Earth: Mostly Harmless

Whither privacy?

A number of things have popped up on the radar (read: RSS reader) from sources such as 27B Stroke 6, BoingBoing and EFF: Deep Links that have sounded to me like extremely Bad Things from a privacy/individual rights point of view. These sorts of things come out of such sources all the time, but it seems to me that in the last few months some particularly concerning ones have arisen which are either (a) so concerning in the first place that they warrant a Tin Foil Hat and or (b) have conspicuously failed to go away.

Some notable examples from the past few days’ media coverage:

Swedes favour more bugging
Supreme court refuses to hear challenge to air passenger identification requirements
The continuing air passenger data-sharing disagreement between the EU & USA
US Visitor Fingerprints To Be (Perhaps) Stored by FBI
Bush says feds can open mail without warrant

I personally find some of these developments to be more than a little disturbing: however I am conscious that, particularly outside the United States (where many of the most egregious challenges to civil liberties occur nowadays), people don’t seem to care about privacy any more. Or else, they see these developments as inevitable and (to some extent) a necessary compromise.

Continue reading Whither privacy?…

‘I Spy with Thy Lecturer’s Eye’

This is a story I wrote for publication in my University’s student newspaper. It went out in the 9th November edition of the Strathclyde Telegraph (which went out today, due to late printing). It was edited for publication somewhat but I’ve chosen to publish the version which went to press here in the interests of consistency…

And no, the title/headline is nothing to do with me - so send your groans/complaints elsewhere!

A leaked draft memorandum has revealed the UK government gave serious consideration to asking senior university staff to pass on information regarding Muslim or “Asian-looking” students to the security services. This approach appears to be the latest in a series of faltering efforts aimed at tackling ‘extremism’ in Muslim communities, for which the government believes campuses are “fertile recruiting grounds”.

The memo, which is not publicly available but was obtained by The Guardian, calls for university staff to cede information to Special Branch units of regional police forces regarding the activities of Muslim societies on campus.

It has provoked outrage among students, university staff and among Muslim communities.

Ousman Sadiq, a Masters student on Strathclyde’s Computer and Electronic Systems course described the measures as “a largely unhelpful bit of guidance that will end up only making Muslims feel more oppressed, while still not being a deterrent to those who tend towards an extremist viewpoint”.

NUS National President Gemma Tumelty criticised the plans as likely to introduce a “McCarthy-like atmosphere of suspicion between students and lecturers”, and the Universities and Colleges Union joint secretary Paul Mackney warned that the memo had the implication of “blurring the boundaries of what is illegal and what is possibly undesirable”. “UCU members have a pivotal role in building trust - these proposals, if implemented, would make it all but impossible”. The Australian Vice Chancellors Committee (AVCC) even went so far as to issue a press release to reassure students studying in Australia that such measures would never be implemented there.

While plans to distribute the memo itself among senior university staff appear to have been shelved, its essentially ill-founded premises, unhelpful tone and ham-fisted terminology are further evidence of the Government’s increasingly desperate attempts to foster better community relations from the top down.

The memo is ostensibly aimed at averting acts of terrorism, but confuses terrorism on the one hand, and radicalisation on the other. To say that universities sometimes radicalise people in their religious and political views is hardly controversial, but to consider this radicalisation in the context of Muslim communities a stepping stone to committing acts of violence implies a very dim view of students’ morality. Tumelty suggests that “indiscriminate monitoring of groups on campus assumes collective guilt”.

The accusatory tone of the document also has implications for student recruitment and retention. The numbers of Muslim students on many university courses is already unrepresentative of the wider social mix in many British cities - and Mackney fears that proposals like those in the memo, mixed with unhelpful comments from government ministers in recent weeks regarding issues such as the veil, could undermine the “enormous strides” made in recent years in university diversity and race relations.

The government’s approach of ethnic profiling, as evidenced by the ‘Asian-looking’ reference in the memo, has also come in for sharp criticism. Labony Choudhury, a student at Sheffield University interviewed by The Guardian, pointed out that “being Muslim has nothing to do with the colour of your skin, nor terrorism of any description. It’s like trying to define what a rapist looks like. Far too simplistic.”

By Graeme West

29th October 2006

Location of first Apple store in Scotland: 147 Buchanan Street

I’m generally guilty of saying ‘I told you so’ too much - but this time, I bloody well did tell you so.

Location of first Apple store in Scotland:

Filed under: Retail, Apple

Survivingcinemas.org.uk has uncovered the future location of Apple’s first store in Scotland. 147 Buchanan Street, Glasgow will house Scotland’s Apple Store as well as a glass spiral staircase and a Genius/iPod bar. This former theater will have an estimated £1,1,68,000 pumped into it to covert it into a stainless steel encased Apple Store (signage will be approved separately). Interestingly, it would seem that this store will not have a theater which is becoming a trend in new Apple Stores.

[via MacNN]

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(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)).

UK Think Tank Calls For Fair Use Of Your Own CDs

Sensible proposals from the Institute for Public Policy Research. Shame they’ll probably not be given a second look in the Government’s copyright review.

UK Think Tank Calls For Fair Use Of Your Own CDs:

jweatherley writes “The BBC reports that a UK think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has called for the legalization of format shifting. In a report commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, they state that copyright laws are out of date, and that people should have a ‘private right to copy’ which would allow them to legally copy their own CDs and DVDs on to home computers, laptops and phones. The report goes on to say that: ‘it is not the music industry’s job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government.’ The report also argues that there is no evidence the current 50-year copyright term is insufficient. The UK music industry is campaigning to extend the copyright term in sound recordings to 95 years.”

(Via Slashdot).

Part 3 of RIPA Act - consultation

More on the proposed enactment of section 3 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Looks like some parliamentary types are starting to catch on to the reasoning coming from the computing communities.

“But the draft code of conduct has no guidance on weighing privacy against the demands of law enforcement,” said Caspar Bowden, former head of FIPR.

He questioned how police could balance the rights of victims, suspects and the general public if this was not made explicit.

Mr Bowden also questioned the wisdom of making it an offence to refuse to unscramble evidence. He said there were many scenarios that made it possible for a suspect to deny they ever had the key that unlocked encrypted data.

Already, he said, there had been one court case in which a suspect was acquitted after claiming a computer virus under someone else’s control had caused the offences for which he faced trial. Mr Bowden speculated that other suspects could use the same tactic or would fake a virus infection to get themselves off the hook.

Some fear the powers will stop people taking care with data
He also asked how someone would prove they had genuinely lost or forgotten a password and wondered if the threat of a jail sentence would hamper efforts to make users take more care of personal data.

“Will it deter the mass of honest users from properly securing their data?” said Mr Bowden.

You bet.

BBC story