Category Archives: Articles

Porn Summit is Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Representatives from a whole host of ISPs will meet tomorrow with Culture Secretary Maria Miller in a summit to discuss the problems of illegal child abuse image distribution and the effective filtering of legal pornography. Brushing aside for a moment the fact that these are two very separate issues that need to be handled in different ways and not be confusingly bundled together, there are some other serious problems with the governments approach to the issue.

Having a meeting to which only service providers are invited emphasises the governments apparent position that it is the ISPs responsibility to police the content created by internet users. This is as ridiculous as expecting postmen to not deliver hate mail. ISPs are not and should not be responsible for the things Internet users choose to put online.

On the issue of filtering, it’s amazing that ministers still consider filtering as a possible course of action. Only this week ORG have released a collection of other web sites blocked by existing filters used by mobile carriers. To try and put an absolute filter on something as subjective as inappropriate content seems almost wilfully dismissive of citizen freedoms. Read more in today’s ComputerWorldUK article.

Fixing PRISM

The risks relating to PRISM came as no surprise to privacy and security specialists such as Casper Bowden, independent privacy and surveillance expert and former Chief Privacy Advisor to Microsoft. In fact, last year he co-authored a report to the European Parliament outlining the risks posed by FISA 702 and associated loopholes in EU Data Protection law.

Today’s article on ComputerWorldUK takes the form of a question and answer session with Bowden, exploring some of the elements of FISA which have been alarmingly highlighted by the revelations of PRISM. It also seeks to respond to the question of how we can be protected against widespread cyber-surveillance and makes concrete proposals. The interview was conducted in February, before PRISM’s existence became known, but as he commented at the Open Rights Group conference last week, the analysis is as relevant today as it ever was.

Getting Out of PRISM

The revelations about U.S. intelligence activities over the past week have been a wake up call to us all. The implications of big brother’s ever searching gaze are far reaching and require immediate consideration, especially given the ongoing growth of cloud computing.

One website is usefully collating details of software systems that reduce the risk of your communications being intercepted. Looking through some of the software presented on “PRISM break” helps to visualise the extent to which the existence of PRISM compromises your internet privacy. Having seen the wide range of solutions they suggest, perhaps you’ll want to overhaul your cloud service use completely, or perhaps you’ll settle for smaller changes, like installing the HTTPS everywhere browser plug-in.

Whatever you decide, there are lots of options out there. So be encouraged, we are not helpless when it comes to protecting our safety and privacy online. Together with the open source community we do not need to give in to the big brother states and corporations of this world. Read more in this week’s InfoWorld article.

More on Patents

After looking at patents on Wednesday in relation to the Apple v Samsung ruling and applauding Obama’s actions against trolls, patents are popping up again today. We’re taking a look at some realistic changes that could be made to the patent system. Whilst in an ideal world software patents would be eliminated completely, that’s not something that’s really on the cards. So what steps could be taken within the system as it stands to improve the situation? Read some of Simon’s thoughts in today’s InfoWorld article.

VP8 Safe For Open Source Use

A few weeks ago we put up a critique of Google’s proposed VP8 license. The associated article drew the attention of the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), a law firm that provides pro bono support to the open source software community. Dialogue with the SFLC left Simon with a few important clarifications to make with regard to his article.

The key observation to take away is that the VP8 is in no way incompatible with open source licensing. The license is for the benefit of OEMs and patent holders who might otherwise get a bit twitchy. For most open source developers the VP8 license doesn’t need to be used.

Furthermore, the license includes a clause offering “release from past infringement”. This means that developers really don’t need to worry about using the license at all; in the unlikely situation that an MPEG-LA patent holder actually tried an attack on the basis of your VP8 implementation, you could then sign onto the license and cover yourself against those claims retrospectively. Read the full story in today’s InfoWorld article.

Resurgent CDB

What does the Woolwich murder teach us about the need for the Communications Data Bill? Nothing at all; the security services seem to have known all about the suspect using existing powers.

Yet somehow it’s being used as a pretext to keep the CDB agenda firmly in the public eye. Cynical and repulsive as this is it’s not a big surprise. In fact, it very much echoes the predictions of Simon’s previous blog post on the CDB.

What can we do to stop the CDB from piggybacking itself onto every fresh news item? The treatment remains the same. New legislation needs to be put forward which deals with specific security concerns in a more appropriate, less invasive way. Read more in today’s ComputerWorldUK article.

Ubuntu Phone

UbuntuFor a work in progress Ubuntu Phone has a lot of things going for it. Great appearance, an efficiently smooth user experience through the use of the phones edges as  universal start points to summon menus and start searches and a dedicated existing community of advocates and end users. But there are a number of big questions that still need to be resolved.

Ubuntu Phone is still very much a work in progress. The developers claim to be entering the “dogfooding stage” of the OS’s creation; using it on their own devices to get a working understanding of its strengths and weaknesses. That’s still a long way off completion and even a way behind Firefox OS which is available on an actual device via Geeksphone.

Talking to Canonical’s Jono Bacon revealed that they’re currently framing the lack of associated app store as a strength rather than a weakness. That’s a hard position to justify in today’s mobile market. It was also interesting to hear his views about how Ubuntu Phone fits into the market as a whole. Read more in today’s InfoWorld article.

Google’s VP8 License Proposal

Google have released a draft agreement designed to help VP8 adoption by licensing a number of relevant patents on a royalty free basis. It sounds good, but the details of the license still need some work. Hopefully we’ll see some changes to this draft before the final license is released.

There are a number of issues with the document as it stands. One key problem is that it’s not sub-licensable; every user wanting to benefit from the agreement would need to make an individual response. Continue reading →

Did you miss the year of the Linux Desktop?

Back in August last year you might have seen Miguel de Icaza’s blog post “What Killed the Linux Desktop“. Since then a debate has been smouldering yet again in the Linux community with regard to whether the “year of the Linux Desktop” is still an achievable dream. Google’s Chromebook is one solid response to that question. It runs a stripped down, single function Linux system that’s easily maintained and secured centrally.

But the reason it should really be considered an answer to the question of the supremacy of Linux is its focus on the browser. The browser has overtaken the desktop as the prime location for applications. Linux based applications form the backbone of today’s computer usage, being the powerhouse behind the majority of applications people actually use. The real metric is not replacement of Windows; it’s replacement of Windows applications. Read more and have your say in today’s InfoWorld article.

Components Becoming Major Source Of CVEs

Earlier today Sonatype released the results of  their annual survey. The survey looks at the extent to which developers use open source components, with a particular focus on how they balance the competing needs of speed and security. The data makes it clear that security is very often not the priority.

The results of the survey show the massive extent to which developers now rely on components. Of course, this has been the case for many years, but the full maturation of the concept of component assembly rather than code writing is well illustrated here. Continue reading →