Monthly Archives: April 2008
Rant: Phorm Storm (or when ISPs become ISPyers)
Would you consent to your phone lines being permanently bugged or all your mail (in and out) being read, so you could be sent advertising leaflets matched to the information gained on your personal interests?
Would you as a business person, allow someone onto your premises (or to bug your phone / read your email) whose ultimate aim was to collect details on how to contact your visitors and customers, in order that your direct business rivals could thus target them with their own advertising?
+24Rant: Terrorism Power Abuses – Off and Running
News this week that Poole council has used legislation designed to combat terrorism, to spy on a family suspected of trying to cheat the school catchment system is the first publicly reported abuse of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), but I’m sure it won’t be the last…
Civil rights groups such as Liberty (rightly it now appears) have expressed concerns about these powers since the tabloid-led knee-jerk reaction policy frenzy, which followed 9/11 and 7/7 which created acts such as RIPA. They argued that existing anti-terrorist legislation already in place in the UK since the early 1970′s to combat terrorist attacks by IRA cells were still relevant enough to be used to deal with the new threat of Islamic extremism. There was therefore no need to introduce further legislation.
+21Winter returns
This morning we woke up to the rather picturesque sight of an unexpected snowstorm on Saturday night. 4 to 5 inches of snow and not a tyre track or footprint to be seen.
See the photos.
It’s not unknown to have snow in April, but it’s been a fair few years since we had such a heavy dusting, especially after such a mild winter and with an early spring.
The view certainly beats any TV rubbish and being on a Sunday I didn’t have to drive in it (result!)
Shortly after the photos were taken, the sun peeped out between a break in the clouds and within an hour it was all slush. Never mind… 
+12