Continuing the theme of BIG numbers - Climate Feedback has links to a new site giving an estimate of the cumulative carbon dioxide emissions over the last 250 years (now somewhere past 530 000 000 000 000 tonnes)- and predicting when this figure will exceed 1 trillion tonnes - a limit calculated to keep average temperature rises below 2 degrees.
The point of course is that we need to see radical change NOW to head off an otherwise inevitable warming of the climate. Change here meaning global cuts in emissions of between 2.1 and 4.5% per year . What it doesn't say - but is important to understand - is that the earlier cuts are made the more effective they will be.
What are you doing for your 4.5% cut???
Monday, 2 November 2009
For the spy that has everything?
What do you give to the spy that has everything? Somewhere to keep it all....
In this case the spy in question is Uncle Sam, in the form of the National Security Agency, who needs somewhere BIG to put all that data they are eavedropping. Estimates of the storage they need range from a mere couple of hundred petabytes (200 000 000 000 000 000 bytes) to a mindblowing yottabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes).
And I thought it was the citizens duty to keep a watch on government - not the other way round.
Wisdom and justice are not found in a database......
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Putting privacy first.
In this case the spy in question is Uncle Sam, in the form of the National Security Agency, who needs somewhere BIG to put all that data they are eavedropping. Estimates of the storage they need range from a mere couple of hundred petabytes (200 000 000 000 000 000 bytes) to a mindblowing yottabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes).
And I thought it was the citizens duty to keep a watch on government - not the other way round.
Wisdom and justice are not found in a database......
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Putting privacy first.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Watching you: Surveillance and the EU.
Open Europe has published a new report taking stock of how the EU is impacting our civil liberties.... Everyone should read it: "How the EU is watching you: the rise of Europe's surveillance state"
Quoting the Open Europe blog: "There are lots of juicy proposals in the pipeline including: a target to train a third of all police officers across the EU in a “common culture” of policing; the mass collection and sharing of personal data including DNA records into an EU-wide database; controversial surveillance techniques including ‘cyber patrols’; the creation of a fledgling ‘EU Home Office’ with powers to decide on cooperation on police, border, immigration and criminal justice issues; an EU “master plan” on information exchange; the transfer of criminal proceedings among EU member states; a three-fold increase in the number of controversial EU arrest warrants; access to other member states’ national tax databases; and EU laws on citizens’ right to internet access."
The road to hell is paved with good intentions...
Also on: HAX & The Telegraph
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Putting privacy first.
Quoting the Open Europe blog: "There are lots of juicy proposals in the pipeline including: a target to train a third of all police officers across the EU in a “common culture” of policing; the mass collection and sharing of personal data including DNA records into an EU-wide database; controversial surveillance techniques including ‘cyber patrols’; the creation of a fledgling ‘EU Home Office’ with powers to decide on cooperation on police, border, immigration and criminal justice issues; an EU “master plan” on information exchange; the transfer of criminal proceedings among EU member states; a three-fold increase in the number of controversial EU arrest warrants; access to other member states’ national tax databases; and EU laws on citizens’ right to internet access."
The road to hell is paved with good intentions...
Also on: HAX & The Telegraph
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Putting privacy first.
Talking privacy in person - How worried should we be?
If you're in the UK you can take the opportunity to catch these seminars on privacy....
First, Cory Doctorow is talking about privacy at the Battle of Ideas in London on Saturday - trying to answer the question "How worried should we be?"
That's 'Rethinking Privacy in an age of Disclosure and Sharing'
on Saturday 31 October, 1.30pm until 3.00pm, Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Then, a little further down the line, the Open Rights Group is organising a talk by cryptographer, technologist and author Bruce Schneier on the title of: 'The Future of Privacy: Rethinking Security Trade-offs'
on Friday 4 December 2009 at 18:30. St Albans Centre, 18 Brooke St, London
That looks like two interesting topics.... Can't someone get those onto Youtube???
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Putting privacy first.
First, Cory Doctorow is talking about privacy at the Battle of Ideas in London on Saturday - trying to answer the question "How worried should we be?"
That's 'Rethinking Privacy in an age of Disclosure and Sharing'
on Saturday 31 October, 1.30pm until 3.00pm, Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Then, a little further down the line, the Open Rights Group is organising a talk by cryptographer, technologist and author Bruce Schneier on the title of: 'The Future of Privacy: Rethinking Security Trade-offs'
on Friday 4 December 2009 at 18:30. St Albans Centre, 18 Brooke St, London
That looks like two interesting topics.... Can't someone get those onto Youtube???
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Putting privacy first.
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Bad habits, bad government - Fudging the figures
You may remember the fuss about government statistics on piracy being based on adjusted, interpolated figures sourced from industry lobbyists.
Heresy Corner has a super piece on 'Abusing the evidence' (about amongst other things, sex trafficking) that shows that the use of selective statistics to support UK government policy making is endemic. As the Heresiarch puts it..
"The government has loudly proclaimed its commitment to "evidence-based policy-making" while instead pursuing policy-based evidence making."
Statistics is only evidence if it is honestly presented - and scientifically valid. Fudging the figures will just lead to bad policy - and bad government.
Do I mean will - or has?
Heresy Corner has a super piece on 'Abusing the evidence' (about amongst other things, sex trafficking) that shows that the use of selective statistics to support UK government policy making is endemic. As the Heresiarch puts it..
"The government has loudly proclaimed its commitment to "evidence-based policy-making" while instead pursuing policy-based evidence making."
Statistics is only evidence if it is honestly presented - and scientifically valid. Fudging the figures will just lead to bad policy - and bad government.
Do I mean will - or has?
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
An Open Letter to the Music Industry
Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, Piratpartiet, has issued an open letter to the music industry - following a speech he made at a music industry event in Manchester. While reports of the event are interesting for the reaction the speech generated, Rick's letter is a 'must read' for anyone interested in digital rights and the future of copyright. Right on the button....
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
Monday, 19 October 2009
UK Government out of touch on copyright
The UK is one of the main movers behind the Council of Minister's refusal to accept 'innocent until proven guiilty' as a guiding principle for cutting internet access to suspected copyright infringers... However, at home things are far from quiet in opposition to the government's plans.
Tom Watson's early day motion on illicit file sharing continues to gain MP's support, while the Open Rights Group has published the results of a survey that shows that supporting cutting people off from the internet for filesharing is a clear vote loser. Sixty eight percent thought that internet users should be disconnected only once evidence had been considered by a court - a pretty resounding chorus in defence of our rights to 'innocent until proven guilty'.
If you are one of those sixty eight percent then write to your MP and tell them so... and also write to your MEP (right away!) and tell them to put pressure on the Council of Minister's to accept Amendment 138 as proposed by the EU parliament - it's the first and best way to ensure just due process is protected in law.
Meanwhile the government get a knocking too in the recently published report by the UK All Party Parliamentary group on Copyright. It has lots of interesting reading, with details of the evidence from a wide range of parties on both sides of the debate. On illicit file sharing the group concludes
"We conclude that much of the problem with illegal sharing of copyrighted material has been caused by the rightsholders, and the music industry in particular, being far too slow in getting their act together and making popular legal alternatives available.
We do not believe that disconnecting end users is in the slightest bit consistent with policies that attempt to promote eGovernment, and we recommend that this approach to dealing with illegal file-sharing should not be further considered.
We think that it is inappropriate to make policy choices in the UK when policy options are still to be agreed by the EU Commission and EU Parliament in their negotiations over the “Telecoms Package”. We recommend that the Government terminate their current policy-making process, and restart it with a new consultation once the EU has made its decisions."
Which is pretty blunt, given that this is a cross parliamentary group.
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
Tom Watson's early day motion on illicit file sharing continues to gain MP's support, while the Open Rights Group has published the results of a survey that shows that supporting cutting people off from the internet for filesharing is a clear vote loser. Sixty eight percent thought that internet users should be disconnected only once evidence had been considered by a court - a pretty resounding chorus in defence of our rights to 'innocent until proven guilty'.
If you are one of those sixty eight percent then write to your MP and tell them so... and also write to your MEP (right away!) and tell them to put pressure on the Council of Minister's to accept Amendment 138 as proposed by the EU parliament - it's the first and best way to ensure just due process is protected in law.
Meanwhile the government get a knocking too in the recently published report by the UK All Party Parliamentary group on Copyright. It has lots of interesting reading, with details of the evidence from a wide range of parties on both sides of the debate. On illicit file sharing the group concludes
"We conclude that much of the problem with illegal sharing of copyrighted material has been caused by the rightsholders, and the music industry in particular, being far too slow in getting their act together and making popular legal alternatives available.
We do not believe that disconnecting end users is in the slightest bit consistent with policies that attempt to promote eGovernment, and we recommend that this approach to dealing with illegal file-sharing should not be further considered.
We think that it is inappropriate to make policy choices in the UK when policy options are still to be agreed by the EU Commission and EU Parliament in their negotiations over the “Telecoms Package”. We recommend that the Government terminate their current policy-making process, and restart it with a new consultation once the EU has made its decisions."
Which is pretty blunt, given that this is a cross parliamentary group.
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
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