there are a series of programs on channel 4 this week, caught a little bit of one of them. people, including cherie blair (tony's wife) were quizzing a liverpool police officer about what they were doing to fight crime. one of the responses was that every month they will pick a section of the city, set up their network of mobile cameras/license plate recognition software, and study the patterns of drivers for stolen cars, potential drug dealers, etc. another example of the surveillance culture.

and this caught my eye:
Government launches data mash-up -"The UK government has launched a competition to find innovative ways of using the masses of data it collects."

apparently NOT private/personal data, though will be several gig of info related to "criminal justice, health and education". and there is a prize of £20,000 to person who comes up with best idea.

Government helps Viacom end the information age as we know it

Assuming they get past the appeals.

from the bbc article on same topic, which is where i first heard the story.
Viacom said it wanted the data to "compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing video with that of non-infringing videos."

hmm. so they don't want to prosecute people who uploaded the clips? they just want to punish youtube?

i wonder if this is worth a thread of its own. when we think about what youtube does in base terms, yes undoubtedly it infringes copy right, it bypasses lucrative deals that have been put into place - one of the examples is that english football might follow up viacom's action, and they make a fortune from highlight sales.

of course, where would we be without youtube, it has so much material that its great. and certainly copy right laws needed to be updated, people need to get with the new system. but then there is the question of where the money is in that for big business vs whether we really care about those people who are making absurd amounts of money anyway.

hmm.

"The economics of the future is somewhat
different. You see, money doesn't exist in
the 24th century . . . The acquisition of
wealth is no longer the driving force in
our lives. We work to better ourselves and
the rest of humanity."

--Star Trek

we've still got a way to go.

update on earlier story.
A central database holding details of everyone's phone calls and emails could be a "step too far for the British way of life", ministers have been warned.

Plans for such a database are rumoured to be in the Communications Data Bill.

But Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said "lines must be drawn" to defend "fundamental liberties".

He told the BBC he was not aware of such a database in any other democracy. He said there had also not been enough debate on the expanded DNA database.

"Do we really want the police, security services and other organs of the state to have access to more and more aspects of our private lives?" he said in the report.

We do have to stand up and say these are our fundamental liberties and our freedoms and lines have to be drawn somewhere

Richard Thomas
Information Commissioner

Engineer hacks San Francisco, waits in jail...

Little Brother?

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
Engineer hacks San Francisco, waits in jail...

Little Brother?

So he's able to lock down a network and no one can breach his security measures. They had attempted to fire him for poor performance and were unsuccessful. Sure, maybe he's just someone who wants to be paid for doing nothing, but doesn't it also seem possible he's targeted by superiors for some other reason? After all, this is evidence that he has proficiency at his job.

More than anything, though, I think this is very telling about vulnerability of government resources due to poor management. But then again, I'm no database administrator...anyone care to offer their take on this?

It's odd how secretive they're being about why they tried to fire him.

I don't find that odd at all. You're not permitted to say anything publicly about an employee that could prevent him from obtaining employment, basically...The law firm I used to work at would never do more than confirm employment, and would not say another word about reasons for hiring or leaving. I'd imagine SF has a similar policy; if they said they were firing him for X, and he had trouble finding employment as a result, he could sue them.

Of course, he's kind of been hoist by his own petard, and will probably have trouble finding employment anywhere too respectable, but I'd imagine SF is just covering its ass and following policy.

quote:

Originally posted by remotepush:
update on earlier story.
A central database holding details of everyone's phone calls and emails could be a "step too far for the British way of life", ministers have been warned.

Plans for such a database are rumoured to be in the Communications Data Bill.

But Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said "lines must be drawn" to defend "fundamental liberties".

He told the BBC he was not aware of such a database in any other democracy. He said there had also not been enough debate on the expanded DNA database.

"Do we really want the police, security services and other organs of the state to have access to more and more aspects of our private lives?" he said in the report.

We do have to stand up and say these are our fundamental liberties and our freedoms and lines have to be drawn somewhere

Richard Thomas
Information Commissioner

This is the same, leg-kicking death throw paroxysms that the fundamental Muslim world is going through. There is no difference thematically, both of these our monolithic cultures on the eve of obsolescence.

Each fight a losing battle against their own increasing irrelevance.

I'm not suggesting that it will be unicorns and rainbows next, but I do not believe that the current power holders in the US and the Muslim world can co-exist indefinitely with the technology of the 21st century.

I really do not believe they will be able to win this struggle they have taken on with technology because I believe technology is stronger than people.

Will the nation-state survive past the 21st century? The 20th certainly looked liked it's battle to persist and seems as if it lost.

Thoughts?

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
Engineer hacks San Francisco, waits in jail...

Little Brother?

WIRED News: Experts Say Lax Security Allowed San Francisco Network Hijacking

I suppose that's the Big Brother connection. Government can't even manage current technology responsibly so why would any nation entrust it with more intrusive measures?

Wait,...I know the answer to that already.

lol...:
"Nobody in their right mind today does that,"

quote:

I really do not believe they will be able to win this struggle they have taken on with technology because I believe technology is stronger than people.

Will the nation-state survive past the 21st century? The 20th certainly looked liked it's battle to persist and seems as if it lost.

Thoughts?

First: TOTALLY rainbows & unicorns, except for middle class pussies like us.

The Market State is the currently ascending paradigm, but it is running into resource depletion.

And yes, techno is stronger than us. We survived and came into prominence by tech. W/out it: puny hairless apes.

Combine the two and you have whomever designs and maintains hold of satisfactory resource-depletion mitigation/replacement tech will at least predominate.

Hard to much care who wins what wars when everyone's starving.

The State's monopoly on violence crumbles in such circumstances.

quote:

hmm. so they don't want to prosecute people who uploaded the clips? they just want to punish youtube?

Puts them in a position of fighting over a dwindling pie they are further strangling by their struggles to squash the other.

Some upstart young shrew-like mammal will steal their lunch in the end.

Whoever hits upon a "marketing" model that fits the new info paradigm and its digital lawlessness vis a vis copyright et al, will swarm to the fore.

Google seems to me to still be the leading current upstart. It does provide some new content (google Earth, for example) but said content is really manufactured elsewhere and they simly provide the most enticingly easy form of accessing it, and then sell ads and such on the amount of attention it receives.

Like Sterling said, it;s not an information economy so much as an attention garnering economy (in terms of info and similar abstracts).

There's still that niggling issue of the stuff we actually NEED to stay alive, not the stuff we use to obtain some semblance of sanity by alleviating our worse boredoms and angst-led ennui.

google accused of hypocrisy on privacy issues

Google has been accused of "hypocrisy" over its stance on personal privacy.

In court documents defending a lawsuit brought against its Street View mapping tool it has asserted that "complete privacy doesn't exist."


google gets go ahead for street mapping uk

The UK government has until the end of August to respond to a letter from the European Union about the controversial online ad system Phorm.

Or if you read IT website The Register, the UK government has already missed the deadline...

best,
Chris H