SRoC: Slightly Right of Centre

Why you need to strip-search your child EVERY DAY

2013-06-18T12:37:00.002+01:00

By staff reporter Moor L Panic

Irresponsible global technology giants are selling thumbnail-sized devices capable of storing millions of pornographic images and are REFUSING to make such devices safe for children.

Yes, on the very day the government has finally tackled the menace of rogue internet service providers not doing enough to protect your child online, a new threat emerges.

The widespread availability of such tiny devices make it possible for one enterprising youngster to circulate vile pornographic images to hundreds of other children, virtually undetected.

If you're a parent concerned that your child may have access to such devices we can only recommend installing an airport-grade body scanner at your front door until manufacturers of such devices face up to their responsibilities.

Failing that, strip searches on entry act as a major deterrent.

Join the dots - Snowden has defected to China

2013-06-14T15:11:00.002+01:00

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden was quoted last week as saying "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things"

Yet in a supreme act of irony he may end up living his life in the privacy equivalent of the fires of hell, having leapt there from the NSA's frying pan to expose that the USA does "these sort of things", things that one expects of China or Russia.

First Russia seemed to come out with an offer of asylum. Then Putin went on telly and seemed to praise the NSA for doing what he would expect then to do to fight terrorism.

But what grounds are there to suspect Snowden has already struck a deal with Beijing?

First there is the lack of arrest warrant and no start of formal extradition proceedings. This strikes me as strange - surely the USA would want to do what it can, in addition to the persistent threat of a CIA rendition squad on Snowden's tail, to prevent him leaving Hong Kong for another territory.

If the US already knows - or at least suspects - Snowden now has the formal protection of China it wouldn't want to suffer the embarrassment of fighting an extradition demand doomed to fail.

Secondly there's Snowden's interview with the South China Morning Post, in which he alleges US cyber attacks against Hong Kong and China.

This seems out of character from a man who seemed primarily focussed with the privacy of Americans.

Remember this is a guy who signed-up, at first directly and then later indirectly, to work for military arms of government. Now he's all squeamish about the odd electronic bombardment..

He must also surely see these kind of revelations might affect his home support; currently one in three Americans see Snowden as a patriot, not a traitor whilst less than a quarter take the counter view.

So why give that interview? Or was that part of the deal to keep the extradition warrant at bay.

And thirdly there's the bizarre revelation that Edward Snowden is officially banned from entring UK.

What purpose could such a ban serve? Surely as an ally of the US the UK would welcome the leaker with open arms, before promptly attaching a GPS ankle bracelet and assigning a crack team of G4S security guards to enforce strict bail conditions pending extradition to his homeland.

It's possible the UK just didn't want another Assange holed up on its territory fighting a lengthy case against extradition, but it's equally likely he's been classified as a foreign intelligence threat.

If Snowden has won the protection of China he may end up regretting his words: I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things.

@JamesFirth

Shocking: UK minister promotes commercial tool directly to industry at closed-door ministry meeting

2013-06-14T13:50:00.001+01:00

On 30th May I reported yet more delays in implementing the UK's three strikes law to combat online copyright infringement.

I reported sources telling me the first copyright infringement warning letters were now unlikely to go out until 2016.

With thanks to Glyn Moody for pointing me in the right direction, it seems the government's own civil servants agree... Well, to within 6 months.

Published 5 days later on the 4th June, minutes of a recent quarterly lobby parlour, where Ed Vaizey, the UK's minister responsible for the internet, invites copyright lobbyists and global internet giants to tell him how to do his job whilst shutting out the likes of you or I, reveal:

"DCMS expects the first letters to be sent in the latter half of 2015"

Considering the Digital Economy Act was passed in early 2010 this official assessment marks a delay of well over five years.

Sources for my original story were clear that the remaining legislation - two statutory instruments (that might possibly, now, be rolled into a single instrument) - were unlikely to go before Parliament until after the 2015 General Election.

By my own estimates it will then take around 9 months to establish the systems necessary to get the first letter out, including the crucial appeals process, hence my claim of 2016.

It seems the Department for Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) thinks it can be done slightly faster, hence their note of optimism in their timetable of back-end of 2015.

Commercial infringement tool promoted

The same minutes note an alarming development.

A commercial system by whiteBULLTET, whose representative was present at this meeting with minister Ed Vaizey, is being touted as a potential tool to prevent online advertisers serving ads on websites hosting copyright infringing content.

Alarming for 2 reasons. Firstly, what transparency and oversight will there be for an automated system that could potentially ruin any online business unfairly accused of hosting infringing content by an automated system?

What redress will there be for websites unfairly tarred? Will the government be culpable for any loss suffered by a legitimate business for allowing this solution to be presented to advertisers at a formal meeting held in a UK government ministry?

And the second reason for alarm: have rules concerning market procurement processes and commercial promotion been revoked?

Is it now acceptable for a UK government minister to allow a commercial company to promote what is effectively a compliance product directly to key industry representatives?

How was whiteBULLET chosen? Have any other commercial systems been evaluated? How many companies were invited to bid for this compliance work?

In fact it's even more alarming, given that the compliance element is to unwritten rules drafted by a bunch of lobbyists and endorsed by the chair, a government minister.

@JamesFirth

UPDATE

@JamesFirth Whitebullet also received grant funding of £100k+ from IPO earlier on this year for this development
— Joscelyn (@Joscelyn) June 14, 2013

Another example of that 95-year copyright term fostering cultural innovation

2013-06-14T09:25:00.003+01:00

Want to include a rendition of "Happy Birthday To You" in your next film or documentary? Well, it will cost you $1,500 to license the copyright in the music and lyrics; that is, unless a lawsuit claiming the song actually dates back to 1893 rather than 1924, as held by the current licensors, succeeds.

The case itself doesn't interest me, but it highlights the stupidity of the argument that copyright fosters innovation: when companies can exploit a single work for a lifetime and then some, where's the financial incentive to come up with something new?

If, as I've argued for, copyright terms were limited to 20 years - comparable to patent protection, then producers would be forced to find something new to keep the cash rolling in.

Furthermore, the courts would be freed up from ruling on this guff whilst media lawyers and indemnity insurers skimming from the kitty meant to remunerate original artists would have to find something more productive to do with their time.

One of the symptoms of long copyright terms is that rights owners continue to market their catalogue many years after its sell-by date.

Not only that, but holders of previously successful franchises have a great deal of cash to reinvest in future marketing, keeping the likes of Superman, Batman, Iron Man, Spiderman, etc on our screens in perpetuity.

Is it any wonder that directors like Spielberg and Lucas are predicting a meltdown of the film industry - although perhaps not sharing my view that long copyright terms are to blame.

The market for creative ideas is skewed. Owners of previously successful franchises have a loud voice, whilst contemporary innovators are often struggling for cash to support themselves, never mind push their ideas to directors and producers.

The result is the same shit, different decade; decade, after decade, after decade...

@JamesFirth

The morning after the weekend the Big Data bubble burst

2013-06-11T09:51:00.002+01:00

A cynic might say worldwide intelligence services are only doing to our data what countless Big Data Corporations have done for well over a decade now.

That cynic might say government security services, even with the types of data syphons revealed in the Guardian over the last few days, generally know far less about our lives than our supermarket or bank.

But for some reason, and despite the power large corporations hold over our lives (the power to deny: deny credit, deny access to a service, or erase an online identity...), exposure of a government tap into this data has, finally, causes a shit storm big enough to seriously damage a whole industry.

My surprise is only that it has taken this long for people to realise that there are practically no legal safeguards for the data of non-US nationals held by US companies, wherever the data is physically stored.

Yes, that's right. If you pay a US company for a service, even if the data is physically stored on servers based wholly in the EU, your data can still be sequestered by the US government.

Last weekend politicians and spy chiefs lined up to defend the actions of the NSA as invaluable in defeating terrorism.

Cut through the rhetoric and there were numerous admissions that spying on electronic communications of foreign nationals was to be expected as just something nations do. They spy on other nations; they always have, and they always will.

Last weekend was the weekend when the world woke up to conspiracy fact.

It was the weekend that British MPs, many of whom I know to use gmail, Yahoo or Microsoft to conduct their political affairs outside parliament, realised there were no safeguards in place to prevent a foreign government spying on their private correspondence.

Note: MPs are expected to have secondary email accounts, they're essential because MPs only have access to Parliamentary email once elected - they need to get elected first!

It was the weekend that corporations, some of whom were already alerted to laptop seizures at border posts and had previously instructed employees to travel only with a "clean" laptop in order to protect industrial secrets such as pharmaceutical research being cloned on entry, realised all their data was already at risk because they purchased "secure" cloud storage and other data services from a US-based company.

Despite legislation being brought-in over a decade ago, many have only taken note when hard evidence emerged that this was actually happening.

There is in place today a mechanism for US government agencies to read nearly all our email, check our web searches, possibly what websites we visit - since each click may be sent to Google or Microsoft depending what browser features are enabled...

And there are no safeguards or limits unless you are a US citizen.

I hypothesise this revelation has burst the Big Data Bubble.

The immediate effects will be small. Charities and NGOs lobbying on changes to US policy, politicians worldwide and companies at the cutting edge of innovation will be the first to turn their backs on a jurisdiction that offers no legal safeguards for data that can be shown to belong to a foreign entity.

A jurisdiction, remember, that spear-headed the fight against copyright infringement with extra-judicial take-downs of websites worldwide.

It's a bubble that will take a while to deflate, for there are at the moment few alternatives to many of the services run by US-based tech companies.

But the damage is done and the trend will, in all likelihood, be irreversible - at least in the short term.

Last week I asked whether people cared enough about their data to make a difference. Today I'm under no doubt that the slow demise of Big Data, and particularly data hosted outside the EU, will snowball as viable EU-based alternatives emerge.

This time next year we may see Silicon Valley bosses scratching their heads and licking their corporate wounds; and, maybe, finally fighting the cause they should have fought a decade ago.

For only when citizens worldwide are given the same legal protection as US citizens will EU-based companies and citizens feel comfortable handing their data over.

@JamesFirth

Bootnote: The British lobby effort against enhanced EU data protection will find it much harder to garner support from the public and businesses alike - which may be a shame as the EU really messed up with the cookie law, focussing on the method rather than the overall trade and exploitation of personal data.

Does the public really care if governments spy on them? The acid test may have just begun...

2013-06-07T13:18:00.001+01:00

Beyond what looks like irrevocable evidence that US government electronic surveillance goes way beyond what all but the most conspiratorial of conspiracy theorists have theorised is one uncomfortable question: do people care in sufficient numbers to make a difference?

Even more distasteful for me is the blanket secrecy around surveillance. If we knew what governments actually did in our name to keep us safe we might worry less.

If there was less secrecy we might trust safeguards to actually guard our data, safely.

But the secrecy was necessary to keep us safe, claim the spies.

In fact we were told we couldn't be told if this surveillance was even going on, the names of companies compelled to hand over our data, or how often such requests were being made.

Blanket secrecy around blanket surveillance is an incredibly convenient way of ensuring surveillance practices are never scrutinised by the public.

Democracy is broken if the voters can't know what the government does in their name.

The acid test?

But now, over the next few years, we will finally get to see how the public react to a large-scale general threat to our privacy.

We will also see how market forces react to that threat. Will citizens in Europe turn their backs on the US tech giants, sparking a new phase in the internet's evolution?

Or will they find it hard to escape the gravitational pull of the established giants? Is privacy worth the effort?

I'm prepared for either outcome.

The public might not care in sufficient numbers.

The public might actually like the increased security (perceived or actual) that such surveillance programmes bring.

A new era

The secret is out.

Once data leaves the devices under your direct control you no longer control who accesses that data.

But does such spying by governments really skew the power balance today; compared, eg, to how it is understood to have done during the reign of the Stasi, since technology has made us all more powerful?

In fact technology brings tools for privacy as well as tools for surveillance; will ready access to tools such as cryptography blunt the instruments of surveillance?

And, given the decentralisation of power with the emergence of strong and powerful corporations - something the anti-capitalists worry about - coupled with the foreign cyber-threat, are governments even the threat they once were?

Or will the new decentralised global power balance work in a twisted way to improve citizens privacy and autonomy; with corporations fighting to keep valuable commercial secrets secret, challenging governments, and challenging each other.

Realistically, can anything change, or is our future predestined?

Whilst I'm absolutely convinced that excessive secrecy is dangerous to democracy, I'm less convinced that the public will care about mass surveillance in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

Can we even expect to control data that leaves our private network? Why should we expect to; what makes us think we can transmit bytes into the ether and expect to keep them private?

Additionally, few have any real control any more over what data leaves our local devices; things just happen automatically.

So we're left facing a stark choice: join in and put our data at risk, or stay dark and deny ourselves the benefits.

Is privacy synonymous with democracy?

Even if "privacy is dead" (it's not, by the way - we just have to adapt), does that necessarily mean that democracy is dead?

Or can we focus on the wider goal, beyond privacy, of building a data democracy, with privacy just one aspect?

Can structures providing effective accountability, strong judicial oversight and public transparency mitigate the democratic risks?

Now that the veil of secrecy has been lifted we might all - even the spies - be surprised to learn how the public reacts in the long term.

Increased surveillance might become an accepted and necessary part of life in a modern democracy.

Granted this may seem an absurd position - especially given my previous bloggings about privacy.

It's a no-brainer, right? Democracy is threatened if the government spies on the opposition - using their secrets against them.

But might we all just adapt, relying on fewer secrets, thereby removing our vulnerability to exposure and becoming inherently stronger, rather that merely being good at exploiting others' weaknesses?

Yes, such widespread eavesdropping is worrying. But there really is no precedent; and no simple answers.

@JamesFirth

We don't need less lobbyists - we need more, from a wider cross-section of interests

2013-06-04T10:02:00.002+01:00

I started lobbying in 2010 when I realised writing blogs and forum posts, whilst useful, had limited reach.

Since then I've spoken in Parliament, had face-to-face meetings with a government minister, been invited to drinks receptions and conferences inside the Palace of Westminster, and got close enough to power to have the vested interests lined up against me - and some lined up with me - close ranks to make it clear my participation was unwelcome.

There is a stench in Westminster, but the lobbyists are only part of the problem.

Lobbyists have the power they have, in some part at least, simply because they have bothered to build a relationship with those holding office.

Parliament is not a closed place. Excluding special events like the State Opening citizens can, on most days Parliament sits, enter the Palace and lobby for themselves.

All you need do is state your reason for attending at the entry gate, join the queue, navigate security and stick to the public areas.

Whilst there's usually a queue to watch the main chambers there are numerous groups and committees which sit in public. Some less formal meetings offer the public a chance to ask questions or mingle with the odd Lord or MP.

It helps to plan in advance so that you can explain on entry where you're heading.

But if you want to get your voice heard above the noise you face a string of problems. After 2 years I ran out of cash - it takes a lot of time and effort to find your way around Westminster and keep track of what's going on and where.

One of the current problems with lobbying is that the lobbyists themselves control many of the groups meeting inside parliament. They offer "secretariat services" which usually includes general admin like sending out invites and providing a website - which the lobby group often ultimately controls(!) - and paying for drinks receptions to ensure the attendees are, well, refreshed.

Coming from outside the lobbying clique I had to build my own network to find out what went on, when, and where.

Although many sessions are "public", space is often limited. Sometimes an invite is needed (although never checked), and turning up ahead of time is always essential to bag space in Parliament's cramped committee rooms.

But the lobbyists offering secretariat services sit at the heart of this information web. As event organisers they are responsible for sending out the invite lists. They even get a say over who writes what on the Parliamentary Group's website.

It's a delicate equilibrium - MPs themselves can't hope to organise such a wide and diverse range of discussion groups - known as All Party Parliamentary Groups - themselves.

There are hundreds of them (I haven't counted, a current list is here) - and it's reassuring to me at least that such a diverse range of interests get represented in Parliament.

Lobbyists fund and help run these groups, but in return they get a degree of control and influence. It's not unbridled power, as MPs and Lords are ultimately left holding the reins - but it's a useful influence.

However it's an imperfect system which marginalises all but the most persistent and powerful voices and encourages the creation of Parliamentary groups which, occasionally, are less than useful. In fact one could argue some groups serve just one aim - that of the lobbyists.

But I don't argue for radical overhaul - the system on the most part seems to result in vibrant debate with reasonable access to outsiders - which is why I argue that Government and Parliament should look instead at opening up access to a wider group of interested parties rather than focussing on clipping the lobbyists' wings.

One area that badly needs overhauling is access to Government ministries.

I noticed the same faces milling round Westminster and listed on minutes of meetings - minutes which I or other activists struggled to obtain through protracted Freedom of Information requests rather than being published by default.

Whilst a small guy like me occasionally slips the net, for the most part these Westminster Faces usually represent large commercial interests.

Smaller businesses are only usually represented through umbrella groups like the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). But groups like the FSB have a lot of bases to cover with limited resources, so the interests of Britain's small and entrepreneurial businesses are rarely heard at the heart of Government - especially on niche issues such as internet regulation.

Ministries need to open up on two fronts: do more to listen to a wider range of voices, and be far more transparent on the meetings they do have - rather than attempt to keep contact with lobbyists under the radar.

But the really seedy side of Parliament that badly needs an overhaul is how the lobbyists themselves trade on their influence.

For example, many of the lobbyists offering secretariat services are given Parliamentary passes by a sponsor MP or Lord who usually chairs the Parliamentary group.

Such a pass to a lobbyist is gold dust - it's a badge of honour, a seal of approval. The badge says these are the men and women (note: I met far more men than women) with access worth paying for.

These are also the people who I know to have organised banquets and dinners inside Parliament itself.

Invites go out to companies and other people the lobbyist wants to impress.

Where tickets are paid for I couldn't say who keeps any profit, but either way the lobbyist who is seen to organise a dinner inside the Palace of Westminster sits bright on the radar when a company is looking to get their voice heard in Parliament.

Again there is a balance to be struck - my first taste of Parliamentary cuisine was at an event organised by my former university.

I'm not necessarily saying that lobbyists are cash-hungry, power-crazed demons - I'm saying that their well-polished messages delivered on behalf of a narrow but wealthy section of society often reaches the ears of MPs at the expense of a louder but distributed voice from the rest of society.

Again the way to fix this is for more people to get involved to widen the debate and temper the power of the professional lobbyists.

@JamesFirth

Sources: no Digital Economy Act copyright warning letters until 2016 at the earliest

2013-05-30T13:16:00.001+01:00

It's been a while since I wrote anything on the Digital Economy Act.

As a quick recap, although the primary legislation to notify and punish those whose internet connection is repeatedly used to infringe copyright was rushed through the dog end of the Labour government - with Conservative support from the then shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt - progress has since stalled.

Two Statutory Instruments were expected to flesh-out how the copyright infringement warning letters will be dispatched, paid for and appealed: a so-called Initial Obligations Code and a shorter Cost Sharing Order defining how the cost of scheme will be split between copyright owners and internet service providers.

Two attempts have so-far been made to enact the shorter Cost Sharing Order, but even this relatively simple piece of legislation only got as far as the notification phase, where other EC member states are notified of draft changes to policy potentially affecting cross-border trade [refs: here, and here].

Both times the Order was quietly dropped, and nothing much has been heard since.

In response to a Tweeted question this morning I thought I'd see if my old Westminster contacts still wanted to talk to me.

Two separate sources told me not to expect the remaining secondary legislation this side of the general election.

Assuming a 2015 general election, and factoring-in time to establish the necessary body or bodies to oversee the operation of the notification and appeals systems, it will be 2016 at the very earliest - and possibly 2017 - before the first warning letters go out.

UPDATE 19-June

5 days after I posted this, DCMS released minutes [link] outlining their expectations:

"DCMS expects the first letters to be sent in the latter half of 2015"

My own sources were clear that the remaining legislation - two statutory instruments (that might possibly, now, be rolled into a single instrument) - were unlikely to go before Parliament until after the 2015 General Election. By my own estimates it will then take around 9 months to establish the systems necessary to get the first letter out, including the crucial appeals process, hence my claim of 2016.

It seems the Department for Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) thinks it can be done slightly faster, hence their note of optimism in their timetable of back-end of 2015.

So what's the delay?

One source described the copyright provisions in the Digital Economy Act 2010 as "un-implementable".

The legislation rushed through parliament in 2010 - at the behest of copyright lobbyists asserting prompt action was essential to the survival of the creative industries - was bad.

Since then the UK music and film industries have grown despite the gloom in the rest of the economy and 2012 saw an 11% revenue growth for legitimate downloaded media content in the UK despite progress on the Digital Economy Act stalling.

1. Treasury

I'm told there is an ongoing spat between the Department for Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) and the Treasury over whether Treasury Approval is required for the remaining legislation required to implement Britain's 3-strikes internet copyright provisions.

It's a complex area, but as I understand it, DCMS and Ofcom (who are drafting the legislation for DCMS) argue that the money copyright owners will pay for generating a copyright infringement notification are simply fees for accessing the service, and therefore the Treasury need not be involved.

However, according to one source, the Treasury has raised concerns that the charges are in fact a levy - amounting to taxation - and therefore require Treasury approval, echoing concerns raised by the European Commission in 2011.

Additionally, any body set-up to oversee the notification process or the appeals process may require additional Treasury Approval in order for a working budget to be approved for the body. Taxpayer money could be at risk if the scheme doesn't pay for itself through fees (or levies) as envisaged.

Options are being considered that remove the need for any separate body (known in government jargon as Arm's Length Bodies), but these proposals could bring their own problems.

For example, if the appeals body is not seen as fully independent, it might not meet the criteria for a tribunal of first instance, meaning anyone unfairly accused of copyright infringement would then have an automatic right of appeal to the High Court, putting an even bigger strain on the public purse.

2. Disagreement between ISPs and copyright holders

I understand one option being considered that will at least allow warning letters to be sent out earlier than 2016 is for copyright owners to pay the entire cost of notifying alleged infringers

That is, the ISPs' costs will be passed on to copyright owners in full, rather than the 75%/25% split previously proposed.

This means the fees charged are far less likely to be classed as a levy (ie taxation), since only the body requesting the service has to pay the fee, and no approval from the Treasury is required.

The problem with this approach is that there is no incentive for ISPs to take steps to minimise their costs in providing this service, therefore the cost of sending a copyright warning letter may be prohibitive.

The New Zealand equivalent of the DEA is under-used according to reports because the cost of notification is too high.

If the system is not used in the UK the taxpayer will be left with a considerable bill for setting up the scheme, which is estimated at £6m and could rise as delays mount.

Any attempt to cap or set a fixed fee may require legislation outside the scope of the Digital Economy Act, and this will need introducing in a new Government bill.

3. Politics

For various reasons I'm told the Cabinet Office is trying to keep a lid on policies with adverse publicity and negligible contribution towards meeting the Government's key aims.

I was first told this last year, when I was warned that the legislation may be squeezed out in a suitable window at the back-end of 2012, but I've since learned the initiative has been extended to the general election.

Government advisers are aware that the creative industries are not currently on the point of extinction due to online copyright infringement, and are also aware of the concerns raised by ISPs and civil rights groups.

The main concerns revolve around the difficulty of identifying who was actually using an internet connection at the time, rather than simply the person who pays the bill. There are concerns that shifting the burden of proof onto the account holder may affect other government policy such as community WiFi and other broadband schemes, as well as affecting libraries, schools and cafes.

Additionally the Communications Bill, originally planned for 2014, is rumoured to have been postponed until after the general election. This Bill would be a natural place to overhaul the primary legislation if amendments are require to the Digital Economy Act in order for it to be implemented. But this would likely push warning letters out to 2017 or beyond.

I'm told the desire not to grasp the Digital Economy Act nettle before the general election has nothing to do with disagreements between coalition partners - whatever that means!

@JamesFirth

Do established economic models apply to data, and will they spread wealth, or is Jaron Lanier wrong?

2013-05-28T15:45:00.003+01:00

Jaron Lanier's article on the BBC is really worth reading. His is the first mainstream article in a while that has got me wrestling with my instincts on big data, privacy and digital democracy.

I agree with a many of his observations.

Yet I disagree with his primary thrust, that "open" has backfired and instead created a new data inequity; and, controversially:

"monetising information will bring benefits that far outweigh the inconvenience of having to adjust one's worldview."

That there is a new power "asymmetry" is undoubtedly true. I wrote about the new data plutocrats just a fortnight ago.

But would monetisation of our data have worked any better?

I argue not. I believe the largely cashless and open information society emerging over the last two decades was a necessity in order to overcome intransigence and challenge the existing economic power balance; and that, had our data been monetised along the lines suggested by Lanier, we'd be far worse-off today.

Had data been monetised, the primary beneficiaries would have been those who currently control the money supply; "data" power would be controlled by those who already wield a great deal of economic power, and democracy would have suffered.

Essentially, Google and gang have emerged, warts and all, to counter the dominance of not just the more established technology companies but also the big banks, and even governments.

Not that I don't foresee severe problems ahead with the path we're now travelling, most of these problems adequately covered in his article.

But, for the time being at least, the old economy tempers Google's power just as Google threatens the old economy.

Inherent constraints of cash

Perhaps, even more importantly, monetising data might have constrained innovation because there is not [yet?] an effective mechanism for setting a price on such a rich and nuanced commodity.

What's a Tweet worth? How much should I be paid, or pay, to participate daily in Facebook? Is my social capital worth anything?.. To me?.. To you?

Such questions may prove unanswerable because the concept of money a hundred millennia old has its limitations.

It may simply prove impossible to create a market that accounts for the diversity of the information economy and its many applications: from furtherance of knowledge to private and personal sharing to providing transparency of governments.

And attempting to do so in a flawed way may derail rewarding but otherwise economically non-viable data services.

For it is possible for us to be getting monetarily poorer and richer at the same time when our lives are getting richer in other ways, even as the 'real' economy stagnates.

Data, and with it, cheap access to communication tools, undoubtedly enrich our lives, and this is both the reason data is hard to monetise and the foundation of the data bartering Larnier sneeringly dismisses as "usually associated with the developing world."

Instead of trying to shoehorn data into GDP we should be looking to an evolution of money to measure our overall wealth, and also to restore equity to contributors and remunerate "workers" - something Lanier correctly notes as absent today.

A Necessity: the Open sledgehammer

As well as overlooking the limitations of money, Jaron Lanier fails to address the positive and necessary role the Open movement played in challenging the inertia present in any stable society.

When I started my career in software in the mid 90's there were sizeable barriers to entry.

Firstly, the software tool chain was largely closed, and licencing costs were huge. A handful of then-dominant global corporations controlled access to most platforms. (In a way that Apple does, albeit with much lower barriers to entry for developers, today.)

To get [legal] access to a software compiler and the rest of the development kit (SDK) companies had to fork out thousands. Add to that: revision control software, a defect tracking database, operating system licenses for servers and worksations, etc, and you were talking considerable start-up costs.

It was a system that actively prevented the kind of "bedroom innovation" that has created revolutionary apps and services in the last two decades.

In fact, for a while at least, innovation throughout the sector seemed to stall as larger tech companies, in the absence of serious competition, took their foot off the gas in order to consolidate.

Some large corporations placed emphasis on pursuing licensing revenue for existing products above investing in product innovation, choosing to pursue patent and other IPR infringement at the expense of developing better software.

It really was a frustrating time - at least through the eyes of a twenty-something-year-old.

Developers were left with buggy, feature-void tools.

Smaller companies in particular hesitated to buy the latest software.

And suddenly, innovation was threatened on every front: big companies wanted to return a dividend to their investors, smaller companies were stuck doing things the hard way and tiny companies couldn't even afford to enter the market.

Around that time many in my position had been exposed to Linux and the Open Source movement at schools and universities (Slackware for me, circa 1994).

Before long I could build bigger and better software on my home-built server (primarily around Apache and Perl or related CGI scripting language) than I could using the licensed tool-set my company paid for at work.

In asserting that we may have denied ourselves something even better by turning our back on monetisation overlooks how and why we are where we are now and fails to acknowledge necessity - the driving force for many open source projects.

@JamesFirth

Time for a new plan for corporation tax to re-level the field for local employers

2013-05-17T12:38:00.000+01:00

What keeps me mad throughout the ongoing corporation tax bunfight is that I agree with no-one.

On one [typically right] side, there is the argument that companies such as Amazon, Vodafone, Starbucks, Google, etc, etc... should not be criticised because they're only doing what they are obliged to do: minimise their tax bill.

Fair enough, but we live in a democracy, so claiming they shouldn't be criticised or the subject of peaceful protest is a bit far fetched. If enough people feel aggrieved enough to protest outside a shop then in a civilised democracy there's not much we can or should do.

On the other [largely left] side there is the view that such companies are not pulling their weight and should contribute more.

Well, I don't agree wholly with this either.

Many (but not all) of the companies criticised have a UK workforce and end up paying considerable sums in employer's tax (AKA employer's National Insurance contributions) at around 13.8% of salary, plus provide employment (useful, right?) and hence generate even more tax through PAYE paid by their employees.

The trouble with corporation tax in a global economy is that it is unfair to many smaller, local firms; in that they cannot afford the set-up costs of an offshore headquarters to launder their profits through.

Competition theory largely states that governments should encourage entrepreneurship and regeneration to keep the markets competitive; a market which makes it hard for new entrants tends to get lazy, with the incumbents carrying on as before, unchallenged.

But non-global new entrants find it hard to challenge the global giants if they end up paying more tax - until they get big enough to avoid tax. Get the idea? The market becomes skewed against the new entrants.

So one answer - and the left won't like this - is to get rid of corporation tax altogether.

But this creates a new problem. Not all companies provide such large returns to the exchequer through employment taxes. E.g. city fund managers may rake-in millions yet employ a handful of staff, whilst large retailers such as Marks and Spencer, Tesco, etc each employ tens of thousands of workers.

So to me the answer appears obvious. Companies should be allowed to offset their corporation tax bill against their total employer's Class 1 National Insurance contribution.

Essentially many companies making modest profits yet already paying millions of pounds a year through employment taxes would be exempt from paying any corporation tax, yet companies who didn't employ many UK staff would be left with a largely unchanged corporation tax bill.

This would perhaps have a secondary advantage of making it more attractive to employ UK staff, as the employer's tax - widely seen as a disincentive to employment - would be offset against corporation tax.

And, importantly, it would allow smaller, growing UK firms who choose to have UK-based staff to pay corporation tax on a similar rate to the global giants.

@JamesFirth

The Data Plutocrats and a need for a Data Democracy

2013-05-14T10:31:00.004+01:00

Yesterday certainly wasn't the first time someone opined the term privacy was counter-productive in relation to data.

"Privacy" is a one-sided open-ended discussion about risk with no consideration of reward.

"Privacy" is an amorphous concept easily spun by proponents of one side or the other.

Privacy: is wholesome, positive, for victims of crime themselves becoming victims of press intrusion; or, privacy gives terrorists and child abusers the space they need to hide amongst us in society.

Discussion about data privacy and related topics could, perhaps, be more constructive if framed as a discussion about balance of power.

After all, privacy primarily concerns us because of our fear that our secrets can be used against us, creating an "information asymmetry" (ht @OrwellUpgraded) that could be abused by the nefarious and amoral.

So should privacy advocates instead be arguing for a data democracy?

Taking a step back, democracy is not a goal in itself. The end game is a comfortably stable, affluent and sustainable society; which, if one trusts in the inherent good in human nature will itself be a fair and just society.

Similarly, in data terms, we want a society where we are all "data wealthy" - ie have access to information, communications, entertainment; and benefit from the resulting advances in science, medicine, etc only possible through smart use of data.

We want relative stability - a society nimble enough to keep pace with advancing technology, yet resilient enough not to be cajoled into dangerous change.

We want a just and fair society where individuals, corporations and governments can't use our personal data, our everyday secrets, to exert undue control on anyone.

Democracy is probably the best place to start - at least in analysing and attempting to understand the problem.

Today we probably have a data plutocracy, where data power is concentrated in the hands of a few global corporations.

No-one knows for sure whether this itself is inherently dangerous.

Data power has certainly been used for good: the rapid emergence of useful services, the construction of data infrastructure on a truly massive scale, a level of free "social" services.

Data plutocrats like Google provide services like Blogger, which in turn strengthens the power of the individual to challenge traditional autocracies and, for the time being at least, discuss the issues associated with a data plutocracy.

But clearly such concentrations of data power could easily be abused; either by sticky-fingered employees dipping their hands in the data till, by governments, or by corporations themselves in search of profit.

So maybe we should be looking to promote data control structures and data economies that are inherently more democratic.

But how can we go about understanding the data power balance?

I believe we'll find, over time, that many democratic (and economic) concepts are applicable to data.

Already I see a clear left-right political spectrum, at one end "the state" or other controlling force being responsible for administering and apportioning "data fairness" if you like. The "clean internet" brigade - a worthy cause... But, as we all know, some data animals are more equal than others. Who governs the governors, who watches the watchmen?

And at the other end, the right-libertarians, who argue the state should not interfere, leaving the question of who will protect the "data weak"? Who will guard the technologically incapable from losing out when real-world services increasingly rely on the internet? Who will provide their broadband, guard their personal data, and defend their computers from hackers?

Over the last two decades the data privacy debate has entered the mainstream - that itself is a good thing, but it's now time to move on to talk about the wider issue: a data democracy.

@JamesFirth

Marks and Spencer latest victim of automated content filtering

2013-05-13T13:19:00.001+01:00

Your can forget using Marks and Spencer's free ecard service if your friend is called Dick (or, presumably, lives in Scunthorpe).

After reports that a pensioner was unable to send a card to her friend Dick due to the firm's automated profanity filter, a spokesperson claimed the filter was there "to protect people from harassment" and consequently would not be altering their policy.

Which got me wondering how much protection their automated system offered...

Here's an ecard I sent to myself that didn't get blocked (forgive my childish use of language):

There's a serious point: time and time again I see a reliance on automated content blocking to offer some level of "protection" that impacts legitimate uses of the system whilst being relatively easy to workaround.

In this case I could harass someone simply by spacing-out the insults.

If the service provider then tried to catch insults with spaces in between they would undoubtedly end up blocking even more legitimate uses, like a card to my good friend* Alf Ucker.

I have no issue with companies like Marks and Spencer using such content filtering to warn people against a thoughtless use of offensive language, but to claim such systems are there to protect people from harassment is a stretch - especially since, as I have shown, they can't stop all offensive messages getting through.

(* = imaginary!)

@JamesFirth

The Tech Chasm Series: 1. The Delivery Window

2013-05-07T15:18:00.003+01:00

Over the last 20 years technology has changed so many aspects of life it's now hard to imagine a time when flights had to be booked in person at a travel agent and a vandalised phone box was a good enough reason for not letting your parents/partner/butler know you were going to be a bit late home.

But in some areas a technological overhaul is well overdue, leading to a widening chasm between the theoretical capabilities and the practical application of technology.

1. The Delivery Window

The list of items that can't be [legally] ordered online for home delivery can be written on the back of a Royal Mail "I'm sorry we missed you" delivery card, yet few delivery firms provide a delivery window smaller than ten hours.

In fact you're lucky to get word of a delivery before you've missed it, with many firms relying on drivers themselves to give notice of delivery by buzzing your doorbell, before deploying a missed delivery card worded to make you feel like a naughty schoolchild late with a homework assignment: 'You have one more chance to receive these goods'...

I'm sorry for putting your driver out by not waiting by my door for the entire estimated delivery window of 1st May-7th May. Next time I will help your driver by driving myself to PC World, running the gauntlet of credit offers at 26.3% APR and over-priced extended warranties costing nearly as much as a replacement laptop, only to find what I want is out of stock - but can be dispatched immediately for home delivery...

Now where was I...

Oh yes, once upon a time the avid mail-orderer needed to know the location of just 2 buildings: the nearest "main" Post Office and the local Parcel Force warehouse.

Today, each expedition is a veritable adventure; a 60-mile round trip to the "local" depot for Generic Delivery Services Ltd whose postcode, at least according to any satnav on the market, is just far enough away from the actual building to render your chance of getting to the collection office after work before it closes about as good as getting the full delivery charge refunded from the vendor if the delivery ends up boomeranging back because you failed to collect the package within a week.

That's assuming your package made it back to the depot, unlike the soggy books inside the soggy cardboard box left on my doorstep last October...

Or the pillow thrown over the gate - of the wrong house! Eventually finding its way to its intended recipient a week after the replacement had been delivered - and returned.

Are we to believe that tracking a parcel within these delivery operations is computationally impossible? At least given the computing power of a ZX Spectrum (with 48k Ram Pack and ZX Microdrive)..

Granted, we have an extremely complex problem: a parcel at location A needs to get to location B, and the recipient R needs to be notified somehow.

You'd have to request their email address and everything...

Plus you'd need to know how long it takes for a parcel to reach the trunk network, travel the trunk network; I mean, it would take some effort to plan shipping routes and schedules (rather than leave them to the driver's discretion, as I assume they must do now), collect actual data - maybe even build a database if it doesn't all fit on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet...

And provision delivery vehicles with the latest state-of-the-art satellite technology - or at least ask delivery drivers to keep their phones switched on whilst working.

Maybe NASA could help? After all they seemed to predict the landing time of Curiosity on Mars to a better accuracy than Rural Link Express can track a parcel from Manchester to Woking.

Is it really that hard for a company the size of a small country to divert some of the money it saves avoiding tax in to technology that lets its customers know with reasonably accuracy:

What day, at the time of ordering, a parcel will arrive; and,
At some point the day before the time, to within a couple of hours, the parcel will be delivered?

And, instead of marketing this service as an optional extra, provide it to all customers, as it will surely save everyone time and money if a higher proportion of parcels are delivered on first attempt.

@JamesFirth

Life in Waverley, Surrey

2013-04-30T16:29:00.000+01:00

Depressing reading, for anyone wanting to buy property in my locality.

Mortgage companies are currently offering around 3.5 times basic salary in home loans, and requiring around 20% deposit to access the bulk of their deals, meaning one needs to earn around £70,000 per annum and have £60k equity in their existing property or tucked away in order to afford the average semi.

Even the average flat requires a £40k salary plus a £40k deposit.

Waverley

Average house price
£422,155

Detached	£636,759
Semi-detached	£361,069
Terrace	£299,749
Flat	£199,568

(source: BBC, data date: Oct-Dec 2012)

Compared to my birthplace the difference is stark...

Calderdale

Average house price
£150,071

Detached	£270,960
Semi-detached	£149,053
Terrace	£109,777
Flat	£126,373

Still, things could be worse. I could be based in a London borough such as Hammersmith...

Hammersmith and Fulham

Average house price
£653,439

Detached	£0
Semi-detached	£1,334,153
Terrace	£1,092,643
Flat	£493,058

@JamesFirth

What the Letzgo Hunting vigilantes can teach the Home Office

2013-04-25T11:37:00.000+01:00

One of my many criticisms of this and recent governments' obsession with online snooping is that it diverts resources away from other policing methods.

Governments are obsessed with creating (or restoring, depending on who you talk to) a power imbalance they say is necessary to maintain order and prevent serious crime and terrorism.

I and many other technologists argue to the contrary - that blanket surveillance will have little long-term impact on seriously organised criminal and terrorist activity as perpetrators will adapt quickly to evade today's proposed imperfect monitoring systems as technology continues to evolve quickly.

At most such technology will trap mid and low-level criminals, giving a short-term advantage that will soon be lost as even petty thieves learn how to hide their online trail more efficiently.

Whilst reducing crime of any description is undoubtedly a good thing, this must be balanced against the cost and risk to all non-criminals in society who face having even more of their secrets held by state agencies and other third parties without their consent.

Additionally, such monitoring carries a significant cost.

Not just the monetary cost in siphoning off, storing, filtering and retrieving large quantities of data - but a cost to technological progress. Internet service providers may shun network upgrades because of the added complexity of accommodating the surveillance regime, denying customers increased bandwidth and other benefits of the latest technology.

Additionally - or so a network engineer at a very large mobile phone network once told me - network changes required to meet today's data retention laws made the system, in his opinion at least, more vulnerable to failure because all transactions had to be routed through one of a few data collection points.

Police in the UK still don't carry guns on routine patrols - why? Because the risk outweighs the benefits. Society is generally better off with a softer balance of power - consensus policing - and not carrying a firearm is a powerful reminder to the public.

The benefits of a more consensual approach to policing is that the public are more likely to do their bit to help the police in their duty; contrasted with more militaristic approaches, which pit the public - even the law abiding public - against the police, whom they often live in fear of.

I believe analogies can be drawn with policing the internet. I'm afraid of snoopers taking a snippet of my data out of context or misidentifying someone else's transaction as originating from me. I'm afraid of a large mountain of my personal data leaking, leaving me vulnerable to identity theft.

I'm afraid of police creeping around in bushes watching ordinary citizens go about their lives - because this, quite frankly, just freaks me out.

Of course the state must be involved in some way; a free-for-all leaves the weak unprotected.

But the level and manner of involvement I have in mind usually contrasts strongly with what governments around the world are pushing for.

I believe the internet should be policed to a large extent via the front door, not by creeping around the back or hiding in bushes with the digital equivalent of a long-lens camera and parabolic microphone.

The Home Office often cites the hunt for dangerous paedophiles as justification for blanket surveillance, playing to the public's fears.

A group of vigilantes recently showed us all that progress in the fight against paedophiles can be made without snooping around behind the scenery planting bugs in the very fabric of the network.

Police condemned the action of vigilantes as potentially illegal itself, but this perhaps says more about police wanting to maintain an illusion of control, or says something about the contradictory state of current privacy laws which are seen by some as limiting police operationally whilst allowing the state to watch us all via our mobile phone activity, etc.

If we could find some way for police to use the internet via the front door, connecting via an ISP to inhabit the places people hang out online - in a similar way to the mix of visible and plain clothes patrols inhabiting the streets; then this surely will be more proportionate and more sustainable than relying on blanket surveillance.

@JamesFirth

Hell, yeah! Let's flood our public spaces with lots of "clean", porn-free WiFi...

2013-04-24T14:56:00.001+01:00

I have no idealistic or moral objection to the Prime Minister wanting to appear to be doing the good and proper thing to appease campaigning children's charities and electors with kids.

But technically what the Prime Minister wants (and this smells like another shambolic policy emanating from the general direction of "Minister for the Internets" Ed Vaizey) - porn-free WiFi in open spaces, is both unworkable and misguided.

Misguided because it sends the message that pornography is the biggest danger kids face on the internet.

Not even close. I haven't got references to hand but I've read studies showing the effects on children of exposure to sexualised imagery are minimal in most cases.

Bar a minority who have a tendency to become obsessive, most children can adapt to effectively "block out" sexual imagery and it loses its effect.

Yes it can normalise abnormal behaviour (such as sexual violence) but even here the jury's out and the debate is along similar lines to violent films and video games: is a society which does little to discourage the availability of violent imagery more violent than one that discourages it?

My premise is that the biggest danger children face on the internet is physiological. Just one example: interacting with others online in text-based formats with the absence of non-verbal cues (such as facial expressions) seems to lead to some extremes of behaviour (eg flame wars) and passionately entrenched arguments can become an obsession.

Also in that department there's bullying (again exacerbated by the shielding the internet brings, ie being unable to see the effect bullying has on the bullied), mob behaviour, and other extremes that can sometimes lead to illegal activity such as harassment or hacking in order to get a greater hold over a perceived opponent.

And unworkable for two reasons.

On the legislative front it will be very hard to impose what amounts to state-mandated decency rules on all "public" WiFi. The risk of being fined for allowing a bare nipple to slip through your modesty filter will merely discourage businesses from providing WiFi.

So instead I'm hearing what the Prime Minister wants - "clean, porn-free WiFi" - won't be enforced by legislation. It will instead be secured by a classic fudge that I've heard Ed Vaizey mutter tens of times: an industry code of conduct. The threat being if the industry doesn't enforce the rules, legislation will follow.

But which industry? The cafe industry? Or the hotel industry? Or the ISP industry? If the latter, then will ISPs providing a service to a cafe have to block porn at source? And if so, how will the cafe owner get his daily fix of flesh if he or she requires, behind closed doors, of course?

And on the technical front it's a running battle to filter all porn. A battle the filtering companies aren't winning and probably will never win - particularly in regards to over-blocking of 'legitimate' sites.

Plus there's the tricky issue of "dual-use" mainstream websites such as Flickr.

Flickr wasn't blocked when I tested a multitude of content filtering systems 18 months ago whilst with Open Digital.

But if you're over 18, not easily offended, in a private space and not using a work internet connection, you might try this:

Sign up to the 74th (according to Alexa at time of writing) most popular website in the world
Type your favourite sex words* in to the search box
In the results, click on Advanced Search and change the SafeSearch setting to "SafeSearch off"

It's not hard to find flesh. From there you can even get list of users who have favourited such images, and from there find other similar images favourited by that user. Or so my research assistant tells me!

So I assume Flickr will have to be blocked in internet cafes across the country.

Now imagine the following scenario: a tourist visiting London, uploading their day's photos to one of the world's most popular photo-sharing websites...

David Cameron's wish for clean public WiFi - noble, but utterly unworkable.

What we should be telling all parents is that they must work with their children on what is the digital equivalent of the green cross code re internet safety. Be aware of the dangers, mitigate the risks, and be careful chosing the devices you allow your children to use - consider devices with built-in locks on internet use for younger children, allowing only supervised access.

@JamesFirth

What's the real reason for Amazon resetting customer passwords?

2013-04-10T09:19:00.002+01:00

I got an email this morning from Amazon. A legit email, DKIM signed by Amazon's email server.

Amazon have reset my password because they say I 'may have been subject to a phishing scam'.

But why now? Running my own mail servers and a string of public email addresses I'm subject to Amazon phishing scams on an almost daily basis, as I am with many other companies.

And why did Amazon suspect I've been subjected to a phishing scam? Have they read the phishing emails on my private mail servers?...

No, of course they haven't. Phishing Amazon customers is an activity that only involves Amazon infrastructure when the scammers use credentials phished from me to perform illegal transactions on my account.

And since I'm pretty certain my credentials haven't been phished from me - as a professional involved in this area I'm on high alert for odd emails - the only reason I can think of for Amazon to suspect I'm at increased risk of phishing is if my email and perhaps other personal details have somehow leaked from Amazon.

I don't mind my password being reset as a security precaution.

But I do mind the tone of the email they sent, which makes it sound like it's my fault for being at increased risk of phishing, along with handy links to protect myself.

When I reset my account I will take the precaution of removing all my credit card details. Much as it is a pain to re-enter whenever I buy music I suspect there is more going on here.

Here's the email in full (my bold - I'm curious why they don't want me to use my previous password if I know I haven't been subject to a phishing attack...):

Hello J * Firth,

This is an important message from Amazon.co.uk

As a precaution, we've reset your Amazon.co.uk password because you may have been subject to a "phishing" scam.

Here's how phishing works:

A scam artist sends an e-mail, which is designed to look like it came from a reputable company such as a bank, financial institution, or retailer like Amazon.co.uk, but is in fact a forgery. These e-mails direct you to a website that looks remarkably similar to the reputable company's website, where you are asked to provide account information such as your e-mail address and password. Since that website is actually controlled by the phisher, they get the information you entered.

Go to amazon.co.uk/phish to read more about ways to protect yourself from phishing.

To regain access to your Amazon customer account:

1. Go to Amazon.co.uk and click the "Your Account" link at the top of our website.

2. Under Account Settings, click the link that says "Forgotten your password?"

3. Follow the instructions to set a new password for your account.

Please choose a new password and do not use the same password you used with us previously. If you have used the same password for your email account as on your Amazon.co.uk account, you should also change your email account password to prevent phishers from reading and/or stealing your emails.

I hope this helps.

We look forward to seeing you again soon at Amazon.co.uk

Sincerely,

Amazon.co.uk

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our website.

@JamesFirth

The Stirling Engine and the iPhone

2013-02-22T11:16:00.001Z

The Epiphany One Puck
Credit: Epiphany Labs

A couple of weeks ago I read about a Kickstarter project to develop a phone charger powered by a hot cup of coffee. The device is nicknamed The Puck, or the Epiphany One Puck in long form.

Two things interest me.

Will it work? I'm interested not just from an engineering perspective but also curious as to whether Kickstarter and other crowd funding platforms will ultimately end up pushing developments in engineering and technology or simply fund lifestyle projects with no realistic use, value or chance of success.

And the resurgence of the Stirling engine - invented nearly 200 years ago - used not just in The Puck but undergoing something of a renaissance of late, featuring in a variety of other micro-generation and transportation projects that have come to my attention.

How can a technology conceived of in 1816 suddenly come of age like this? A lesson perhaps for any inventor or entrepreneur hoping to make a fortune from a Killer App or other gadget.

~~~

If The Puck works - as in is capable of charging a mobile phone from a common domestic heat source - it could spawn a revolution in micro-generation which until recently has focussed on fuel cell technology.

The physics says it could work - but it's on the margins and a lot will depend on how efficient The Puck is at turning heat into electricity.

A typical smartphone battery stores around 18,000 joules (5 Watt-hours) or energy and is surprisingly efficient to charge - manufacturers claim 80-90%.

So we'll need around 5.5-6 Watt-hours of energy to fully-charge a phone.

A 350ml cup of boiling water has theoretical stored energy of 117,600 joules (32.7 Watt-hours) in a room at a temperature of 20 degrees C (weight of water in grammes multiplied by the specific heat capacity of water (4.2) multiplied by the temperature difference in Celsius/Kelvin).

So in theory the Stirling engine in The Puck need only achieve 17% efficiency to fully-charge a modern smartphone, and the laws of thermodynamics says the Stirling engine is - in theory at least (and yes, I do hold a Physics degree) - extremely efficient at turning heat energy into mechanical motion.

~~~

But that is sadly just theory. In practice larger Stirling generators on the market have an efficiency of between 10-28% (example) without heat regenerators.

Running at a lower temperature difference means the theoretical thermodynamic efficiency of The Puck will be far higher (Carnot cycle), however the lower power output at lower temperature differences means mechanical friction will play a much greater role in lowering the overall efficiency.

A low temperature difference could also add to the engineering challenge in building a usable generator into a small space.

And then, in the efficiency equation, we have the dynamo required to turn the mechanical energy into electricity, and the voltage stabilisation circuitry to provide a clean 5v of power to your phone.

If I had to guess I'd say the manufacturers will struggle to top 10% efficiency in turning heat into 5-Volts of electrical power but this is just my opinion. I've been unable to find any published claims by the manufacturers.

~~~

Still, that would charge even the most power-hungry phone to two thirds from one cup of coffee, which ain't that bad... Or would it?

When talking about the theoretical energy in a cup of boiling water I didn't mention leakage - heat lost into the local environment through a surface other than the Epiphany One Puck.

Heat rises - or rather the heat energy in the cup of hot water concentrates at the top due to convection currents in the water, and consequently far more heat is lost through the top of the cup than the sides or bottom, where The Puck sits.

And then there's evaporation. A large percentage - it can be as much as 70% from a well-insulated cup - of heat energy lost from a hot liquid is via evaporation.

Without taking extra steps to insulate your heat source (coffee), using a lid to minimise evaporation and perhaps placing The Puck above rather than below your well-insulated cup you could end up losing 90% of the energy stored in the boiling coffee.

And now we're only talking about charging 6% of your phone's battery and being left with stone-cold coffee in the process.

And I haven't even mentioned a potential mismatch between the rate of cooling of your coffee and the power consumed by your phone. My phone takes a couple of hours to charge from mains electricity - making insulation of the heat source used by The Puck essential over this time frame.

~~~

Yet I'm still quite excited by the project. Coffee is only one heat source - there's always the sun (in some countries) and in cold countries it's easier to find a heater on e.g. a train in the UK than it is an electrical socket.

I like the idea of having a handy, portable, well-packaged Stirling generator even though I might need a dozen cups of coffee to charge my phone. If Epiphany Labs can pull this off they'll have solved a number of engineering challenges that make projects like this very worthwhile.

@JamesFirth

Inventiveness and the noble art of shirking

2013-01-09T13:31:00.002Z

This post isn't meant to be politically motivated, but politicians right now do seem obsessed with "work" in a Dickensian sense: hard work; dividing the population into two disparate groups: those striving to get by and shirkers.

The problem? It's nearly 150 years since Dickens died and automation means only a modest portion of the total workforce is required to maintain the supply of essential goods and services needed to keep the country running.

That is, we aren't all needed to tend to the fields and keep the factories running in order to make sure the population is fed and clothed.

And as machines get cleverer and more versatile even fewer workers will be required for essential jobs.

The problem with the Victorian juxtaposition of hard work and valour is twofold. It rewards needless labour and stigmatises those who struggle to find a way to make themselves useful.

And it can end up punishing some sections of society in a perverse way - notably those who care full time for a relative or child.

Should these people be forced against their wishes to work, leaving their loved one in the care of a stranger?

Logically it makes no sense; swapping one person's labour for another so that the one more suited through a family bond can go and earn money to pay for the labour of another to look after their relative.

Laziness, the root of all evil?

I'm incredibly lazy - at times. I've been known to put-off boring tasks for months. Yet I've worked round the clock - literally - on some projects to ensure things that need to happen do happen.

How I respond to "work" is pretty much based on the reward on offer.

And reward is a complex equation, not a chunk of money.

Reward can be intellectual nourishment or satisfaction in some way, knowing I've solved a problem or made life easier for myself and others in future.

What I see as my inherent laziness often drives my inventive side. Many years ago I was tasked with a very tedious job setting up and running software tests using a complex, buggy, outdated and laborious system.

At 24 I was mortified that my new relatively senior job at a major company had been reduced to following a long list of detailed instructions; effectively pressing the right button at the right time.

And I was horrified that no-one had found the time to fix the situation.

I didn't want to do this well-paid job but my manager at the time wouldn't listen to reason. Do the assigned work or get fired (I was on a 3-month trial).

Was I a shirker? Probably.

I just couldn't be bothered to do this mind-numbing task, doing pretty-much nothing for a week, before resolving to re-write the whole system - no small feat given the size of the project I was working on.

But I was already behind on running the tests, so I worked 14-hour days to automate the testing process, leaving a legacy saving effort on future projects and bagging a promotion.

If it wasn't for my laziness I'd have done it the way it had always been done - the hard way.

@JamesFirth

ePetitions: 5 million signatories per year, run on a modest budget. An eGovernment success story?

2012-12-18T12:16:00.003Z

Not every FOI request reveals a costly waste of taxpayer's cash.

I requested some statistics on the government's ePetitions service epetitions.direct.gov.uk and was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

I was - still am - quite concerned that a deal of effort seems to go into moderating what petitions are allowed, with some petitions rejected e.g. for duplication when the text is substantially different to the nearest similar petition.

I'm a bit of a purist. I believe a petition is a petition and it's not up to the government to decide which are valid and which are not. Duplication is a fact of life with user-generated content and the online crowd seems to deal with it in its own way.

Some petitions will get forgotten and others will rise to prominence on some trend or other.

Anyhow, that aside I was pleasantly surprised to find the epetitions service runs on a relative shoestring of £25,680 per annum in the last financial year.

Between April 2011 and March 2012 it serviced 5.1 million signatories, created around 15,000 new petitions and was relatively popular with 13.4 million visits (55.2 million page views).

In my opinion this service provides good value.

Whereas online popularity, signatory counts, etc are notoriously easy to game; the government's own service requires a UK address one assumes is validated in some way. If not correlated with the electoral role, storing a physical address should make it easier to detect all but the most modest anomaly.

It's logical to assume the government trusts the signatory count on its own service far more than it would a. n. other ePetition service.

Assuming the Cabinet Office uses the feedback on this service when developing government policy I'm more than happy to have public funds spent in this way.

Full details here, with thanks as always to MySociety.org's FOI tool WhatDoTheyKnow.com.

@JamesFirth

Richard O'Dwyer fined £20k - but what of the "missing" £120k, or did the prosecution exaggerate?

2012-12-07T09:36:00.002Z

The Guardian this morning reports Richard O'Dywer was fined £20,000 and ordered to undergo 6 months of some kind of US-UK remote probation as part of a deal which resulted in extradition proceedings against Richard being dropped.

Now, I don't blame Richard for accepting a deal in which this blog understands will result in no criminal record for Richard on either side of the Atlantic. Proceedings against Gary McKinnon dragged on for ten years; the deal allows Richard O'Dwyer to put this behind him and get on with his studies and the rest of his life.

But I have a serious question about the fine, which is reported in the Guardian as (my bold):

He was also ordered to pay the US dollar equivalent of £20,000, which represents profits earned by his website between December 2007 and November 2010. The money will be used to "repay victims whose copyrights were infringed by TVShack", according to the agreement.

Comparing this to Westminster Magistrates' Court records, where the prosecution alleged:

Complaint is made of the operation by Richard O’Dwyer of a website “TVShack.net” by which, in essence, he is said to have enabled the web surfing public free access to copyrighted feature films/ “movies” and TV programmes earning “over $230,000 in advertising revenue”. The complaint runs from about December 2007 to 29th June 2010 when a U.S. “seizure warrant” seized the domain name “TVShack.net”.

The prosecution alleged TVShack received the equivalent of over £140,000 in revenue, yet settled for £20,000 as equivalent to the profits of the venture.

So if the Guardian has got its facts straight here either TVShack had operating costs of £120,000 over 3 years - equivalent to £40,000 per year for what can't be more than a couple of servers - or the figures provided by the prosecution in the extradition request were a gross over-estimate.

Either way the deal, whilst a relief to Richard and his family, is quite distasteful.

"Pay or we'll extradite" is a high-stakes extension of the "pay or get sued" letters about to hit the doormats of 1,000 UK ISP subscribers for paying the internet bill in a house where someone allegedly used the internet to watch porn.

I don't doubt the extradition collapsed because either the prosecution realised its case wasn't as strong as presented to Westminster Magistrates' Court; or the Home Secretary, whilst publicly supporting extradition, realised how unpopular the decision would be and so privately warned the US Attorney General in his visit last month that they wouldn't get their man.

Either way this fine and charade of 6 months remote probation is a face-saving exercise.

We need to ensure that people who commit crimes whilst in the UK are tried in the UK.

And we need to keep a check on the scam forcing people into cash settlements because the cost, stress and risks in clearing their name through the courts are disproportionately higher than the settlement figure.

@JamesFirth

Want a knowledge economy in the UK? It's time for the UK government to freeze-out the dominant voices of the big guns

2012-12-06T09:41:00.001Z

From Wikipedia:

Regulatory capture occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special concerns of interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.

In a similar vein, I am increasingly worried about the UK government's reliance on advice from global (US) tech firms in drafting public policy and initiatives for the UK.

It's a difficult relationship. On one hand we cash-in on the funding and expertise of tech giants to help our own tech economy.

On the other hand we have a proud history of innovation in technology, science and engineering that was pretty much drowned out by the US giants of the 80's and 90's (IBM, Microsoft).

Reliance on advisers linked to Google and the like is in danger of creating a culture of subservience in technology. Building an engineering resource tailored to the demands of today's tech giants.

Moreover, initiatives like Google's Campus London are nothing more than a government-sponsored business development tool for Google.

In exchange for housing Britain's innovative tech companies, Google gets to forge links allowing it to cherry-pick the best investment opportunities.

And investment from a giant like Google isn't necessarily about growing strong, independent companies. It's about growing Google through acquisition to bolster its own portfolio and, on occasions, quell competition.

Subservience also comes in other forms. For example, a business mainly reliant on Twitter's data feed can suddenly find itself on the wrong side of Twitter's Terms and Conditions and the whole business fails, losing investors - UK tech investors included - substantial sums.

If your tech business is reliant on a parent organism then there are only three realistic outcomes: become moderately successful, be bought out, or fail.

For if the venture becomes too successful then the parent organism will pull the plug one way or another in order to retain its dominance in the space.

One reason tech giants bend over to allow third party integration with their products is that it provides low cost, risk free innovation. Private capital funds the 3rd-party application. If the application proves successful then the company is bought out by the lager company, if it fails the company is forgotten.

I'm sure there are benefits to the approach, but I'm also sure it leaves many innovators and investors chasing dreams.

I'm not knocking the approach in itself. But everyone, governments included, need to see through the gloss when turning to US tech giants to grow Britain's tech sector.

@JamesFirth

#Leveson is excellent on internet free speech. He didn't brush over it, he robustly defended it

2012-11-30T15:55:00.000Z

Leveson says 2 things about the internet.

Firstly, he draws a clear distinction between a news outlet which claims to provide trusted reporting and the internet in general, where there is no implied trust (although Leveson uses the term ethical rather than trusted, which in this particular case I believe are interchangeable as trust in news output flows from ethical journalism).

Chapter 7, section 3.2:

"... the internet does not claim to operate by any particular ethical standards, still less high ones. Some have called it a ‘wild west’ but I would prefer to use the term ‘ethical vacuum’. This is not to say for one moment that everything on the internet is therefore unethical. That would be a gross mischaracterisation of the work of very many bloggers and websites which should rightly and fairly be characterised as valuable and professional. The point I am making is a more modest one, namely that the internet does not claim to operate by express ethical standards, so that bloggers and others may, if they choose, act with impunity."

Leveson doesn't say this but there is also a jurisdiction issue online. It's not strictly true that bloggers may act with impunity if based in the UK, as there's always the possibility they will be traced using existing legal instruments and prosecuted or face civil proceedings for libel or privacy breach.

7.3.3:

"The press, on the other hand, does claim to operate by and adhere to an ethical code of conduct. Publishers of newspapers will be (or, at least, are far more likely to be) far more heavily resourced than most, if not all, bloggers and websites that report news (as opposed to search engines that direct those on line to different sites). Newspapers, through whichever medium they are delivered, purport to offer a quality product in all senses of that term."

Secondly, he draws a distinction between content being available (to those who search out such information) and being actively promoted, e.g. on the front page of a tabloid:

7.3.4:

"There is a qualitative difference between photographs being available online and being displayed, or blazoned, on the front page of a newspaper such as The Sun. The fact of publication in a mass circulation newspaper multiplies and magnifies the intrusion, not simply because more people will be viewing the images, but also because more people will be talking about them. Thus, the fact of publication inflates the apparent newsworthiness of the photographs by placing them more firmly within the public domain and at the top of the news agenda."

This I feel is a crucial point often overlooked when talking about privacy and defamation in an online context. Just because someone tweeted something doesn't mean anyone read it.

Having said all this I do feel Leveson is brushing over the effect of e.g. high profile tweeters, but it takes time and patience to feed an elephant.

@JamesFirth

The elephant in the anti-Leveson editorials: privacy and libel, and the paradoxes they bring

2012-11-30T13:03:00.002Z

Leveson's free press paradox. He wants a free press. He wants a regulatory framework.

Cameron's voluntary body paradox. If major papers don't sign up, he'll pass laws to force them.

Leveson's voluntary body paradox. There are benefits for joining and, through exemplary damages and court cost arrangements, potentially hefty punishments for not joining.

Sitting at the heart of all these seemingly paradoxical positions is one reality: we do not have, today, a press that is entirely free from all state control.

And the shackles of privacy and libel law would become far more restrictive should we have an effective enforcement regime for all.

Whether or not we want or need privacy and defamation rights enshrined in law is itself a question I can't answer without tying myself in knots.

But we have them today.

Day-to-day enforcement is through the civil court, and because the judiciary is independent of the state, some argue there is no "state control" of the press.

And here is the problem at the core of Leveson: the state has granted us all a right of privacy and a right to defend our reputation, yet today we don't all have access to defend these rights due to the cost of access to the civil courts and the threat of being bankrupted by the opposing side's costs should we lose.

So Leveson is proposing a tribunal of sorts that should offer a means of redress for anyone wronged by the press without having to resort to a court.

Whilst Leveson conveniently (and thankfully) ignored the far more complex online questions - complex because we all become publishers and potential victims of intrusion - defamation and privacy are becoming increasingly important rights for everyone.

Particularly victims of crime and those falsely accused of a crime, who can suffer at the hands of the press and, the latter at least, at the hands of online publishers too.

Inevitably any such tribunal will face the accusation that it is restricting a free press unless the body is run entirely by the free press; which is where we were with the "toothless" and "ineffective" Press Complaints Commission.

Full circle.

A war by proxy on privacy rights and smaller publications

However you analyse it, attacking Leveson's findings is a war by proxy against effective redress for privacy violations and defamation for the less wealthy.

We need to have this debate now. A debate about privacy and defamation rights and access to redress.

It upsets me to hear politicians arguing in parliament that newspapers should be prevented from "printing rubbish" as behind such words seemingly in the public interest lies a desire to control the output of the press in some way that is quite frankly unacceptable.

And it upsets me to see powerful publishers - the country's biggest - rubbishing the debate before its already started because there's another power play bubbling under the surface. Protection of the old media's established position against smaller publishers and online sources.

Supporting the status quo leaves questions of privacy and libel in the sole care of the court. And this leaves smaller publications disproportionately affected by the threat of high court costs - even when defending well-founded and valid criticism of powerful people.

I'm absolutely convinced that dominance and monopoly is a major contributing factor to the collusion, corruption and unethical workplace behaviour that became normalised in a small but notable section of the tabloid press. A small section that commandeered a very large audience.

The "guardians of democracy" became complicit in the subversion of democracy. But not all the "guardians", and this is crucial because there won't be a perfect solution - there'll be a least-worst option - and we might have to put up with such abuses as an unavoidable side effect of the benefit of a free press.

We need plurality but we also need large, powerful news outlets capable of going where smaller organisations cannot afford or find the balls to go.

Freedom to, freedom from (again)

I see no clear answers. But perhaps more worrying I see very little honest debate.

I sympathise with much of what David Cameron said yesterday, yet he spent half his time at the dispatch box trumpeting the questionable fact that Leveson had exonerated him and his then media minister of collusion in the Murdoch affair. The rest of the time he merely deflected, rather than answered, his critics.

Grossly unfair generalisations and simplistic statements flowed back from the opposition benches.

Anyone following the debate would be lead to believe we are a country void of honest journalism; when in fact we have today a free press, one of the freest in the world - and yes that is a considered opinion - which consistently exposes issues in the public interest and, tabloids aside, generally behaves itself.

And yes it's not perfect. The MPs' expenses scandal was exposed. Arms to Iraq was exposed. Yet neither Jimmy Savile nor Cyril Smith were exposed; and I suspect the true scale of corruption at the heart of the North Wales child abuse scandal and other pockets of localised corruption have so far evaded press scrutiny.

We need a debate not about press abuses but about privacy, defamation and redress.

A debate that is focussed on protecting freedom, properly balancing the "freedom to" publish against the public's right of a "freedom from" intrusion.

Past debates on privacy and defamation have in my view been steered by vested interests towards the concerns of the powerful in defending their own reputation and privacy, hence why court costs are rarely seen as a problem and why corporations have defamation and some privacy rights.

Yet "freedom from" protection in a free society should be aimed primarily at protecting the vulnerable against the strong; not the powerful against the public, for the powerful should use their platform to defend themselves, not fall back to laws which encumber free and open discussion.

I imagine it's hard for an MP, the protection of whose image and reputation is vital to his or her chances of re-election, to see privacy and libel from the perspective of an ordinary person wronged in the press or defamed on Facebook, whilst acknowledging their own rights as an elected representative must necessarily be curtailed to facilitate open political debate in a democracy, but I hope one day this debate will take place.

Can we draw clear lines to weed-out unacceptable abuses, to provide strong but well-defined protection, a "freedom from", without impinging too far on free speech - a "freedom to"?

Can we have effective privacy and defamation laws that protect all regardless of ability to pay without creating a monster which eventually shackles the free press? I genuinely don't know the answer.

@JamesFirth

What hand did the British government have in halting the Richard O'Dwyer extradition, and why are they not claiming credit?

2012-11-29T10:32:00.001Z

Here's a thought. US prosecutors demanding extradition of Sheffield student Richard O'Dwyer for copyright infringement definitely did not wake up one morning feeling generous.

Granted, it might have started to dawn on prosecutors, pressured by film and record studios to pursue the case, that their demand for extradition might be a tad flimsy.

Plenty of lawyers have been in touch with me with the view that, whilst Richard, some argue, should have faced prosecution in the UK, the case for extradition was very thin indeed.

The novel Deferred Prosecution Agreement deal reached with O'Dwyer is almost certainly a face-saving exercise.

But the timing of the deal suggests to me the British government had a welcome hand in bringing the case to a relatively speedy resolution (18 months, compared to the ten years Gary McKinnon remained in legal limbo).

16th October: Gary Mckinnon's extradition was halted. US Attorney General Eric Holder was reported to be "very disappointed" and "completely screwed" by Theresa May's decision.

7th November: Obama is re-elected, ending months of political uncertainty in Washington. Note in his 2nd and final term, Obama is no longer fighting for campaign dollars from traditional Democrat supporters like the Hollywood movie studios.

21st November: Attorney General Eric Holder visits UK on a charm offensive. Accepts he was "disappointed" but denies saying he felt "completely screwed" re McKinnon in a Radio 4 Today interview.

Whilst I tweeted the BBC's Sarah Montague that she should have asked about O'Dwyer, Eric Holder trotted off for tea and biscuits with Theresa May.

Just one week later..

28th November: The extradition of Richard O'Dwyer, hugely unpopular amongst British voters according to a YouGov survey last June, is dropped.

Just 9% of respondents thought O'Dwyer should be extradited, whilst 46% believed he should not be prosecuted at all. 26% thought he should be tried in the UK.

Crucially for Theresa May, the same poll showed even more Conservative voters (33%) thought he should be tried in the UK, with 45% believing he should not face prosecution at all.

It's well known international diplomacy is mostly about positioning and face-saving so it's hardly surprising the British government, if it did have a hand in this very welcome outcome, is staying quiet.

But it's a shame for democracy that we don't have a bit of transparency on the positions adopted by our elected representatives.

The US studios take something home from the Deferred Prosecution Deal struck with O'Dwyer - the press hysteria over a student potentially being shipped abroad as punishment for serving films from his Sheffield flat has almost certainly made a whole generation wary of crossing the big guns who control the world's supply of western music and film.

Whether or not Theresa May did have a hand in halting the extradition in reality there's not going to be another O'Dwyer.

The US prosecution authorities walked naively into a political minefield.

Whilst the Hollywood studios lapped up the publicity as a massive, free anti-piracy commercial carrying a potent warning, I doubt Washington ever envisaged the burgeoning publicity and political backlash in Britain around O'Dwyer - nor in New Zealand for Kim Dotcom.

The message sent back across the Atlantic is simple: the UK/US extradition deal is a political hot potato in Westminster. Any attempt to abuse the process to nab petty criminals who've never set foot in the US may seriously hinder future attempts to ship terrorists, rapists and murderers back to the US.

I doubt anyone will try a stunt like this for quite a while.

@JamesFirth