View From Planet Jamie

Thought it had been a bit too quiet on the Phorm front.  BT’s internet division, one of the companies who are involved with “targeted advertising” peddlers Phorm despite continued concerns about its legality and Phorm’s failure to openly answer questions has decided that it will no longer countenance any public discussion of Phorm on its support forums.   In fact it has deleted all threads about Phorm and its webwise “product” going back to February.

The Register carries a full report on BT internet’s decision to censor it customers.

In taking this action BT is attempting to stop public discussion of its involvement with a company which has behaved less than pleasantly to a rightly sceptical internet community.  BT is trying to airbrush history and prevent informed customers seeking spin free answers to questions in a public forum.

I condemn this move by BT wholeheartedly and unreservedly.  I condemn the people behind this decision wholeheartedly and unreservedly.  BT Internet deserve nothing but criticism and a major exodus of customers.

I urge anyone who is still a BT Internet customer to insist on a MAC code so they can leave for a more responsible Internet Service Provider.

Happiness comes in many forms.  This morning it came in the form of seeing Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain, run out when attempting a short single.  The fielder who ran him out was legspinner Amit Mishra who had earlier been chastised by the commentators for his relative lack of fielding prowess.

India beat Australia in the final test match of the series this morning UK time, so winning the series 2-0, the worst series defeat for Australia since Viv Richards’ West Indies side beat Australia 3-1 in 1988 and their only series loss since the Ashes 2005.  Despite the bullying aggression of the BCCI and their general lack of respect for cricketing authority (which, to the ICC’s credit they slapped down as they should have), it’s nice to see India beating Australia.  We have also seen Sachin Tendulkar score his 40th test century and becoming the leading run scorer in test cricket; Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly retire from test cricket; VVS Laxman appear in his 100th test score another excellent double hundred against the Australians.  Not for nothing do they call him “Very Very Special”.

Also worthy of mention is the debut performance of off-spinner Jason Krezja.  12 wickets in a match against India, in India, against some of the finest players of spin bowling in the world is no mean feat.

Continue Reading »

As a follow up to my earlier mention of the trans community protest at the Stonewall awards here are some reports of the event.

European Tribune: Stonewall - Hypocrisy Or Ignorance?
Dr Petra Boynton: Transfabulous Response To Stonewall
Lesbilicious - 150 People Protest At “Transphobic” Stonewall Awards

One of the causes of this protest, Julie Bindel (it was her nomination for the “Journalist Of The Year” award that sparked this off), has declared:

I just want to be left alone

Now I’m no expert on trangender politics but this strikes me as pretty poor coming from someone who uses The Guardian’s “Comment Is Free” section to post what are seen by some as offensive and inflammatory opinions. If you publish something on a site like that then expect to get challenging responses. It’s called free speech, something that is allowed in a free country. Which the UK is (for the moment, anyway).

If someone publishes an opinion that others disagree with then those who disagree are entitled to express their disagreement. That isn’t bullying, it’s a simple right of expression that applies to others equally as it applies to you.

If you just want to be left alone then don’t publish stuff that offends and upsets people. It’s not rocket science. If you continue to publish stuff that offends and upsets people you shouldn’t be surprised at their quoting your previous output. Really, it’s not rocket science.

Having read some of the articles around on this issue, it strikes me that Ben Summerskill, Chief Executive of Stonewall hasn’t realised the power of associating with or endorsing someone. It can affect a reputation very adversely and very quickly. It’s very odd for a CEO not to realise this, as the leaders with whom I’ve worked have always been very careful to make sure the people with whom they associate professionally are of excellent reputation and status.

If I, a cisgendered male (I’m told that means I was born male) can find the views which offended the trans community fairly quickly then surely someone in his position should be far more aware of them than I. Again, it’s not rocket science.

If he hasn’t learned that from this incident then he lacks the awareness to claim that he is a real leader. His and Stonewall’s reputations appear to have taken a beating.

There are three things that Ben Summerskill (if he is the leader he claims to be) should have known before this all blew up:

• Reputation is something that takes a very long time to build up but can be lost very quickly.
• Perception is reality.
• Neither are things that you can completely control.

If he didn’t know these things previously, I hope he’s learned them now.

Among those friends I trust and hold dearly are a number of transgendered people.  Their class and dignity in dealing with unwarranted abuse as well as their mental strength is worthy of admiration.  When one of them mentioned that Stonewall (the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual charity and campaigning organisation, with whom Sir Ian McKellen is associated, see the photo below) was being bigoted I had to have a look for myself.

Sir Ian McKellen in the Stonewall Section of the 2008 London Pride March

Trans community to protest at high profile London awards ceremony against Stonewall “Bigotry” details why Stonewall are being accused of bigotry.

I wonder if Sir Ian McKellen knows that the organisation he associates with stands accused of bigotry? I wonder what he would say?

To borrow from the placard he is holding in the above photo, “Some people are trans. Get over it!”

If anyone doesn’t already know, Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States.

Obama’s victory is significant in many ways that have been written about elsewhere by more knowledgeable people.  I’ve already written about how New Labour swept to power using the song “Things Can Only Get Better” and turned what was a free country into a surveillance state.

Today I repeat that.  New Labour came to power claiming a mandate for change.  People (People? Surely I mean sheeple) blindly accepted their decisions and voted for them again, refusing to challenge the government and the status quo.  Now Britain is in a mess and in need of political change as much as America is.

Barack Obama’s speech was everything it should be: inspirational, aspirational and making sure people realise there is hard work to be done to bring change about.

I hope President-elect Obama is true to his words.  I hope that the American people will continue to work with him and engage in the political process, challenging him if he starts to do to America what Blair started and Brown has continued doing to the UK.

America has grown up today.  America has shown the way forward for Britain.

The newspaper coverage of the Stanford Series and the issues off the field is getting more and more hostile.

Cricinfo’s Surfer section carries a brief summary of articles by Mike Atherton, Stephen Brenkley, Paul Newman and Andy Bull.

Sir Allen Stanford’s appearance with the England players’ wives and girlfriends has not helped the perception of the Stanford Series, certainly as far as England are concerned.  Were I playing and Sir Allen was bouncing my other half off his knee then I’d be wanting a few words with him, billionaire or not.

I’d also question the access Sir Allen has to the teams’ dressing rooms.  I was always taught that the dressing room is sacrosanct - players only.

If Rod Bransgrove is to be believed (and I see no reason why not) he has asked questions about how much due diligence and background checking was done before the ECB-Stanford deal was signed and was not happy with what he found out.

This story has a lot more mileage in.  Unless something pretty damn special happens then the dissenting voices will continue for a long time after.

Mentioning something pretty damn special, the Indian batsman known as Very Very Special (that’s VVS Laxman for those who don’t follow the game) is having a good knock against the Australians.  Who are up against it again.  Oh dear *smile*

BBC News reports that Russell Brand has resigned from his Radio 2 programme following prank calls he made with Jonathan Ross to actor Andrew Sachs.

I’ll echo what others have said in dismissing the idea that these calls were “pranks”.  Schoolchildren do “pranks”, not highly paid broadcasters who should be aware of the codes of conduct to which they are expected to adhere.

I ask again how does he equate abusing Andrew Sachs with his ending his comedy routines (and now this statement) with “Hare Krishna” ?  How many Hare Krishnas do you know who say “I’ve f**ked your daughter”?

Brand claims “I got a bit caught up in the moment”.  Maybe he did.  But as a highly paid broadcaster he should have been more professional than that.  There is a clear code of conduct which Brand pretty much rode a cart and horses through.

Let’s not lose sight of the issue here.  The production team and Jonathan Ross also have their penance to pay. I’ve already said what I believe their penalties should be.

Even Sir Gerald Kaufman has called for heads to roll:

Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman, former chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, said it was “essential for the BBC to ascertain quickly who was responsible for approving this pre-recorded episode”.

“This has not been handled well - clearly this should not have been broadcast in the first place and if Mr Thompson did not know about it then he needs to cut some heads off of the people that didn’t let him know,” he told BBC News.

Sir Gerald added that if media regulator Ofcom were to fine the BBC for the incident, it should not be paid with licence payer’s money.

“If the BBC is fined I believe the two people involved should pay the fine and not the licence payers,” he said.

This incident is far from over.  There are still issues to be addressed; those strong decisions still need to be made.

Some interesting reporting about the Stanford Series going on in Antigua on the BBC Sport website.

BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew has revealed that the ECB are going to mount an urgent review into the way the series has been run.

Also very telling are captain Kevin Pietersen’s comments including

“Yes, it’s a lot of dosh but the longer this week goes on the more I want to get it over with,”

“I wish we could have come here and played on a wicket where we could have entertained a lot more.

“If you’ve got 700 million people watching on Saturday, so I’ve been told, you want a wicket where spinners don’t really play a part. It’s very, very disappointing for us.”

Both articles are well worth a read as they feature the usual intelligent and well thought out views of Jonathan Agnew.

The recent so-called “prank calls” made by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on a BBC Radio 2 programme to Andrew Sachs have enraged many people in the UK. In a report confirming the suspensions of Brand and Ross, the BBC News website confirmed that over 18,000 complaints had been registered with the BBC about this incident. BBC News helpfully includes a timeline of events here.

Announcing the suspension BBC Director General Mark Thompson issued the following statement:

I would like to add my own personal and unreserved apology to Andrew Sachs, his family and to licence fee payers for the completely unacceptable broadcast on BBC Radio 2.

BBC audiences accept that, in comedy, performers attempt to push the line of taste. However, this is not a marginal case.

It is clear from the views expressed by the public that this broadcast has caused severe offence and I share that view.

Since Sunday, I have been in regular contact with the senior executives I tasked with handling this issue.

The investigation that I instructed Tim Davie [director of BBC audio and music] to conduct is nearing completion, and I am returning to London to review the findings and, in the coming days, announce what action we will take.

In the meantime, I have decided that it is not appropriate for either Russell Brand or Jonathan Ross to continue broadcasting on the BBC until I have seen the full report of the actions of all concerned.

This gross lapse of taste by the performers and the production team has angered licence payers.

I am determined that we satisfy them that any lessons will be learnt and appropriate action taken.

I have been asked to report to the Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee before the end of this week and will discuss with the Trust the findings of the report and the actions I propose.

OFCOM (the UK broadcasting regulator) has already announced its own enquiry. There is in place a code of conduct which applies to all who broadcast in the UK. The regulator has the power to fine the BBC if it so wishes.

This issue is a challenge for the BBC. There are many, myself included, who question the right of the BBC to levy the Poll Tax like Licence fee upon people. The heavy handedness of TV Licensing in attempting to force people who don’t watch television into coughing up the Licence Fee cost is well documented elsewhere. Here’s one example and there’s more on sites such as Biased BBC. Jeremy Paxman also speaks on the subject on The Times website. TV Licensing were very slow to confirm to me that using a television only for video games and watching DVDs does not require a Licence. Getting that admission was like getting blood out of a stone.

The BBC has little relevance to me and, I suspect, many others. Thanks to the internet I can pick and choose news sources. The BBC’s news (in my opinion) is no longer the paragon of virtue and trustworthiness it once was. Why does the BBC deserve a chunk of people’s cash yet (for example) The Paranormal Channel, EMTV, Planet Rock do not?

When the BBC invests a large amount of money in someone, they are trusting that person to inform, educate and entertain the Licence Fee holders. Not to offend a large number. 18,000 is a pretty large number to me. The BBC has been too slow to suspend Brand and Ross. Personally I don’t find Brand all that funny - how does he equate abusing Andrew Sachs with his ending his comedy routines with “Hare Krishna” ? - but Ross should have known better.

The BBC has been far too slow to act on an incident that happened on Saturday 18th October. Today is Wednesday 29th October. Surely the BBC knows all too well that bad news travels faster than good news. If it doesn’t then the BBC is in more of a mess than anyone could imagine.

18,000 complaints directly to the BBC and worldwide negative coverage of the issue. Only then does the BBC take action against Ross and Brand. How much is Ross earning again? How much is the BBC paying Brand?

Let’s turn our attention to Mr Thompson’s statment.

“BBC audiences accept that, in comedy, performers attempt to push the line of taste. However, this is not a marginal case.”

No shit Sherlock! What puzzles me and many others is the fact that this show was pre-recorded and passed as OK for transmission. Who passed this show as suitable for transmission? Whoever that person was (or those persons were) has suffered an amazing lapse in standards that should cost them dearly. If I want lewdness and bad language I need only take a walk down the road or Google “Chubby Brown”. There is a reason why Chubby Brown’s material isn’t shown on television: because of its offensive language content.

“The investigation that I instructed Tim Davie [director of BBC audio and music] to conduct is nearing completion, and I am returning to London to review the findings and, in the coming days, announce what action we will take.”

This is the same Tim Davie who said on 28th October that it was “too early to speculate” on whether Brand or Ross will face action. So one very important question must now be when was Tim Davie instructed to investigate by Mark Thompson? Surely it would have been better for the BBC and peoples’ perception of it had Mr Davie said “I have been instructed by Mr Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, to investigate fully the circusmtances surrounding the broadcast on 18th October. This investigation is ongoing and it would be wrong of me to comment further.”

He did not.

Why not?

“In the meantime, I have decided that it is not appropriate for either Russell Brand or Jonathan Ross to continue broadcasting on the BBC until I have seen the full report of the actions of all concerned”

In the face of such a public backlash this was really the only thing he could do.

“This gross lapse of taste by the performers and the production team has angered licence payers.”

You’ve noticed? When did Mr Thompson become aware of this issue?

“I am determined that we satisfy them that any lessons will be learnt and appropriate action taken.”

Appropriate in whose eyes? In my opinion Brand, Ross, the editor and head of the production team and anyone else involved in passing this as suitable for broadcast deserve to be fired, their contracts terminated.

“I have been asked to report to the Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee before the end of this week and will discuss with the Trust the findings of the report and the actions I propose.”

Don’t forget the OFCOM investigation and the almost certain interest of the Parliamentary culture, media and sport select committee. Seeing Mr Thompson squirm under the interrogation of this committee would be interesting. And quite possibly live on BBC Parliament.

Mr Thompson faces a stiff challenge. He should take strong action against those involved in this incident to make it clear that unacceptable conduct will not be tolerated and that the BBC is committed to the Reithian princples on which it was founded.

Anything less will show that the BBC does not deserve its Licence Fee.

Watching the first two games in the Stanford series leading up to the $20 million game next Saturday has left me feeling a bit flat, almost as if there’s something missing.  Often the television coverage manages to convey something of the atmosphere of a cricket match but here there’s nothing reaching out and grabbing me.

I was at the Twenty20 Cup finals day in 2004 and really enjoyed it.  There was tension in the Lancashire v Surrey semi final as well as the Leicestershire v Surrey final just as there was pressure and tension in the local club games I’ve played in.  Here there just doesn’t seem to be any.

There have also been a few fielding bloopers.  The worst has to be Andrew Strauss dropping surely the simplest of catches off Andrew Flintoff.  “Village” doesn’t even begin to describe it.  I was too stunned to say anything (and that’s not easy, let me tell you) as the ball looped into the air and out of Strauss’ grasp.

When something like that happens you can either laugh or cry.  With it being televised you can bet this will appear on sporting bloopers programmes and probably on YouTube sometime soon.  Strauss laughed in embarrassment and as commentator Pommie Mbangwa said, “What else can you do?”  So it is that the fielding bloopers are the most memorable parts of the series at the moment.

Andrew Miller comments on what he’s seen thus far at Cricinfo.  As a spectator I’d love to have seen lots of boundaries, sixes and fours flying everywhere.  Chris Gayle, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen in full flow while the bowlers used their brains to try to counteract the swinging willow.  The swinging willow has happened but not really connected with the ball too often.  On the bowling front there has been something I’ve really enjoyed…

Go Shaun Udal! 39 years old and bowling 4 overs for 14 runs *smile*  Shows that the maxim “If you’re good enough you’re old enough” goes both ways**

**says a mid 30s off spinner/slow seam bowler

Cricinfo reports that the MCC world cricket committee has confirmed what Michael Holding, Darren Gough, myself and others believe. Namely that the Oval test which was forfeited by Pakistan in 2006 should remain a forfeit and not, as the ICC spinelessly decided, be changed retrospectively to a draw.

Here’s some of the report (which is worth reading in full, by the way):

The MCC world cricket committee, which includes current India captain Anil Kumble and former Test leaders Rahul Dravid, Michael Atherton, Shaun Pollock and Steve Waugh, met on Saturday and Sunday in New Delhi and decided “cricket is the worse for this decision”.

The committee chairman Tony Lewis wanted confirmation from the ICC that the original outcome of the match should stand. “The ICC has no power under the laws of cricket to decide that results should be altered, whether it feels it’s ‘inappropriate’ or otherwise,” the former England captain Lewis said. “The ICC’s decision is wrong and sets a very dangerous precedent. Cricket is the worse for this decision.”

“As far as we’re concerned there is no record of any other result [but a forfeit],” Lewis said. “We’re not reversing the ICC result, we’re just saying they had no place to do that. We, MCC, wrote the rules in 1788 and the laws working party now is run by Robert Griffiths QC. Legally, there is absolutely no way the ICC can change the laws of the game, which it did do.”

Look at the names of some of the people on the MCC world cricket committee?

Rahul Dravid
Anil Kumble
Michael Atherton
Shaun Pollock
Steve Waugh

All players with excellent records as test players and captains.

Chairman Tony Lewis is a man steeped in cricket so much it’s stamped through him like Blackpool rock.

Perhaps none of those esteemed gentlemen are well versed in internet slang. I doubt anyone at the ICC is either though. So let me put it simply for the ICC, that much berated organisation:

YOU ARE MADE OF FAIL

The MCC world cricket committee is to be applauded for telling the ICC to start behaving in line with the laws of the game and not sucking up for political issues.

Gordon Brown is a man desperately clinging on to power.  His comments today about Shadow Chancellor George Osborne are more telling than he or his army of spinshysters could possibly imagine.  I’ll quote the relevant part here:

During prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Mr Brown said: “This is a very serious matter indeed and I hope it is investigated by the authorities.”

There are a number of serious matters going on in this country right now which aren’t receiving the attention they should.  Regular readers will know to which matter I am referring.

What about the routine wiretapping of peoples’ internet activity which is against the law and which Prime Minister Brown’s government has refused to investigate?

That Gordon Brown thinks a potential slur against an opposition politician is more worthy of an investigation than the unauthorised trials by BT of Phorm’s invasive technology says much more about this government than anything else he could ever say.

Where your values and priorities lie is clear.  It certainly isn’t in protecting the rights of people to private lives free of government interference.

UK Government transport secretary Geoff Hoon (who has been defence secretary previous to this role) has confirmed that this government is obsessed with the all-seeing database and destroying the civil liberties of UK citizens.

The Register reports on Hoon’s outburst on the BBC’s Question Time programme.

“The journeyman minister was asked by Liberal Democrat MP and fellow panellist Julia Goldsworthy how far the government is willing to go undermine civil liberties to monitor extremists. An irritated Hoon snapped: “To stop terrorists killing people in our society quite a long way, actually.”

El Reg’s report continues quoting Hoon:

Ignoring Jacqui Smith’s call for “a well-informed debate, characterised by openness, rather than mere opinion, by reason and reasonableness” in her Tuesday speech, Hoon continued last night: “And if they’re going to use the internet to communicate with each other and we don’t have the power to deal with that then you’re giving a licence to terrorists to kill people.

“The biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist,” the minister concluded, finger wagging.

I beg to differ with Mr Hoon.  Surely the biggest civil liberty of all is not to be wrongly shot by police.  Or perhaps it is to not have every aspect of your life continuously monitored by faceless government who lack transparency and accountability.

Do take time to check the comments page after this article.  It’s interesting stuff.

Or perhaps it is not to be threatened with the slaughtering of free speech by a government that doesn’t understand the internet, hates critical voices and wants to stop those voices.

Oh yes, the government wants to regulate the internet.

And in the name of fighting terrorism the government now wants everyone buying a new mobile phone to prove their identity and then register that purchase on their all-seeing database.

You see where this is going?

The Register offers an analysis of the proposed uber-database.  As ever it’s spot on.

Orwell was right.  He just got the year wrong.

As reported by the New York Times and commented on by The Register, Phorm like company Adzilla has reportedly pulled out of the American market. The comments made in the NYT interview by former chief executive, Toby Gabriner are interesting.

“It’s not like I didn’t know that privacy was a potential third rail,” he said. “None of us saw that it would become this much of an issue this quickly.”

Sorry Toby, you’re saying that you thought “the idea that American Internet providers should be able to watch where their customers surf and sell that information to advertisers” (to quote the NYT article) was going to be blindly accepted by internet users?

Did you really think something so invasive would be tolerated by those with any degree of technical know how? Did you really think you’d actually get this past computing and internet professionals who respect privacy and the laws relating to it?  If you’re saying that you didn’t realise that bad news travels faster now we’re in the online age then boy, have you been naive.  You sure know that now.

Mr. Gabriner insisted that the company had developed ways to respect the privacy of the people from whom it gathered information. But the series of Congressional hearings on the topic created too much pressure for the Internet providers who might adopt the company’s system. “The threat of legislation got them all freaked out… we don’t want to have a massive consumer backlash on privacy.’”

Let’s relate this to the Phorm issue taking place on these shores. Phorm (and the various PR companies they have hired with their less than convincing spin and attempts at fact manipulation - read points 4 and 7 here ) have claimed that their system is completely anonymous and respects users’ privacy yet they have failed to offer the network based opt-out that I and many others have insisted on. Because we do not trust any third party with our internet activity information. It’s not anyone’s to sell.

Let me remind readers that there has been a lack of any concrete answers to questions or arguments about the legality of such systems. This despite public challenges for Phorm and BT to come to the table and show publicly the legal advice and opinions they claim to have received.

At least Congress had the cojones to get involved in the ISP adware issue, which is more than the UK government did. There is a growing backlash on privacy in the UK but it is not building momentum as fast as events in the USA. Gabriner says that Adzilla will look to partner with ISPs in countries where individuals’ privacy is viewed differently (in other words they have very little because governments of those countries don’t necessarily value individual freedoms as highly as the USA and Europe).

The article and Gabriner continues. Killer point coming up. Boldening is mine.

For a few months, Adzilla considered whether it could adopt an approach in which customers explicitly agreed to have their surfing monitored. But it couldn’t find some goodie to offer users that it felt would attract enough people to be worth the bother.

“Without massive consumer value proposition, I think this fails,” he said. “I don’t think consumers want to opt in simply to get better ads.”

He added, by the way, that the talk from the proponents of these systems that Internet users will in fact notice substantially better advertising is a myth.

“Do the math,” he said. “You can only impact a certain number of ad impressions, and there is no way that an end user will see that as better.”

The European Commission has made it explicitly clear that, in Europe, such systems must be explicitly opt-in only. So by Mr Gabriner’s opinions (and as a former CEO of an ISP Adware company he’s probably got a reasonable understanding of the market) there is no way a business following a model like those Adzilla and Phorm follow could function within the law as it stands in Europe and profitably.

Phorm offers me nothing of any benefit. I neither want nor need Phorm, Adzilla, NebuAd or any other ISP Adware company.

Let me repeat some of these killer points again:

“Without massive consumer value proposition, I think this fails,” he said. “I don’t think consumers want to opt in simply to get better ads.”

He added, by the way, that the talk from the proponents of these systems that Internet users will in fact notice substantially better advertising is a myth.

I think that speaks for itself.

Well now… Some good news on the Phorm front.

Chris Williams reports that

The Crown Prosecution Service will examine evidence that BT and Phorm’s stealth advertising targeting trials broke wiretapping laws, despite a recent police refusal to pass the case to prosecutors.

The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions told campaigner Alex Hanff that a private prosecution under section one of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) is possible. The Director must give his consent for such a prosecution.

The evidence against BT and Phorm must pass two tests. First an assessment of whether there is a “realistic prospect of conviction”, which attempts to objectively judge whether a jury would be more likely than not to find BT and Phorm guilty of breaching RIPA. Second, the CPS judges whether a prosecution would be in the public interest based on pre-defined criteria.

Read the rest of the report here.

In a gesture reminiscent of a less than impressed (and pretty cranky) Physics teacher from my school days, the European Commission have told the UK Government “You fail.  Pathetically.  Try again and this time please try harder”.

This is in response to the UK Government’s “response” to some direct questions over the Phorm issue from the European Commission which resembled something like a cross between a “Yes Minister” script and one of my poorer efforts at History homework.

Chris Williams’ report mentions

Martin Selmayr, spokesman for commissioner Viviane Reding’s Information Society and Media directorate-general told The Register the UK had more questions to answer. “We wrote to them again on the 6th [of October]“, he said. “For us the matter is not finished. Quite the contrary.”

So the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary might be trying to avoid the issues but the European Commission seems intent on getting straight answers.  Good luck to the EC.  There are a lot of people here who have tried bloody hard and got nowhere thanks to the blockheadedness of the authorities and watchdogs.

A heavyweight US investigation of counter-terror databases has concluded that the type of intelligence mining proposed by UK spy chiefs under the auspices of the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) probably won’t catch jihadis

Readers of my writings here will already know that I don’t believe a word of the “government”’s arguments about defeating terrorism being the justification for the Satsification of this country.  They will ignore these findings because the Stasification of this country is the aim of this New Labour government.

Why has the UK government, ICO and Police refused to mount detailed investigations into the (IMHO) illegal tests of the Phorm technology by BT? Despite damning legal argument proving Phorm’s “product” is illegal.

Why is the government allowing schools to fingerprint children without their committing any crime?

Why has the government given unelected local officials the powers to snoop on people without any accountability?

The reason is simple. To interfere in everyone’s day to day life. To monitor and control what people do, say and think.  To force their way into everyone’s lives and control their every moment.

Did you know that traffic wardens have been issued with warrants enabling them to act way beyond their original remit in the event of civil breakdown? In Big Brother: The Big Picture David Icke offers plenty of things to consider. Including what I believe to be the truth about Aspartame.

Like or loathe him, if there is even a grain of truth in what he says about the Big Brother project then my answer to the questions above is proven.

According to The Guardian’s technology blog, Phorm services have been blocked from Parliament.

So the government lacks the bottle to investigate Phorm’s illegality when imposed on every day internet users like you and me but when it comes to their own web activity they’re as worried as the rest of us who have been campaigning against this invasive technology.

The last part of the report is interesting:

Is that a bit rich given plans for a £12bn database of every phone call and email in the UK? I’ll leave you to decide.

Newcastle’s caretaker manager Joe Kinnear has launched a tirade at certain members of the media. Good for him I say. Good for him in calling a spade a spade and giving back some of the garbage the media love to hand out. The “journalists” may cry foul and say this isn’t fair but that is just double standards on their part.

There is a difference between what was written about Joe Kinnear and what Geoffrey Boycott wrote about Steve Harmison. The latter was a forthright observation about someone who did look past it while the former appears to be somewhat concocted, certainly from Kinnear’s point of view. Harmison responded by doing what a fast bowler should - bowling fast and taking wickets. Kinnear has responded in the only way he can - calling a spade a spade in public.

Newcastle United may be a club in a mess. When tabloids seek to worsen that then they should be taken to task. So more power to Joe Kinnear for calling it as he sees it.

I would like to see news editors serving time in prison for publishing stories which are untrue. Then I think we would see tabloids in particular paying far more attention to their methods and the content of their articles.

Political bias I can handle and filter out but untruth is wrong. Satire and humour is fine. Untruth is wrong.

Update: Nice to see that former England rugby union forward Brian Moore expressed similar sentiments in a recent Inside Sport, a BBC magazine programme discussing sporting issues.

BT’s third test of the invasive Phorm “product” - the first it has publicly announced, the other two being kept secret and done with no user consent - begins today.

This comes on the back of the Metropolitan Police deciding to drop its probe into the BT and Phorm testing. You know, the one which had no user consent and which was a breach of law as explained here. Chris Williams gives his usual excellent analysis and deconstruction of plod’s pathetic excuse. The comments page afterwards is also worth a read.

I urge anyone using BT as their Internet Service Provider to demand a MAC code from them and change to an ISP who cares about user privacy. Changing ISPs was easy to do; the most annoying part of the process was telling Virgin Media staff repeatedly that I don’t want an ISP associated with Phorm.

When time allows I will be putting in place an elegant block on BT Internet visitors to my sites.

New to the Phorm discussions? Alex Hanff’s NoDPI website is a great place to start, as is tobymeres.net - each of those sites has links to others discussing the Phorm issue.

Looks like I’m feeling a bit political this morning.  The government’s evasive response to the European Commission over Phorm and BT’s secret testing has really annoyed me.  A while back I came across this blog entry at Diesel Sweeties.

R Stevens has created a t-shirt (I have a few of his other designs and they are excellent, btw) which says of Barack Obama “Dare to hope. Prepare to be disappointed”.  It’s not an anti Obama shirt, despite the claims of some who think it is.  It is a realist’s view of things.  Get with it people.

I commented on the entry and reproduce it here, with additional notations in square brackets and spelling mistakes corrected.  This was written in July:

Continue Reading »

In a move which confirms its Stalinist desires for everyone to see, the UK “Government” has responded to the EU’s demands to investigate Phorm with a response that is so full of evasion, spin and bullshit you would have thought it came straight from a script of “Yes Minister”. Chris Williams at El Reg provides and excellent translation:

The European Commission is analysing the government’s explanation of why UK authorites have taken no action over BT and Phorm’s allegedly illegal broadband wiretapping and ad-targeting experiments in 2006 and 2007.

A spokeswoman for Vivian Reding’s information society and media commission confirmed that a response to its call for information had been received in Brussels and would form part a “legal assessment” of the trials. The UK government’s letter was about a month and a half late, the EU having originally set a reply deadline of the end of July.

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), which coordinates UK diplomatic dealings with the European Commission, refused today to provide the full text of the letter.

It sent The Reg a statement detailing only a small part of the letter. It dodges the central issue: That the UK’s largest telecoms provider secretly monitored tens of thousands of its customers’ web browsing habits without consent, and that so far the Information Commissioner’s Office and the police have not taken any enforcement action.

The statement itself (which isn’t worthy of reproducing here because it is so evasive and useless) is like something from the script of Yes Minister, all evasion, spin and bullshit. Chris translates for us thus:

Yet BERR’s statement makes no mention of the two secret experimental deployments. Rather, it is a close relative of the Home Office’s disputed advice to BT and Phorm, repeating that the government believes future Phorm deployments could be legal if consent from ISP subscribers is obtained. [The Home office had contact with BT on interception for behavioural ad targeting from autumn 2006, but says it had no knowledge of the secret trials until they were revealed by El Reg.]

On top of that, Phorm’s PR and spin people, Citigate Dewe Rogerson (who seem to have been rather quiet recently) sent a release to The Register.  More evasive spin and bullshit.  I deal in facts, not spin, so their pathetic response is not copied here either.

Take time to read the comments made by readers of The Register to the responses of the UK government and Citigate Dewe Rogerson.  Then go to the Phorm public meeting footage and see Kent Ertegrul fail to offer any convincing argument for the Phorm “product” in the face of strong legal arguments from Dr Richard Clayton and Alex Hanff.  Have Phorm and BT actually published the legal advice they claim to have received?  Not that I have seen.  Prove me wrong if you can, Phorm and BT.  Publish the legal advice you claim to have received so that we can all examine it.

The bottom line is that there was no way the UK government would initiate a full investigation into Phorm and BT’s activities. The UK government wants the Phorm technology. Desperately.  Already it has said that it wants to retain full details of every SMS message, every e-mail and all web activity. Phorm will provide a major part of the technology to do this.

Who cares if it’s illegal? Not Gordon Brown, Jacqui Smith and the other Stalinists who want to interfere in every sphere of our lives. If this comes to pass the state of Gordongrad will have a surveillance regime in place that would have given Josef Stalin, Reinhard Heydrich and Erich Honecker perpetual wet dreams. Not even in Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany or East Germany would there have been such governmental interference in the lives of its citizens.

A number of Freedom Of Information requests have been submitted to BERR.  You can bet the responses (or lack thereof) will be reported on The Register.

What happened to “Britons never never never shall be slaves” ?

Good news for those fighting against the intrusion into our online privacy by companies such as Phorm and NebuAd. Phorm acts to reassure investors as its share price drops and the Metropolitan Police finally start to invvestigate BT’s illegal (in my opinion) secret trials. Only after their poor response was made public by Alex Hanff (nice work Alex!).

Continue Reading »

The resignation of Pakistan’s President Musharraf from office was followed by the resignation of the head of the Pakistan Cricket Boad, Dr Nasim Ashraf.  Kamran Abassi offers a critical assessment of his time in office in his Pak Spin blog. The next question is who will replace him, what will he do to improve Pakistan’s cricket and will that be enough?

Good question but I think the answer is more than just a new administrator replacing an old one.

Continue Reading »

From PaidContent.

It seems that Manx Telecom (who provide Twitter’s “UK” number) is an O2 subsidiary. This would explain why O2 currently treat texts to the 07624 number as standard UK text messages.

“Though phone calls between the UK and the Channel Islands are capped to cost the same as those within the mainland, SMS rates are unregulated so Isles telcos are free to set higher termination rates for those they send, Ofcom told us. The mobile networks are likely to pass these extra costs on to clients like Twitter; some of them even bill Channel Islands numbers at international rates.”

My own experiences with other mobile networks’ answer to the 07624 number are documented here, as are links to the questions others have asked of Twitter.

With the loss of the friends’ information coming to my phone when they post it, Twitter has lost a major component of its functionality and relevance. My future use of Twitter now hangs in the balance.

The “Shut up! It’s a free service so stop moaning!” brigade have been out spreading their ideology and misinformation. To those people I say please wake up and start living in the real world. Here are a few relevant facts which you seem to have missed:

If you claim to provide a service - regardless of whether it is free or not - then the users of that service are your customers.

Good service provision requires openness, honesty, professional conduct, professional performance, timeliness and commitment to customer care. I for one question whether Twitter has achieved any of these criteria in their handling of the “UK” SMS related issues.

Twitter users were never given the option of becoming paid customers. A total lack of engaging with the customer base before making what appears to be a rather sudden decision. The kind of thing Livejournal pulled in the past. Not talking with your customers (note the use of the word “with” rather than “to”) before making a major change really won’t help your reputation.

Twitter doesn’t have a dedicated help and support section on Twitter.com. It has a quasi-forum on GetSatisfaction.com which is rather dissatisfying as customer support provisions go. (For people who have come straight to this entry, I work in IT customer support myself so am well qualified to express opinions about customer service and support provision). Whether or not that is a money saving measure I don’t know. I do know that, in my view, it is not a good way of supporting and serving customers. Again, doesn’t help your reputation.

The PaidContent report says that Twitter raised $15m recently. That’s a lot of money, even with the poor exchange rate for the US dollar. Where is that money being spent?

As an experienced IT and service professional I am entitled to express my opinions and engage in constructive dialogue with the providers of services that I use. You might prefer to say nothing and get walked over. I do not. It’s called making a positive difference. Don’t criticise me because you prefer to be supine. If Twitter prefers not to take constructive advice on board then at least I can say I tried to make a positive difference.

Twitter has work to do to retain its customer base and rescue its reputation. A lot of users, myself included are looking for alternatives to Twitter. Already TweetSMS has started to promote itself as providing the SMS functionality UK and other international users have lost, thus filling the gap Twitter have created.

It isn’t rocket science. It’s about openness, honesty and good and timely communication with your customers. A little more of each could well have avoided all the negative responses from concerned customers.

Any halfwit can say something’s crap without any justification for their argument. It takes a logical, constructive mind to say why something is wrong and then to offer alternative and better ways of handling situations. They are being offered here and elsewhere in the spirit of openness, honesty, a desire for improvement and making a positive difference.

That desire, that passion, underpins my approach to work and my writings here.