Whatever...

Shock horror – online business comes before human rights

By Joe Banks

Depending on your worldview, a rather depressing piece of news slipped out the other week.  At Yahoo’s annual general meeting, a proposal was tabled to oppose online censorship and set up a ‘human rights committee’ which would monitor the company’s policies around the world, particularly in China.

However, Yahoo’s shareholders comprehensively rejected the proposal, with only 4% backing the idea of a committee. 

The Independent, the only UK broadsheet to pick up on the story, reported the following pearl from Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s co-founder and new boss:

In a presentation that drew a round of applause from shareholders, Mr Yang said the private sector alone could not change the attitudes of repressive regimes, but insisted: "Yahoo! is committed to protecting human rights globally."

The temptation to respond “yeah, right…” is almost overwhelming.

It’s difficult to know how to take this type of story.  On the one hand, it’s easy to be shocked by the apparent hypocrisy and cynicism on display here.  On the other, it’s equally as easy to shrug shoulders and say “so what’s new?” 

While the internet is still regarded in certain quarters eg. the blogosphere, as being some kind of utopian global community, and Google still desperately clings to its ‘do no evil’ credo, the fact is that corporate interests dominate the web just as much as the real world. 

Of course, it’d be nice to think that such a stark illustration of internet business being red in tooth and claw would cause outraged web consumers to vote with their clicking fingers and migrate to a more ‘ethical’ service provider – but somehow I doubt this will be the case.  We might like to believe we’re living in some kind of hyper-connected global village, but at the end of the day, those guys in China, you know, well, they do things differently over there, it’s not my problem, mate…

Yeah, well, it should be. 

Turning over political dissidents’ emails in order for them to be prosecuted, imprisoned, and goodness knows what else isn’t something that companies like Yahoo should be allowed to just brush under the corporate carpet.  Because frankly, if we don’t get angry about this type of web censorship and data abuse soon, it could turn out to be the thin end of a very big wedge indeed…

Stop sneaks with Bluetooth?? This is one message I can't accept

By Tom Kirkham

In an age of hacking, ID fraud, phishing, pharming, darkmail, spyware and ransomware, it's important not to forget that old-fashioned physical break-in is still a very real problem.  Research shows that one in four of all burglaries happen as a result of ‘sneak-in’ thefts, where a burglar enters a house simply because they spy an open door or window. 

As this is likely to be a problem during the summer months, when there is at least a vague chance of the weather being warm, police in West Yorkshire are currently gearing up for a major awareness-raising campaign, using leaflets, posters and even beermats to educate the populace to this danger. 

Surprisingly, the campaign also includes plans to trial Bluetooth technology as part of the education process.  The brainchild of Innovation Leeds, part of Leeds City Council's ICT department, this involves police officers scanning their immediate vicinity (30 metres) for phones and laptops, before sending the somewhat cryptic message '1 in 4 Through An Unlocked Door - Stop The Sneak' out to any devices detected.  If the trial proves successful, it will be rolled out across the whole force, and used in other crime prevention campaigns. 

Frankly, this is up there with the London Olympic logo in terms of ill-conceived ideas.  According to detective inspector Duncan Macnay, “People are more relaxed about security when they are at home.  But while they are in the back garden or asleep, their property is particularly vulnerable".  This may well be true, but sending Bluetooth messages to people while they’re asleep doesn't strike me as an obvious remedy. 

Worse still, in order to access these words of crime prevention wisdom, you have to accept a contact request - from the West Yorkshire Police.  This is likely to result either in people casually dismissing the request as a joke, or worse, inducing panic in the unlucky recipient.  And in the unlikely case that someone does click accept, what exactly are they supposed to make of a message that reads more like a riddle than a security warning. 

As a general user guideline, the official Bluetooth website lists putting your device 'into a non-discoverable state so that you are invisible to other Bluetooth enabled devices'.  So, at best, this trial might at least manage to alert a few people that their Bluetooth is switched on, which if nothing else could help prevent the likes of Cabir and CommWarrior from spreading.   

I'm sorry for savaging Innovation Leeds' ideas, but the public sector continues to waste money on IT projects that appear poorly conceived, planned, and executed, and in many cases serve no discernable purpose.  Trials such as this aren't likely to stem the tide of popular opinion - they're just pointless gimmicks.  Doug Sutherland, head of innovation at Innovation Leeds, suggests that, "The crime prevention uses for the (Bluetooth) technology don't stop here".  Actually, they don't start here either.

The next French Revolution - from page to web?

By Marjorie Meyer

One of the hot topics at the moment here in France is the fate of Groupe Tests, a leading publisher in the IT sector recently acquired by NextradioTV.  Groupe Tests has the Sword of Damocles over its head and is to undergo a major restructuring by getting rid of six magazines (Micro photo vidéo, Univers Mac, 01 Réseaux, Décision Informatique, Décision Distribution and 01DSI).

Although the World Association of Newspapers claims newspaper circulation around the world is globally healthy despite the boom of digital media, it looks like this isn’t necessarily the case in Europe, with circulation in France having dropped 5.7 per cent in five years.  Nevertheless, the free dailies are doing well and have comprehensively invaded the metro.

However, NextradioTV has also inherited 01net.com from Groupe Tests - one of the most visited French websites - with the aim to “reinforce its Internet activity leadership”.  No doubt, so will others.  Thanks to the explosion of Web 2.0, the Internet is proving very attractive to editors and is now an integral part of their strategy. 

For instance, 20minutes.fr recently declared that it wants to be more than just an online newspaper and will invest 10M€ to achieve this goal.  Similarly, Lagardère Active decided not to launch new magazines this year – instead, it prefers to concentrate on its web activities, and is hiring 150 new people to do this. 

This is truly a media revolution.  Remember, it was only a few years ago that many publications in France didn’t even have a website.  Now, it’s commonplace across all media categories, and it’s often possible to read the entire content of a publication on the web. We can even do this offline via an e-book reader and this is sure to contribute further to the Internet's growing popularity with the media.

The impending disappearance of the Groupe Tests publications makes me think that the glory days of magazines and newspapers may be over.  I’m not saying that print press will disappear altogether, but it is no longer the main focus of media as it once was.  And as a result, it seems to me that both readers and PRs are heading towards a very new type of relationship with the press.

Social Networking - don't knock it 'til you've tried it

By Dominic Walsh

My wife is not a native of this occasionally lovely country.  We moved here two years ago, and as a result, we have a large number of friends and family living in East Asia and California, as well as scattered throughout the rest of the world.

How should we keep in contact with them? The telephone is expensive, unless we use VoIP, but that assumes a similar level of technical expertise from both sides of the conversation.  Even with cheap calls, the time difference limits conversations to either late at night or early in the morning, which is hardly ideal.  Post is an option, but the cost can soon mount up, not to mention the time involved and the risk of your package going walkabout.

So, thank heavens for social networking. We can keep in touch with our family, check quickly on their well-being and follow the progress of our nieces, nephews and godchildren.  As well as this, as an initial immigrant to an alien country, it’s been invaluable for my wife to find and meet new friends in the UK and ex-pat communities.  It’s also helped us find work and allowed my wife to quickly and easily display and send her portfolio.

Of course, not everyone looks so kindly on the whole social networking thing. Often those people are journalists, or worse, ‘columnists’.  So, Facebook might not be for you, and I myself have a deep-seated aversion to people who put their religion on the census as "Jedi"…

But what I don’t like is senseless denigration without understanding all the ways that people use it.  I probably shouldn’t get worked up about this.  I should accept that people have their views and they should be respected. But you know what? The hell with it.

If someone launches an ill-conceived, badly-researched attack on something that has been vital to my family, and decides to do so using their privileged position as a journalist on a major national paper, then I’d like to get my own oar in too (even if we have a slightly lower circulation).

It would be pretty easy (and therapeutic) to pick holes in this article.  But what’s more worrying is that mainstream journalism on ‘IT’ seems to only have two points of view.  Either it’s going to revolutionise the world and we’re all going to end up living, working and breeding (Oh please no…) in Second Life.  Or technology is ruining true communities, computer games are hives of blasphemy and everything’s going to end up a bit Judgement Day.

Considering that the vast majority of people I know – across all ages and a vast variety of professions and lifestyles – can accept most technology at face value, taking the best of what works and ignoring that which doesn’t, why then does the mainstream media find it so hard to do the same?

Goodness, you don’t think it’s deliberate, do you…?

Watch the skies – they’re watching you...

By Audrey Sternberg

In 2000, a TV series called Dark Angel featured a drone, a pilot-less aircraft operated by remote control.  In the series, it was used to observe and identify faces before then killing people.  Scary stuff!

It was fiction, of course - though drones were already being used by the army.

However, it looks like fiction is rapidly becoming reality: Liverpool has decided to use video drones to keep an eye on its citizens.  So, after the instalment of video cameras on street corners all around the UK, there will now be drones to keep the unruly masses under even closer watch.

The unmanned CCTV drone, which measures only a metre wide, is fitted with the latest in CCTV cameras and can record images from a height of 500m.  Big Brother is getting nearer and nearer!

After hearing this news, I tried to find more on the internet.  Of course, on Google News France, I found nothing about the UK drone.  But I read an interesting article about a drone which won the 2007 Lepine Award earlier this month and which is capable of detecting chemical products in the air.  It’s composed of a set of sensors which are able to detect potential pollution thanks to the association of a video camera and GPS localisation.  All this information is transmitted to a headquarters located within a radius of about 10km.

But it’s not just about pollution.  It has already been used for an anti-terrorist initiative in 2006 following a shipwreck with 10,000 tons of phosphoric acid on board.  It can also be used in airports or metros to detect possible chemical attacks.

So, not all drones are necessarily bad…  I just hope that Liverpool’s little experiment doesn’t extend to other cities or countries.

We Are The Champions

On Thursday 24 May, Johnson King decamped en masse to sunny Barcelona to pick up its SABRE Award for European Technology Consultancy Of The Year.

We came, we saw, we cheered and clapped, we ate, danced and were merry, we caused a ruckus on Las Ramblas… and of course, we took a million photographs.

Until next year…