The Counterproductive Counter-Terrorism Bill

Excellent in-depth analysis of all that is wrong with this deeply-flawed bill here.

Sawing Off the Branch on which We Sit

I am a great believer in trees and the commons they form; it seems to me that going beyond preserving them to extend their coverage across the world could help deal with many of the most pressing problems facing mankind: climate change, desertification, water, etc.

It has always struck me as barmy that the contribution that trees make to the planet has not been better quantified; now it has:

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.

Think about that, and then think of the continuing destruction of forests around the world - in the Amazon, in Africa, in Indonesia, in Russia. This really is the literal equivalent of sawing off the branch on which the whole of humanity sits....

Ubuntu's Balancing Act

One thing that has always struck me in the free software world is the power of example. Once it emerged that Google ran on GNU/Linux, there could be no more argument about the latter's suitability for the enterprise. Similarly, MySQL's adoption by just about every Web 2.0 company meant that it, too, could no longer be dismissed as underpowered.

I think that the following could mark a similar milestone for the business use of Ubuntu....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Visualising the End of an Era

Good analysis - and don't miss that embedded video:

Twenty world Internet citizens met in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in October of 2008 for a week of reflections on life, love, and the Internet.

The perfect if unintentional nailing of a bunch of narcissistic wallies and their bankrupt "values"....

Those Who Have Nothing to Hide...

Ha! Brilliant:

I’ve been asked to say a few words about the disappearance of a computer hard drive containing the personal details of about 100,000 of the Armed Forces. The information was being held by EDS, which is the Ministry of Defence’s main IT contractor.

...

I can confirm the disk was not encrypted. We have not[h]ing to hide from whoever stole it, and therefore nothing to fear.

Linus and the Art of the Kernel Release

In case you missed it, something of truly global importance happened last week. No, not the collapse of capitalism as we know it, something much more profound: Linus started a blog. His first post suggested that it won't be of much interest to the enterprise open source world, since it's really a *personal* blog....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Reasons to be Cheerful

As Chris Anderson notes, whatever the other one does, the *gift* economy should do well in these difficult times:

# Gift economy: This is driven primarily by people's "spare cycles" (AKA cognitive surplus) and rising unemployment means more spare cycles, sadly. Obviously people still need to pay the rent, so many of these shared contributions are really just advertisements for the contributor's skills. But other contributions will be idle hands finding work while they look for their next job. As a result I think you'll see a boom in creativity and sharing online as people take matters into their own hands. Today, if you're in-between jobs you can still be productive, and the reputational currency you earn may pay dividends in the form of a better job when the economy recovers. Result: Positive

Sharing ideas is even more fun when everyone has less stuff.

"I've Never Voted Tory in My Life..."

....but next time I will if this proposal isn’t dropped.

Isn't it interesting how often we're hearing that refrain about ID cards....?

Open Source Schools

I've often lamented the lack of uptake of open source in schools. Here's a site that's trying to do something about it, called, logically enough, Open Source Schools:

The Schools Open Source Project is an initiative to help schools with awareness, adoption, deployment, use and ongoing development of Open Source Software (OSS). A number of schools are already realising the benefits of OSS within their ICT strategy. This project will work to share their experiences along with good OSS practice from other sectors with the wider community of educational practitioners, including teachers, decision makers and IT specialists.

(Via SolidOffice.)

Why eBay Should Open-Source Skype

eBay is not going through the happiest of times. Not only has it found it necessary to make 1000 people – 10% of its workforce – redundant, it has had to own up to a serious breach of trust with its Internet telephony program, Skype....

On Linux Journal.

First, Catch Your "War on Terror"....

Watch this trick:

The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.

Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.

First, create a nebulous threat to the nation; call it something grand like, oh, "war on terror". Pass a set of wide-reaching laws that let you do anything to "fight" it. Then, redefine anyone who opposes you as a "terrorist" (after all, you are in favour of the "war on terror"; they are against you; therefore, they are against the "war on terror", and thus against the country). Apply previously created laws to the hilt.

Voilà! No more opposition. (Via Slashdot.)

Oh Irony, Thy Name is Labour

How does the Labour government manage to do it? Just as they let out a few sly leaks about their super-duper cure-everything Interception Modernisation Programme - basically the ultimate in data mining for info against those terribly naughty bad chaps, all for a measly £12 billion because, you know, we're rolling in it, right? - we have, with stunning timing, the following:

The most extensive government report to date on whether terrorists can be identified through data mining has yielded an important conclusion: It doesn't really work.

A National Research Council report, years in the making and scheduled to be released Tuesday, concludes that automated identification of terrorists through data mining or any other mechanism "is neither feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology development efforts." Inevitable false positives will result in "ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses" being incorrectly flagged as suspects.

The whopping 352-page report, called "Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists," amounts to at least a partial repudiation of the Defense Department's controversial data-mining program called Total Information Awareness, which was limited by Congress in 2003.

Let's hope the Nu Poodles ares sufficiently sycophantic to pay attention to what their lords and master in the US say, even if they won't listen to the pleadings from the serfs they rule.

And talking of IT screw-ups from Labour, here's a very timely post from that one-man investigative marvel, Tony Collins:

All governments have unsung IT successes and large failures. But New Labour has had more big government IT-based calamities on general exhibit than any government we can remember, despite earnest attempts to learn lessons.

The Party's record was summed up in November 2004 by the National Audit Office, whose reports are always carefully-worded. It said, "The government has a poor record on delivering successful large IT-based projects and programmes." That perception remains today.

He has this perceptive analysis of why Labour has gone data-mad:

Building a bridge from the US to England may seem a good idea in theory but it is not practical. Yet ministers embarked on the technological equivalent with the NHS's £12.7bn National Programme for IT because nobody they would want to listen to told them it was fanciful.

One reason so many large public sector projects fail is that executives from some IT suppliers regularly propose to government unrealistic but ostensibly credible and beneficial solutions to problems civil servants did not know existed until suppliers explained what could be achieved with new technology.

The tenacity of some suppliers wears down civil servants. Indeed the centralising, self-aggrandising, and self-expanding instincts of bureaucracies play perfectly into the hands of some IT sales teams who understand the "transformational" agendas of successive governments.

Windows XP Ultraportables - Free Virus Included

Yet another reason to buy the GNU/Linux version:

Asus has admitted that some of the its Eee Box desktop mini PCs have shipped with a virus.

But while the company has only admitted the infection was present in machines shipped to Japan, Register Hardware can confirm that other territories may be affected too.

According to an email sent out by Asus, PC Advisor reports, the Eee Box's 80GB hard drive has the recycled.exe virus files hidden in the drive's D: partition. When the drive is opened, the virus activates and attempts to infect the C: drive and an removable drives connected to the system.

According to Symantec, the malware is likely to be the W32/Usbalex worm, which creates an autorun.inf file to trigger recycled.exe from D:.

Bad News on the UK Software Patent Front

Why is there always this Jesuitical casuistry when it comes to software?

We have the following:

what goes on inside a computer can be said to be closer to a mathematical method (which is, of course, not patentable by virtue of art 52(2)(a)) than what goes on inside other machines.

But before that the same judge has said:

It can also be said in favour of Symbian's case that it would be somewhat arbitrary and unfair to discriminate against people who invent programs which improve the performance of computers against those who invent programs which improve the performance of other machines.

Well, no more unfair than not allowing physicists to patent the laws they discover, or the theorems that mathematicians prove. The point is, software is not "closer to a mathematical method", it *is* a mathematical method, or rather a concatenation of them.

All this juridical "on the one hand" and "on the other" in the interests of "balance" does not change this. The current decision is seriously bad news, because it opens the door to even more weaselly patent applications that contort themselves into the magic position to gain the favour of whichever Jesuit is on duty that day.

As a result of which, new software becomes much *harder* and more expensive to write - even to the point of impossibility, if patent thickets get too thick. Hardly what the great and glorious patent system is supposed to do, is it...?

Why Mono and Samba Are Patently Different

Here's a very good question: why are people (including me) nasty to Mono, but nice to Samba?

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Perils of Intellectual Monopolies, Part 6574

Ever drawn a car? Be careful, they might arrest you for copyright infringement:

Keene Valley resident Jerilea Zempel was detained at the U.S. border this summer because she had a drawing of a sport-utility vehicle in her sketchbook.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers told Zempel they suspected her of copyright infringement.

Now, tell me again why you like intellectual monopolies so much?
(Via BoingBoing.)

Linus Has a Blog???!?

The end of civilisation as we know it is obviously closer than I thought.... (Via DaveM.)

Get Real, People: Get *Real* People

I'm not a big fan of top “n” lists. They generally lack any kind of metric, and end up with bizarre compromise choices. This “Top Agenda Setters 2008”, supposedly about “the top 50 most influential individuals in the worldwide technology and IT industries”, is no exception....

On Open Enterprise blog.

"IBM" Buys "Red Hat", Sort Of....

Well, that gives an idea of the importance of this move for the world of open access:

Open access pioneer BioMed Central has been acquired by Springer, ScientificAmerican.com has learned.

....

Those in the open access movement had watched BioMed Central with keen interest. Founded in 2000, it was the first for-profit open access publisher and advocates feared that when the company was sold, its approach might change. But Cockerill assured editors that a BMC board of trustees "will continue to safeguard BioMed Central's open access policy in the future." Springer "has been notable...for its willingness to experiment with open access publishing," Cockerill said in a release circulated with the email to editors.

Opening Up ISO's Can of Worms

Nothing shows better what is wrong with the ISO, and why we need to replace it with a new global standards organisation, than the following post....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Nanny Google

Do we really want to go here?

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you're really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you're in the right state of mind?

Whatever next? - "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid can't do that"...?

You Can Bank on It

Interesting:

The ease with which technology allows customers to move their money around by internet or phone has introduced a new financial phenomenon – the "silent run" on a bank.

Within hours, telephone and internet banking customers can remove huge amounts of money from a bank rumoured to be in trouble, without telltale queues, or any other outward sign of the flood of cash.

The shape of things to come.

You Know You're Getting Old When...

...you don't recognise half the things these young chaps are talking about...

On Open Enterprise blog.

Aptly Astounded

Even though it's years since I crawled out of the dark cave of proprietary software, I remain amazed at the unending stream of free apps that are available in the realm of light. This is such a contrast to the world of Windows, which is predicated on the idea that you must buy everything or you can't have it. To be given good stuff, again and again, is an extraordinary blessing of free software that is all-too easy to overlook.

At the heart of that blessing, for me, is APT, which makes getting as easy as asking. It turns out that there are ways of making this generosity even richer, through yet another gift, APTonCD:

Get APT anywhere

Have you ever felt that there is no life without APT? Well, if you'd suddenly lost conection to the internet, how would you install new packages? What about dependencies? You've just finished installing Ubuntu and configured it to a rad look, with all your favorite applications? For some reason you now have to re-install it? Feel like you have to download all of your favorite programs again? What? You've already forgotten which packages you had dowloaded before?

What is APTonCD?

APTonCD is a tool with a graphical interface which allows you to create one or more CDs or DVDs (you choose the type of media) with all of the packages you've downloaded via APT-GET or APTITUDE, creating a removable repository that you can use on other computers.
APTonCD will also allow you to automatically create media with all of your .deb packages located in one especific repository, so that you can install them into your computers without the need for an internet conection.

How fab is that? (Via Μιχάλης Κασάπογλου.)

Having Lots of Fon

One of the blogs I really enjoy reading is that of Fon's founder, Martin Varsavsky. What I love about his writing is his candour: he clearly writes what he thinks, even if it's slightly painful for others - or himself. I've already noted this interesting comment:

Fon has to provide special VPN tunneling technology in the UK for the UK secret services to investigate suspected criminals and terrorists when they log on to our WiFi signal.

Strangely, this passage has now been "disappeared" from the original post....

Here's some more interesting info - not quite so controversial, this time:

Fon now has 10 times more hotspots around the world than our second closest rival. In the UK and Japan our coverage is especially good. With this crisis Fon cannot think of deep pocketed investors continuing to cover high burn rates, regardless of the fact that our investors are BT, Google, eBay, Itochu, and some of the largest VCs in the world.