Posts by Vimes

One more idea (which may well have already been mentioned) but have you considered offering some sort of paid-for membership that would allow members to see this site without adverts?

Dutch telecoms firms abused data retention law for marketing purposes

Some Dutch telecommunications and Internet providers have exploited European Union laws mandating the retention of communications data to fight crime, using the retained data for unauthorised marketing purposes.

Bits of Freedom and other digital rights groups called on the European Commission to prevent further abuse of the European Data Retention Directive, which requires ISPs and telecommunications operators across the EU to retain connection data for a period between six months and two years, mainly for the purposes of investigating, detecting and prosecuting serious crime and terrorism.

[...]

http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3473656/dutch-telecoms-firms-abused-data-retention-law-for-marketing-purposes/

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2054500/backdoor-found-in-dlink-router-firmware-code.html

So this has been known about for three years?

Reminds me of an old Simpsons quote involving Krusty the clown:

'Krusty's tshirts are made by kids for kids. And we pass the slavings onto you.'

Sony ought to bear some responsibility for this IMO - they're demanding results and willing to only pay up to a certain level. They then apparently conveniently appear to fail to ask how those results are achieved. And yes, Apple and others that use Foxconn's services are probably just as bad - they may try and do their best to clean up the messes once they know about them but they're all so obsessed with cost that they seem to ignore problems until they have no other choice other than to deal with them.

As for this from the article:

It promised that “immediate actions have been taken to bring that campus into full compliance with our code and policies... reinforcing the policies of no overtime and no night shifts for student interns, even though such work is voluntary, and reminding all interns of their rights to terminate their participation in the program at any time".

It doesn't sound like they'll completely stop the interns from working on the production line, just they they won't be asked to do overtime.

So it's a case of either do the manual labour that's completely unrelated to the reason for being there or quit and lose the credits, thereby ensuring that you'll fail the course and end up back on the production line full time? That's hardly much of a choice...

Chinese students allegedly forced to build PS4s at Foxconn for school credit

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/10/chinese-students-foxconn-ps4-internship/

over 1,000 students from the Xi'an Institute of Technology have been working on the PlayStation 4 production line at Foxconn as part of a work experience partnership.

However, reports claim the Xi'an Institute of Technology is withholding course credits necessary for graduation, thereby forcing students to pull drone duty and help address the rabid demand for Sony's next-gen console.

'The new PS4: now available thanks to slave labour!'

Why bother?

We are now going to have a trade minister that helped damage the security of hundreds of thousands of people in the UK thanks to the use of systems provided by a US company headed by somebody with links to spyware (BT, Ian Livingston and Kent Erturgrul), and whose activities probably makes the hacking activities of the newspapers look like child's play by comparison (but then we have a PM that thought hiring Andy Coulson was a good idea - so that at least should not come as a surprise).

GCHQ didn't seem to think it was worth knowing about (see https://www.dephormation.org.uk/index.php?page=83 - in particular that last part of the article).

A better start would be to stop actively undermining security. But then I guess it would be rather unrealistic to expect that, as depressing as that is...

Now if only the government could adopt a similar position in regards to the internet and porn instead of opting for bullying the ISPs to put filtering in place.

Education there will always be the biggest component to solving that issue - not just the kids but the parents too.

Default-on internet filters and regulation

...as in there won't be any (regulation of the filters that is).

Cameron's speech back in July seemed to imply that the oversight of the filters would rest with OFCOM. I had some questions in regards to what rights website owners had in regards to protecting their rights as well as the safety of children, so I emailed them and shortly afterwards received the following reply:

----

Ofcom has no general role in overseeing the use of network level filters by ISPs.

If you have additional questions relating to Ofcom's role then please do let me know.

---

Some readers will note the omission of any mention of website operators. Apparently their rights don't have any value if this sort of response is anything to go by.

The reply also seemed to be at odds with what Cameron had said during his speech so I asked OFCOM again: were they sure that this was the case? I then got this reply:

----

I provided the correct response in my email. My understanding of the Prime Minister's speech was that he was stating his intent to ask that we oversee the progress made by the ISPs in implementing and raising awareness of network level filters (i.e. undertaking consumer research into consumer awareness as well as gathering figures from the ISPs on take-up). He was not asking us to go further than this. As I said in my last e-mail, Ofcom has no powers to oversee the operation of network level filtering.

The questions you ask would be best directed to the ISPs who have stated their intention to offer these services on a voluntary basis.

----

So it would seem that internet filters - the existence of which was only ever proposed under the threat of government legislation - is effectively without any form of independent regulation. ISPs are apparently expected to regulate themselves (and we all know how well *that* works - *cough*banking*cough*). Tough luck if you're one of the ones filtered out of existence.

Come to think of it: how on earth are OFCOM supposed to measure the progress made on implementing the filters without having a specific idea of what they're supposed to do and how they're supposed to function?

Also: does anybody know if there is a documented definition of what exactly is expected to be filtered?

The Troodos Conundrum

Troodos is highly effective – the jewel in the crown of British intelligence. Its capacity and efficiency, as well as its reach, is staggering. The US do not have their own comparable facility for the Middle East. I should state that I have actually been inside all of this facility and been fully briefed on its operations and capabilities, while I was head of the FCO Cyprus Section in the early 1990s. This is fact, not speculation.

The answer to the Troodos Conundrum is simple. Troodos did not pick up the intercepts because they do not exist. Mossad fabricated them. John Kerry’s “evidence” is the shabbiest of tricks. More children may now be blown to pieces by massive American missile blasts. It is nothing to do with humanitarian intervention. It is, yet again, the USA acting at the behest of Israel.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/08/the-troodos-conundrum/

Are we being lied to again? Another Curveball only instead of Iraq this time it's Syria?

My last post has the following at the bottom of the post:

& 1 thumbs down

No big deal, but the ampersand seems to get displayed even when there are no up votes. Either that or there are missing up votes from the display (highly unlikely given the list in my posts list). This happens both when viewing a list of my own posts and when viewing the specific thread in question.

What is it with mobile phone manufacturers and exclusive deals? Nokia seem particularly bad at this.

Admittedly I've never worked in the mobile phone industry, but surely it would make more sense to try and get these handsets in the hands of as many people as possible, rather than erect artificial and unnecessary barriers to owning one of these?

Huge majority wants Clapper prosecuted for perjury

There is no longer any doubt that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress. Likewise, there is no doubt that his lie runs afoul of federal law. And, of course, there is no doubt that in terms of its implications for oversight, constitutional precepts and privacy for millions of Americans, his lies were far more serious than those that have gotten other people prosecuted for perjury. The question now is whether his brazen dishonesty will become a political issue — or whether it will simply disappear into the ether.

Commissioned by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Credo and conducted by Public Policy Polling in five ideologically diverse states, the surveys find that huge majorities want Clapper prosecuted.

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/15/huge_majority_wants_clapper_prosecuted_for_perjury/

The Radio Times Gets Blocked in the UK By Big Media Gaff

If it wasn’t bad enough that news sites like TorrentFreak are going to get a taste of the piracy ban-hammer, it seems the humble Radio Times has gotten a helping of the court-ordered ISP blockade, and completely by accident too. Nice one, big media.

You see, what’s been feared might happen for a while with all these aggressive moves to block sites through court orders, which now include automated systems too, has finally occurred. The Radio Times was caught in the crossfire, as rights holders failed to confirm whether suspected infringing IP addresses really belonged to pirates like EZTV, and indiscriminately added the lists of addresses to the blockade.

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/08/the-radio-times-gets-blocked-in-the-uk-by-big-media-gaff/

Sky’s piracy filter manipulated into blocking TorrentFreak

http://torrentfreak.com/skys-court-ordered-piracy-filter-blocks-torrentfreak-130809/

'Apple merely promised publishers it would not sell at a loss.'

It also forced a minimum price on other sellers by putting a most favoured nation clause into their contracts with the publisher. In other words they were basically saying that they would force others not to sell at a loss too, which is why they were dragged through the courts in the first place. It's rather convenient that this doesn't get a mention.

As for publishers they might get more sympathy if they actually put more effort into their digital offerings. I've often found typos and other errors in e-books purchased off both Apple and Amazon that I simply would not expect to see in anything that has been professionally published. Since this problem is not specific to Amazon I can only assume that the publishers are the ones that are responsible for this.

It's as if they lacked a digital copy of the older books so they just scanned a copy and then dumped the results online without bothering to get a proof reader in to check the results first.

Is there any particular reason why they need your date of birth for you to be able to post messages?

Personally I think there ought to be an even tougher punishment when there's a data breach that involves data that was never needed in the first place.

NSA gave £100 million to GCHQ

The US government has paid at least £100m to the UK spy agency GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to and influence over Britain's intelligence gathering programmes.

No other detail is provided – but it raises the possibility that GCHQ might have been spying on an American living in the US. The NSA is prohibited from doing this by US law.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/01/nsa-paid-gchq-spying-edward-snowden

'We stand for freedom'?

These are the same sort of people that were saying ''It became necessary to destroy the town to save it'' during the Vietnam war. And with about as much credibility too...