Secure claims that at this point Sony decided to just keep the Rootkit quiet. So they knew about it and just tried to sweep it under the rug.

The New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer has not ruled out further legal action against Sony after CD”s containing the rootkit were still on sale in various New York shops including BestBuy, Circuit City, Sam Goody, WalMart and Virgin Megastore.

Spitzer said “It is unacceptable that more than three weeks after this serious vulnerability was revealed, these same CDs are still on shelves, during the busiest shopping days of the year.” He has instructed consumers to take CDs back to retailers for a full refund.

Poor Sony, sales of their CD’s are down too, suprise suprise, but they’ll be ok on that front because they can just claim that it’s the fault of the file sharers and not the viruses on their CD’s putting people off.

Cheers

I have read a lot of reports recently that the music industry is trying to use the European Data Retention proposals for it’s own ends.

For those who don’t know the European Data Retention Proposals would enable to police and other bodies to better investigate serious crimes such as terrorism and the like. If voted into law all telecoms companies must comply with the proposals meaning that they must keep records of all data transmission such as websites visited and e-mails sent for an ISP and all telephone calls for companies such as BT. If the police have due cause they can request these logs from the various companies, who must provide them, to help with their investigations of serious crimes.

However the newly-formed Creative and Media Business Alliance (CMBA), a grouping of companies including Sony BMG, Disney, EMI, IFPI, MPA and Universal Music International, has decided that it wants the data protection laws to be altered specifically so that it can be used to target pirates. They are actually suggesting that tracking down music pirates should be given the same high reaching laws as stopping global terrorism. I simply cannot believe they are making that comparison.

They have written to every member of the European Parliament suggesting that limiting the proposals to “serious” offences would hamper enforcement activities for other forms of criminal offence, such as music piracy. They glaringly miss the point though, the whole reason the proposals are limited is that we should only be asked to give up our freedom and privacy for the most serious of problems, of which the music industry trying desperately to protect it’s failing business model is not one.
At the same time more laws are going through the European Parliament which would turn filesharing from a civil offence into a criminal offence, meaning the record industry would not even have to pay it’s own legal fee’s in these cases, the European taxpayer would have to foot the bill as is the norm for criminal cases.

The record and movie industries must realise soon that they are not special in any way shape or form, they are not privileged and they do not have the support of the public at large for the heavy-handed way in which they are dealing with the issues which the digital age presents.

If they can’t produce a working business model which allows them to operate profitably without turning their customers into criminals and trampling over our rights or installing malware and rootkits on the public’s computers then they do not deserve to continue to be in business.

This gets the vote on the 13th of December, lets all hope those witless MEP’s make the right choice and vote this one out of the house.

Cheers

Project PaperClip was the code name for the now controversial project to use Nazi scientists to further American technological advances. I say controversial now because 60 years ago it was top secret. These men all helped the US to advance it’s research with cutting edge technology and their research still leads the way even today.

After the end of World War II there was a mad rush to between the then “allies” to acquire as much of Germany’s resources as possible. This charge was mainly led by 2 groups, the US and Soviet Russia. Both groups wanted the remove as much technology and expertise from the remains of the 1000 year Reich as possible.

When allied forces moved into Germany the accomplishment of German scientists astounded allied forces. Supersonic rockets, nerve gas, jet aircraft, guided missiles, stealth technology and hardened armour were just some of the incredible projects being developed in Nazi laboratories and research facilities right up to the fall of Germany in 1945.

Although officially the cold war started around 1949 and 1950 when NATO and the Warsaw pact were formed respectively it seemed obvious what was coming right back in 1945. There were 2 different visions of the world, 2 different ideologies, capitalism and communism. The US was already looking at keeping it’s nuclear discoveries secret as recommended in The Franck Report in July 1945. The soviets had a similar plan with the Iron Curtain, keep military and scientific discoveries secret from the US and other nations. Secrecy led to mistrust which led to other things among one of which was the Cold War.

When Russia rolled into Germany in May 1945 they took control of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin and all the nuclear secrets stored there. This gave them the ability to build the vast Soviet Nuclear Arsenal which was another contribution tot he proliferation of these arms across the world.
The US removed the infamous V-2 rockets from the Nordhausen complex, built under the Harz Mountains in central Germany, just before the Soviets took over the factory, in what would become their area of occupation. The US also managed to secure the team which had built the V-2, led by Wernher von Braun.

Shortly after the occupation began the deputy commander of the US Air Force in Europe, Major-General Hugh Knerr wrote:

“Occupation of German scientific and industrial establishments has revealed the fact that we have been alarmingly backward in many fields of research. If we do not take the opportunity to seize the apparatus and the brains that developed it and put the combination back to work promptly, we will remain several years behind while we attempt to cover a field already exploited.”

This began Project PaperClip which saw more than 700 Nazi scientists, Von Braun included, secretly shipped out of Germany and into the US to continue their research and development on behalf of America. The aim of this was simple “To exploit German scientists for American research and to deny these intellectual resources to the Soviet Union.”

At this point events moved rapidly, President Truman gave authorization of Project PaperClip in August 1945 and by the 18th of November the first German scientists were arriving in America.

There was, however, one large problem. Truman had explicitly ordered that anyone discovered “to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazism militarism” would not be included in the project. Sadly for the US military this would have excluded most scientists since for scientists working on top secret projects like those undertaken by Germany during the war, Nazi party membership was as good as mandatory. You were never really trusted unless you were a good Nazi party member. Under Truman’s criteria Von Braun was ineligible for work since he was a member of numerous Nazi organisations, and also held rank in the SS. His initial intelligence file described him as “a security risk”.

Examples of other such ineligible people included Arthur Rudolph, chief operations director at Nordhausen, where 20,000 slave labourers died producing V-2 missiles. He led the team which built the Saturn V rocket which carried most of NASA’s Apollo missions into space. Described as “100 per cent Nazi, dangerous type”.
Kurt Debus, a rocket launch expert, also an SS officer. His intelligence report stated: “He should be interned as a menace to the security of the Allied Forces.”
Hubertus Strughold who designed Nasa’s on-board life-support systems. Some of his subordinates, under his supervision, conducted human experiments at Dachau and Auschwitz, where inmates were frozen and put into low-pressure chambers, often dying in the process.

Knowing these people were ineligible and that this would hurt the US militaries advances their alleged crimes were covered up and their backgrounds whitewashed by the military who saw winning the Cold War, and not upholding justice, as its first priority, which while understandable does demonstrate a worrying lack of accountability.

With its radar-dodging carbon injected plywood skin and swept-back single wing, the 1944 Horten Ho 229 was arguably the first stealth aircraft. This gave way to the later developed B-2 stealth bomber which was effectively a clone of the Horton Ho, produced by Northrop Aviation, now called Northrop Grumman, at a cost of $2 billion. They were given a Horten Ho to work from and almost a generation later produced one of the most versatile and devastating planes ever built.

The latest cruise missiles are still based largely on the German V rocket program. NASA’s latest scram-jet engines powering the latest X-43 hypersonic aircraft are again built on principles founded by German scientists over 60 years ago.

These are only the files which have been released though, there are many more Project PaperClip files which are still top secret. This has led Nick Cook, Aerospace Consultant at Jane’s Defence Weekly, to speculate that “the US may have developed even more advanced Nazi technology, including anti-gravity devices, a potential source of vast amounts of free energy. Such technology could be so destructive that it would endanger world peace and the US decided to keep it secret for a long time”.

While I can sympathise with the US wanting to win the cold war I can also see how their methods were of dubious moral values. They were effectively working off the back of people who tortured and researched on Human subjects. People who, only a few years prior, had just one goal, to take over the world. Again the argument could be played that since Russia were using German technology the US had to do the same to compete with them. How would the world be different if America hadn’t used German research, ideas and scientists? If Russia had succeeded in it’s goal of bringing communism to the world I think the world as we know it would be almost unrecognisable.
Communism doesn’t work, that fact has been proved time and time again. Countries like the People’s Republic of China have had to adopt capitalism in order to survive, and they are thriving as a result. I do fear that they will become very powerful though and that they are only embracing capitalism for as long as it benefits them. The political leadership is still deeply in love with the Communist ideals of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and more so in the PRC, Mao and since it is a one party state this doesn’t look set to change any time soon.

I can see why America did what they did, and I am grateful for that, we have some of the worlds grandest scientific advances as a result, but we must never forget those millions who died at the hands of Nazi Germany to make these advancements possible.

Cheers

According to an article on The Register there are plans to introduce a “24×7 national vehicle movement database” that will log all vehicle movement on UK road and retian the data captured for 2 years. The system would use Automatic Number Plate Recognition to track vehicles.

According to sources the control centre will go live next April and stimates go that it could soon be processing 50 million number plates per day. The monitoring poins are planned at 400 yard intervals on UK motorways which is more than enough to start using the system for speed monitoring as well as the promised checks for untaxed and unisured vehicles since tracking just the later 2 every 20 or so seconds would appear to be daft. It will be trialed on the M42 near Birmingham.

What’s more worrying for me personaly is that quoted directly is “the complete system around Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield, where every vehicle is checked on the Automatic Number Plate Recognition database” would be used as the model. I had no idea that this existed, that everytime I go to Meadowhall my car is being tracked.

The system will work by tying into other databases such as the soon to be active MoT test database, which would give tax status, and the insurance companies database, giving insurance details. Since it is now a criminal offence to keep an uninsured vehicle, ie one which is not used and kept stored in a garage this could cause problems for a lot of people. Previously it was simply an offence to keep an untaxed vehicle, for which the resolution was to file a SORN (Statutory Off-Road Notification) declaration stating that it will not be used. However since now it is a criminal offence to not insure a vehicle will mean that fixed fines can be issued to all these people since the government have now turned it into a crime.

So with these measures the police or government could track exactly where I am as long as I’m in my car, then follow me on CCTV when I get out of the car. Track my speed at all times, so no more using best judgement and speeding a little with clear motorways and good conditions since I will always be watched. If I decide to but a second car to work on as a porject I will have to insure it since not doing so is now a criminal offence even though I will not be driving it anywhere. Why would I need to insure a vehicle I’ve already filled in a SORN for? I just think it’s another form of stealth tax.

The whole idea makes me very uneasy about government powers. What if at the end of the next labour term they decide to crate a dictatorship by eliminating political opposition, as Hitler did in Germany in 1933, then track and ensure people who speak out against the government cannot do so. It all seems terribly 1984 like.

Cheers

Well I finally managed to hand in my Enterprise computing applications and architecture coursework today, plus I finally finished my e-learning evaluation and handed that in too. Only one more assignment to go, then a week off and then it’s exam time, oh goody. But a good day for work completion never-the-less.

Bad thing is my Mac Mini still isn’t here yet, I would have to guess Monday now, but I wanted it for the weekend to play with.

And finally onto the damn right ugly. I was severely dissapointed with the general election result. Blair has had 8 years to prove he can deliver on the promises he makes, and it would seem to be an impossible task.

“In 1997 you said Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees for higher education. You then introduced tuition fees … In 2001 you said: ‘we will not introduce top-up fees and have legislated to prevent them’. You then introduced top-up fees.”
Michael Howard to Tony Blair, Prime Minister’s Questions, 6 April 2005

So he said he wouldn’t and then well, I’ll be, he went off and did it anyway.

“The USA has been arguing for recognition of a broad doctrine to use force to pre-empt danger in the future…this is not a doctrine which, in my opinion, exists or is recognised in international law”
“I remain of the opinion that the safest legal course would be to secure the adoption of a further resolution to authorise the use of force.”
Lord Goldsmith, 7 March 2003

“Mr Blair has said that the attorney general’s advice to the Cabinet on 17 March was ‘very clear’ that the war was legal, and that the attorney general had not changed his mind.”
Michael Howard

Instead of presenting the advice given to him on March 7th 2003 by Lord Goldsmith, Mr. Blair chose to use Lord Goldsmith’s later advice, described by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as “unequivocal”, which was shown to the Cabinet on 17 March and made public in an answer in the House of Lords on the same day.

Right up until the last minute Lord Goldsmith insisted that the Iraq war was illegal. Blair failed to mention this when he was questioned on the legality of war, and also failed to present this to the Cabinet or the Commons.

However it would seemt that the british electorate doesn’t really care about all that, after all, the fact that he decieved the House Of Commons and the House Of Lords is neither here nor there.
Also the fact that repeatedly election promises have been broken. This time around though the broken elsection promises will not be a problem, since Labour have amde so few. They simply chose instead to attempt to muddy the policies and pledges of other parties.

Cheers

Well I’m back, after a much needed week away. The holiday was fairly routine, just the usual stuff, sitting in the sun, looking at nice girls wearing very little, and lots of good food and drink, they give such strong vodka & cokes out there. The weather was good for this time of year, it was very sunny and hot until Friday where it went down hill and became overcast and rained, but for the best part it could have been summer.
All the weight I lost before my holiday has gone straight back on, probably due to the vodka & cokes and food, coupled with not doing a lot for a week. Nevermind, I’m sure it’ll come off now I’m back onto the caffeine diet.

Now I’m back I have a load of Uni work to do, since the laptop only came out of it’s case to do some photo editing, so I now have a mountain of work to do, but I shall prevail, I don’t have a choice, I can’t fail.

Going to another country always illustrates to me just how much we in the UK are being ripped off when it comes to the prices of products. For example I can save about �4 buying Vladivar vodka in Spain, even though it is produced and bottled in the UK exported to Spain, it’s still cheaper to buy it there. This kind of thing is a constant theme, petrol sells for 81 Euro cents there for a litre and it sells for 81 pence for a litre here, since it costs the same to produce, or thereabouts, there can only be one reason for the price difference….. oh Mr. Brown, I do love you so. With a general election imminent, I hope, this is the time for Tony and his cronies to be removed from office, I for one am sick of stealth taxes (We’re not putting tax up if we just don’t raise the income tax brackets in line with inflation), more national insurance, an extra penny in the pound, which I will never see again since there is now way I will ever receive a state pension, there’s already a bloody shortfall, and all this increase has gone towards is to that endless black hole called the NHS. So all in all I’m sick of Blair, I’m pissed off that he has now allowed Brussels to control our borders, surely that’s a large part of our sovereignty gone since we don’t control who comes in and out of our country?

I need something I can sell on eBay, something I can get a regular supply of and sell for a profit, I could just do with the extra income, but I can’t think what i could sell. I’m sure something will come to me sooner or later.

Well that’s enough of this for now, I’ll make another post later I think, cheers for now