Showing posts with label poodles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poodles. Show all posts

17 August 2009

Of Mephistopheles and Poodles

I was always under the impression that Lord Mandelson was dark, Machiavellian and very sharp; apparently not:

Lord Mandelson launched a crackdown on internet piracy just days after meeting a leading Hollywood critic of illegal file sharing.

The business secretary plans to criminalise the estimated seven million people - one in 12 of the population - who illicitly download music and films over the internet.

In what critics describe as a gross attack on civil liberties, those flouting new laws could see their internet accounts suspended and face fines of up to £50,000.

Parents could even be thrown off the net even if it is their children are caught downloading tracks upstairs in their bedrooms, not them.

Lord Mandelson ordered officials to draw up the draconian regulations days after dinner with David Geffen, who founded the Asylum record label which signed Bob Dylan.

The pair dined on 7 August at the Rothschild family villa on Corfu, while Mandelson was holidaying on the Greek island.

I've heard of poodles turning into Mephistopheles, but never the other way round.... (Via Techdirt.)

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08 October 2008

Oh Irony, Thy Name is Labour

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

15 September 2008

Should Mozilla Rebrand Itself as Firefox?

Firefox is a massive success in Europe, but what is striking about its adoption is the variation from country to country. For example, in Finland it has a market share of over 45%, while in the UK, to its eternal shame, it is a pathetic 20%. How can such a huge disparity be explained?

Well, I have my dark theories involving Bill Gates and a poodle, but putting those aside for the moment, here's an interesting attempt from Mozilla to find out more....

On Open Enterprise blog.

27 August 2008

A Tortured Relationship

The US state department today warned that disclosure of secret information in the case of a British resident said to have been tortured before he was sent to Guantánamo Bay would cause "serious and lasting damage" to security relations between the two countries.

Nothing like a good, honest threat to bring a poodle to heel...

16 April 2007

Warning: Common-Sense Attack!

Look out - the UK Government (or parts of it) are suffering an attack of common-sense:

President George W Bush's concept of a "war on terror" has given strength to terrorists by making them feel part of something bigger, Hilary Benn will say.

The international development secretary will tell a meeting in New York the phrase gives a shared identity to small groups with widely differing aims.

And Mr Benn, a candidate for Labour's deputy leadership, will confirm that UK officials will stop using the term.

The White House coined the phrase after the attacks of 11 September 2001.

Mr Benn will say: "In the UK, we do not use the phrase 'war on terror' because we can't win by military means alone.

It will be interesting to see what happen when Tony "Poodle" Blair finally deigns to move on.

29 April 2006

Poodles, UFOs, Truth, Terror and Microsoft

The facts behind the UK cracker who ill-advisedly decided to break into Pentagon systems just gets more and more bizarre. The main issue is that this poor bloke faces porridge in Guantanamo Bay - with hot and cold running torture (mental and physical), kindly provided by that nice Uncle Sam. But along the way there are issues of jurisdiction, questions about George W. Bush's favourite poodle, UFOs and Microsoft.

Yes, it's actually all Microsoft's fault.