October 30th, 2009

MI5, an ISP lawsuit and an e-petition: More opposition to piracy cut-off plans

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 5:33 am

Categories: Discussion, Government, Legal and political, Piracy and file-sharing

Tags: Lawsuit, Internet Service Provider, Piracy, Digital Television, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Government, Peer To Peer (P2P), TVs, Internet, Personal Technology

There has been more controversy this week with a major Internet service provider, a petition set up to harness the power of democracy, but also the British Security Service, MI5, all opposing the cut-off laws which are being pushed through by a key figure in the British government’s cabinet.

The Digital Economy Bill, which will be brought to Parliament in the next few months, began with a good intention to bring positive change to how the country’s primary source of communication was run and would continue to work, such as:

“…delivering a universally available broadband in the UK by 2012 through a public fund, including funds released from the digital television switchover help scheme.”

However, Peter Mandelson, the Business Secretary, is trying to use this legislation to follow through his apparent own agenda to fight illegal file-sharing in form of cutting offenders off the web for the maximum of a year.

Both intelligence services, MI5 and MI6 have “voiced their concerns” regarding the disconnection of citizens who are found to be file-sharing as it will make monitoring and surveillance far more difficult, while police and major law enforcement units in London are concerned due to the amount of evidence that will no longer be able to be collected as a result of these bans.

• Read more: Student suicide threat over RIAA bullying tactics
• Read more: Downloading content illegally vs. getting away with it
• Read more: Universities in hot water over students’ peer-to-peer sharing

It is important to say that Mandelson does not see “widespread account suspension” resulting, and that the “technical measures” (cutting off the Internet to offenders) will be a “last resort”.

Meanwhile, TalkTalk, a major ISP in the UK with ownership rights over Tiscali and AOL and serving over four million users, are threatening legal action against either the government for enacting the policy or even Mandelson directly.

Last month the ISP, who are massively against the three-strike plan, demonstrated how with many unsecured wireless networks still existing, how easy it would be to download illegal content or media through another connection.

With this, Andrew Heaney, TalkTalk’s executive director of strategy and regulation, has taken advantage of the Government’s e-petition service, asking the prime minster to:

“… abolish the proposed law that will see alleged illegal file-sharers disconnected from their broadband connections, without a fair trial.”

If you have or had British citizenship, you are more than welcome to sign the petition which can be found here.

As and when news develops on this rather interesting and somewhat personal topic, you’ll find it here.

October 25th, 2009

Universities in hot water over students' peer-to-peer sharing

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 4:42 pm

Categories: Breaking news, Downloads, Government, Legal and political, Money, Piracy and file-sharing, University, University fun

Tags: Network, P2P, British Broadcasting Corp., Student, File-sharing, Peer To Peer (P2P), Government, Internet, Zack Whittaker

The battle against online piracy is heating up: a new artist led initiative is taking on the diplomatic and negotiation approach whereas governments and legislators are hitting down punitive policies on their citizens.

Jon Newton of p2pnet, alongside Billy Bragg, musician and director of the Featured Artists Coalition, have begun work on a2f2a.com, a campaign started to discuss how artists can cut out the middleman - such as the suicide inducing RIAA - and ensure artists are fairly remunerated.

Along with their mission statement, the efforts seem to be focused towards not only admitting there is no technological solution to the problems artists already face, but that users would be “willing to pay for music if they can be sure that the money is going to the artists whose work they enjoy.”

File sharing itself is not illegal; what is shared, exactly, could be. With BitTorrent being used to distribute emerging artists’ music on a wide and free scale, or services such as BBC iPlayer which rely on peer-to-peer technology to reduce the load on the central services - file sharing technology cannot be simply eradicated.

Read the rest of this entry »

September 21st, 2009

Google Apps and Facebook's recent inbox controversies

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 11:56 am

Categories: Discussion, Google, Legal and political, Productivity, Security

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, Facebook, ReadWriteWeb, User Permission, Cloud Computing, E-mail, Online Communications, Zack Whittaker

Over the course of last week, issues with both Facebook’s service and Google’s Apps service were highlighted by users.

What Google did wrong

Microsoft must have been reveling in Google’s tears as their competitor to Live@edu glitched, allowing other users and students to view, in some cases, the entire contents of another student’s inbox.

The issue was caused by an unknown bug which occurred during the switchover process from self-hosted accounts to Google-hosted accounts. According to one report, Google took between 3-5 days to isolate the issue and close the accounts before fixing the problem.

ReadWriteWeb’s summation:

“In the case of the Google Apps glitch, which began on Friday, September 11th, a couple of students notified Brown’s Computing and Information Services department (CIS) that they were able to read emails belonging to other students.

The CIS department contacted Google on the following day and sent out an email to the 200 students whose mailboxes were in transition, asking them whether or not they were experiencing the same problem. Some were. The affected students could either see entire inboxes belonging to another classmate or, in other cases, saw less than 100 messages that did not belong to them.”

What Facebook did wrong

On a similar note, Facebook took a relatively quiet step in the anti-privacy route by allowing application to access inbox messages.

This appears to be a effort to open up the Facebook experience outside of the desktop by allowing the API to connect with offline applications, but arguably the system is susceptible to abuse.

According to a campaign to keep messages private:

“On August 11th, Facebook started giving whitelisted apps access to inbox messages. User permission is required, but the potential for abuse is enormous - a malicious or hacked app could post private messages on the web for anyone to read.
Even if you block or avoid applications, messages you send to less careful friends (who do use inbox apps) could be compromised.”

The controversy began when the Facebook Developer site announced last month that:

“The Inbox API allows you to access your users’ messages, once they grant your application the new read_mailbox extended permission. This lets your applications provide an interface for users to view their messages. For example, your application could pop up an alert when the user receives a new message.”

Ironically those supporting the cause (via) Facebook itself, although the petition application you use doesn’t collect any personal information. However, Facebook and security has never seemed very tight with applications in mind; there is very little stopping an application being a spam-engine and causing more hassle than good.

Had Facebook decided to ask the users their opinions of this, explaining in lay terms so the vast majority of audience understands using a poll, perhaps the end result would have been far different.

While no company is perfect and it is becoming increasingly difficult to fix and plug holes in complicated code, both Facebook and Google should take something away from all this: Sometimes doing what you consider good causes more issues, and the customer has the final say.

Have your say. It’s free, you know?

September 16th, 2009

Could Internet filtering cause more harm than good?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 5:16 pm

Categories: Discussion, Environment, Government, Legal and political, Security

Tags: Imagery, Child, Internet, Zack Whittaker

Countries around the world are steadily rolling out filtering systems which block citizens from viewing child abuse imagery. With the United Kingdom and New Zealand with independent filters in place, and Australia potentially soon after, Internet censorship is becoming common practice across the world.

What many don’t realise is the true extent of governmental filtering across the web.

I take on two perspectives here. One, I am a godfather of two beautiful little children which I would gladly take a bullet for. Two, I worked albeit for a relatively short time in the child protection sphere. While children frankly drive me up the wall, my views and opinions on keeping them safe could well be considered controversial to the vast majority of Republicans and Daily Mail readers.

Australia is a tricky one. Because of their legislative power running through a two-chamber system, their present government cannot push through enough votes to secure the filter being activated. As of today, it is very unlikely the filter will go ahead until more votes are drawn in in the next general election, in favour of the Rudd cabinet.

But looking at the broad spectrum of governmental filtering across nations, the one and main reason these vast Internet filters seem to want to accomplish is the reduction in access to child sexual abuse imagery. All good and well, you would say.

From a professional point of view, paedophilia is an illness; a genuine psychological condition which causes a sexual interest in children, whereas a convicted child sex offender (CCSO) is a branding caused by a consciously committed offence against a child of a sexual nature. One is an illness and poses a potential risk to children, whereas the other is a branding of conviction caused by someone who acted upon their desires.

The two sides to these filters is firstly by reducing (with the aim of entirely removing) the chance of a citizen being exposed to child sexual abuse imagery, and the other is to prevent people seeking out child sexual abuse imagery to satisfy their urges. Both are preventative measures, but the latter is something which cannot be avoided without medical intervention.

The filter would not deter paedophiles or CCSO’s from indulging in their desires. The World Wide Web has been around for nearly two decades, but anthropologically speaking in Western society, these crimes would have been accomplished without the aid of an international network of computers. In some areas of the world, what we would call crimes are societal normality’s and even though we would be horrified to see it, their society dictates differently.

Point being, removing access to child sexual abuse imagery online would not deter those who are determined enough. Previous non-offenders could potentially seek out children in their determination to fulfil their need and drive the issue underground and away from law enforcement.

Even though every time a child sexual abuse image is viewed, it essentially perpetuates the abuse further, but one could argue that physically assaulting a child is somewhat in an entirely different league to the aforementioned.

This aside, Internet filtering around the world is far more widespread than the average user thinks. For example:

• United Kingdom has Cleanfeed - provided by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to identify child sexual abuse imagery and provides a simple 404 error message. ISP’s can if they wish use their own systems.
• Norway provides a DNS filter which blocks access to child sexual abuse imagery deemed so by the regulatory authorities.
• Germany asked Google.de to block access to anything which is deemed to incite Nazi propaganda, which is somewhat appropriate due to the country’s history.
• The Czech Republic passes not only Internet but mobile web traffic through the UK’s Cleanfeed system.

In the US, because of the First Amendment, Internet filtering would be considered a violation, whereas some would consider the DMCA an act of filtering to remove content which is deemed copyright.

So a simple question to ask you, the audience: could Internet filtering at governmental level cause more harm than good?

Because of Pandora’s Box theory - once something happens, it can never be undone and is no doubt deemed to repeat itself in the future. Where does it stop? Should the Internet be entirely monitored and blocked to ensure the safety of its users? When is Internet filtering an abuse of governmental power, and how should it be regulated?

One thing is for sure, and that is the Internet cannot be open and fully accessible for everyone with what we see and experience in post-modern society.

Comment away. It will be interesting to see where this one goes.

September 4th, 2009

Google: Pot, kettle, black, Chrome OS and a potential antitrust

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 10:37 am

Categories: Discussion, Google, Legal and political, Microsoft, Next-generation technology

Tags: Google Inc., Antitrust, Operating System, Corporate Law, Operating Systems, Business Operations, Software, Zack Whittaker

Last week, TechCrunch posted some more screenshots which allegedly purport Google’s new operating system, Chrome OS in the works.

What struck me was the number of Google products already bundled in the operating system, as you can see:

Now, I’ve mentioned before the tit-for-tat battle over Internet Explorer and the dispute in an ever-continuing scuffle between the EU and Microsoft, but what my colleague Mary Jo Foley has mentioned some time ago was that Google stepped into the row.

To cut a long story short, the EU was annoyed at Internet Explorer being included in Windows because it dominated the market by bundling a browser with an operating system. Google stepped in because they have a browser, Chrome, which has a smaller market-share but is steadily increasing.

But now Google is working on an operating system to directly rival Microsoft, which in itself was a bold yet brave move. In the meantime, Microsoft is still being anti-competitive in their “let’s crush the rival [Google] and make one hell of a spectacle about it”. I wasn’t happy.

After looking through a number of posts which offer clues as to what is in Google’s highly anticipated operating system, most of the “applications” provided will run through the browser. But the rest - such as Google Earth, Google Chrome and Google Talk will be bundled with the operating system.

Google Chrome is the Internet Explorer equivalent, clearly, whereas the remaining applications rival those of Windows Live. The comparison is important to note.

Why can’t Microsoft ship a Windows edition without including a browser (or at least come under fire from a zillion lawsuits) yet Google can? And with this, Google is entirely contradicting itself by doing something it opposed Microsoft from doing. Just because they have a smaller market-share doesn’t exempt them from the practice.

On an interesting note, Prof. Eric Clemons who specialises in this field claims:

“The fact is, Google almost doesn’t have any competitors. Google could kill anything it wants to.”

While even I initially thought the quote was misguided and just plain wrong, he goes on to explain. For instance, the price of most products Google provides to its users: free. Android is provided as a free open-source operating system and so will Chrome OS. I can understand the antitrust motions for Microsoft as it is providing a paid-for operating system whereas in terms of free operating systems, besides Linux, there aren’t any.

Regardless of this, does the antitrust concept solely rely on paid-for software? Whether or not a product is free to the end user would not stop it from being anti-competitive because the reign Google has over the “free Internet” is huge.

By providing a product for free can entirely alienate an entire market. Revenues can be generated online nowadays through online advertisements and user information being shared between companies. If a company can afford to invest millions into a free operating system tied in with their search engine which offers advertising already, the price would benchmark at $0 and there could potentially never be another paid-for operating system again.

How do you compete with free? By providing a better, more sophisticated free. From there, the online world builds up further and further as a supply of money-making advertisements, and the concept of revenue generation has changed forever. The free operating system manufacturers would earn money as they go through users’ browsing rather than the numbers of product box-set’s they sell.

This is where I want you to come in. Please, by all means, jump in at any point because frankly, I cannot see how Google can progress forwards without kicking up one almighty antitrust suit which could not only potentially destroy the company in revenue but reputation. And in comparison to Microsoft, Google may well be a polished turd but at least it’s pleasing on the senses.

TalkBack.

September 2nd, 2009

Should the anonymity shroud be lifted online?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 8:31 am

Categories: Discussion, Events, Google, Legal and political, Money, Social networking

Tags: Google Inc., Web, Anonymity, Blogger, 4chan, Blogging, Channel Management, Internet, Marketing, Zack Whittaker

The online-anonymity factor has caused even more uproar and controversy with the recent Blogger fiasco, one of the sites owned by Google, which led to the lifting of anonymity of an online abuser.

The background to this case sees an anonymous blogger posting defamatory photos and abusive captions of Liskula Cohen, a Canadian born model, who subsequently tried to sue the blogger. For this to happen, a name would need to have surfaced. Google resisted the move, but after a judge signed a court order, Google provided the registered details of the blog which may or may not have been true. It turned out the registered details were in fact genuine and the identity of the anonymous blogger was revealed.

The anonymous blogger now named as Rosemary Port is now suing Google for $15 million for “breach of anonymity”.

Website communities such as 4chan are built on anonymity. The group, “Anonymous”, which has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks and, albeit sometimes rather funny, “raid and invade” activities such as hacking Facebook accounts.

moot, the founder of 4chan, told me some time ago:

“‘Anonymous’ imageboard culture started with 4chan. ‘Anonymous’ the group traces its roots to 4chan, but splintered off after the whole Scientology thing. 4chan’s ‘/b/’ board in relation to ‘Anonymous’ the group; they aren’t the same thing. I can’t speak for the ‘Anonymous’ group.”

I cannot see why the difference in human socialisation should be treated differently in the online and offline world. The fact of the matter is that even a seemingly anonymous comment on a website, forum or blog - through an alias or otherwise - is still sent by an actual person in the direction of another person. After all, the vast majority of content on the web is generated by humans.

The only difference is that one can hide behind a shroud of secrecy - that is, unless they are sued in one way or another.

My argument is simple. The things we write on the web should not be anonymous in any way. If you said something defamatory or offensive to somebody in person, not only could they identify who you are by the way you look, but they have to hold themselves accountable for when they are inevitably punched in the face.

So just because you have an online handle or an alias shouldn’t excuse you from saying what you really think on the web. The anonymity shroud should be lifted because if you couldn’t get away with saying something in the offline world - why should you be able to get away with it in the online world?

This isn’t to say that what we do online, where we go, who we speak to (with the exception of social networking because it is obvious who we speak to) and what we look at shouldn’t be anonymous. With this, the only exception should be images, media and content which has been flagged already by the IWF or Interpol as illegal content.

The debate opens up when those without unrestricted access to the Internet such as China need an element of anonymity to protect them from their own state. This is an entirely different kettle of fish, and to some extent the wider web doesn’t apply to China. Their access to the Internet is controlled by the state and the rest of the web cannot really intervene.

Not only would an identifiable web open up the potential for more lawsuits, I believe that the content will be generally toned down. No more will you have personal abuse spouted in comments and forums, because the anonymity factor would not exist. You represent yourself and yourself alone.

Even with all this said, it’s merely a thought said out aloud. Would this work?

September 2nd, 2009

Bad ethics in the wild: Twitter spamming and site stealing

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:31 am

Categories: Discussion, Gratuitous rant, Legal and political, Security, Social networking

Tags: Twitter Inc., API, Web Site, Ethics, Spamming, Web Site Development, Web Technology, Internet, Zack Whittaker

When Twitter is used as a marketing tool to either promote a cause, a post within a website or a leading brand, it can reach far more people provided you have something to truly offer the recipients. However, many are abusing the API to mass-tweet dishonest but seemingly genuine messages to the Twittersphere.

Through ordinary day-to-day use of my Twitter account, this evening I was tweeted with a message and a link which put me through to a FMyLife-type website. By investigating the tweets sent out by this user, I was made aware that this account was not only serving tweets through the API, but that all of the messages were very similar and providing a shortened URL to the same page.

The rise in spam has increased proportionally with the popularity of the site, although things are slowly improving. The average Twitter user may not notice this, but two things stuck out to me: the shortened URL had some strange extension (which now I realise allows the link creator to monitor and track clicks), and the client sending the tweet was the API.

My suspicions were aroused.

Not only was I furious at the fact someone had the audacity to promote a website in this way, but to find out what the website actually was, I was utterly livid. They had copied the exact identical concept from the ever-growing popular website, FMyLife, with the exception of a few tweaks and a conflicting colour scheme.

While I don’t even want to give them the satisfaction of a direct link back, the website is www.dumbemployed.com.

As with many popular websites, the format can often be adapted in a way - the wiki is a good example. But taking a website and shamelessly ripping it off, but taking in a different type of user inputted content is plain unethical.

Sites like these shouldn’t exist. The Twitter API shouldn’t be open to abuse like this. What annoys me the most is that I cannot see for the life of me how this rip-off website is even making money. There isn’t an advertisement in sight.

The problem with the API is the genuine side of business. Even here at ZDNet, we publish every hour or so a bulk of links which people can choose to follow. This maintains our profile on a very social and popular area of the web, but is used in a legitimate way.

Restricting the API to reduce spam messages simply wouldn’t work, as genuine and non-genuine API users perform the same actions internally; only the output - the tweets - are different.

• Read more: Twitter anti-spam efforts go overboard
• Read more: On Twitter: Difference between spam and noise
• Read more: Spotting a new breed of Twitter spammers

Should Twitter tighten up the API controls to restrict spamming in this way? With online web publishing standards being one side to supporting the web, should their be a global ethics policy for this sort of behaviour? Leave a comment.

September 1st, 2009

Apology solicited for death of computing founding father Turing

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 7:48 am

Categories: Discussion, Government, Hardware, Legal and political, Major breakthroughs, diversITy

Tags: Work, Computing, Computer, Enigma, Productivity, Zack Whittaker

Alan Turing can rightly be called the founding father of computing. Born in 1912, he studied mathematics and logic, and was not only one of the most advanced computer scientists of his age, but of the entire generation.

During the Second World War, he solved the Enigma code - the code used by Nazi Germany to send encrypted messages from one place to another. He worked at Bletchley Park, the foundation of modern day GCHQ, which is the third leg of the British intelligence services, which provides electronic support and signal interception.

However, with decrypting the Enigma came a dilemma. It was, and still is to some extent, considered that during the Coventry Blitz, one of the most devastating air-raids on British territory, the Enigma code was intercepted and Winston Churchill, the prime minister at the time, knew about the impending raid.

But as not to let on that they had cracked the Enigma code, no defensive measures were brought in. Hundreds of people were killed, in the hope that the decrypted Enigma code would go on to save many others.

As a result of his work, the Allies were able win the war. (And yes, thank you America, even to this day we recognise your support, albeit a tad late).

With his knowledge of mathematics and computing, he developed further theories and understanding into artificial intelligence, which then led him to creating the Turing test - a test performed to a computer to gauge whether the computers’ response and that of a humans were indistinguishable.

Not only that, his work created one of the first primitive super computers (which wouldn’t even compare to that of a modern day computer, to be fair). As the Independent reported when GCHQ revealed details of his work:

“Colossus [the computer] contained 1,500 valves, 10 times more than other electronic machines of the day. It was designed to run through millions and millions of possible settings for the code wheels on the German enciphered teleprinter system, processing 5,000 characters a second.”

Turing was, and still is, a national treasure for the United Kingdom. But amongst all his achievements and his extraordinary work — work which helped the Allies win the war — he was gay.

• Read more: diversITy: can being gay hold your career back?
• Read more: Google colors their ads for Gay Pride week

Because of the now-clearly abhorrent laws we had, he was convicted under the gross indecency act of law which punished homosexuality. As a result of this, his national security clearance with GCHQ was revoked and due to the Soviet era already heightening tensions, he was essentially hung out to dry. He could not practice the work he had loved, and was not able to discuss the work he had accomplished.

Two years later, he committed suicide at the tragically premature age of 41.

As a result, the Number 10’s E-Petition service (which I have previously written about) has been inundated with signatures for a petition which asks the present Prime Minister to apologise for past the governments mistakes, and to posthumously exonerate him from any convictions.

It is mentioned that an official apology is unlikely due to the fact no known surviving family can be there to receive it. Nevertheless the symbolic nature of these actions would still go towards something rather poignant.

If you have or had British citizenship, you are more than welcome to sign the petition, which can be found here.

August 31st, 2009

An open letter to the RIAA: Illegal file sharing problem solved?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:11 am

Categories: Discussion, Government, Legal and political, Major breakthroughs, Money, Multimedia, Piracy and file-sharing

Tags: Revenue, RIAA, U.K., File-sharing, Peer To Peer (P2P), Taxes, Free Trade, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Personal Finance, Internet

Dear the Recording Industry Association of America (the “RIAA”),

I know I’ve said some harsh things before, and to be honest, I still stick by them. The Family Guy musical sketch describing the characters’ opinions of the FCC could well be replicated here in view of your own organisation.

However, today I offer you a potential solution to the illegal file sharing problem that seems to have gripped the world stage.

In a nutshell, if you live in the United States and are caught downloading illegally, you can consider yourself already bankrupt, as the RIAA will sue you into the ground. However, under new legislation in the UK, instead of hefty fines, the Government could order your ISP to cut off your broadband connection.

This has annoyed the ISPs on this side of the pond because they claim while they provide the service, it is not their job to police how their customers use it.

The problem

I honestly believe that with the price of media at the moment, the vast majority of people would be content in buying media online - provided they could have it there and then in a download. The problem is that many popular items are simply not available online to buy. Granted, this has changed with the Amazon and iTunes wave of technologies and services, but it still isn’t up to scratch.

Also, the peer-to-peer technology and online file sharing is an open Pandora’s Box and now cannot be closed. You can attempt to take random people to court and financially send them back into the Stone Age, but you cannot convict everyone.

The recording and broadcasting industries must change to survive. You cannot sustain the business model you once had because the times have changed, along with the content delivery system and the generation of people.

Read the rest of this entry »

August 14th, 2009

British PM at TED: "First generation to change the world for the better"

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 11:49 am

Categories: Discussion, Events, Government, Legal and political, Next-generation technology, Security, University fun, Web 2.0

Tags: Prime Minister, Video, Corporate Communications, Performance Management, Marketing, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Zack Whittaker

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is an unlucky man. Within the first few days of his premiership, there were nationwide floods, a foot-and-mouth outbreak and attempted terror attacks in London that were only discovered through sheer luck.

The extent of this man’s bad luck was emphasized by popular Irish comedian, Dara O’Briain yesterday which would extend to him finding a chain in the Lake District on his recent holiday, wondering what it is, pulling on it and ending up watching as the entirety of the Lake District just drain out through a hole in the ground where the plug was. The video is here - it’s hilarious but absolutely not safe for work.

But amidst all this, he spoke at TED, widely confirmed as one of the most brilliant conferences of modern time where the very cream of the crop of intelligence, knowledge and understanding come together to share their thoughts.

A friend of mine, Steve Clayton, summed up his experience of the video:

“I’ve always pondered that given his lacklustre performances we regularly see on TV. It shows how much our impressions are formed by the media as I thought this performance was brilliant. He spoke passionately, excitedly and with humour. For 18 minutes I was actually transfixed by our Prime Minister. He was really rather good and he seems to understand the power of the web to change the world. OK you can argue that he made lots of bold statements and action are how we should be judged but one pure delivery, it was the best I have seen from him.”

This video really shows how much power this generation has with the Internet and the good that can come from using it to speak out and use technology to our advantage. I strongly recommend you take 20 minutes from your day, sit down with a cup of tea and listen to his vision for using the wired web for a global good. Besides, he ain’t half funny for a middle-aged politician…