Category: surveillance & privacy

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Business internet ofcom piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

Ofcom #DEAct definitions meeting – more work needs doing

Ofcom held a DEAct definitions meeting with ISPs yesterday afternoon.  Although I couldn’t make this one I have discussed the progress made with some of the attendees.

My view is that Ofcom has been given a task, the generation of the draft  Digital Economy Act Code of Practice, that is impossible to fulfil to everyone’s satisfaction in the three weeks that the regulator has left to complete it.

The meeting did not nail the major issues in terms of definition of who is and isn’t an ISP or Subscriber. Some of the definitions are highly complex and subject to different interpretations. The natural order of these things, believe it or not, is to brush the problem areas under the carpet and assume that this will be ok.

However in this case using the “carpet technique” potentially leaves huge holes in the legislation that will make it completely ineffective. 

For example nobody believes that the intention of the Act is to kill off the  WiFi hotspot market.  Is a WiFi hostpot operator a subscriber or a Communications Provider? The latter potentially as it is selling/providing services to custmers.  It is impossible in a many cases to be able to identify the subscriber on these hotspots so infringement notices go to who? 

So whilst it isn’t Parliament’s intention to kill off WiFi hotspots if they don’t do so then these connections will become defacto standard targets for those wanting to continue to download copyrighted material.

Marry in haste and repent at leisure (or words to that effect).

Also good luck to the people at Ofcom because they are, in my experience, by and large intelligent and able folk. We only have to wait 3 weeks to see what they come up with.

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Business internet ofcom piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

Digital Economy Act appeals meeting at Ofcom – notes #DEAct #debill

I went along to the Digital Economy Act appeals meeting at Ofcom today. I did so partly out of concern that smaller ISPs were not being given a voice at this important stage of the post DEAct game.

The Ofcom Boardroom (R11.01) was hardly big enough for the 35 or so people there. Organisations represented included ISPA, Timico, Which, Consumer Focus, Ofcom, AAISP, DCMS, Alliance Against IP Theft, UK Music (Feargal), BPI, BT, Mobile Broadband Group, Sky, Premier League, Orange, HSBC, Post Office, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, T Mobile, Communications Consumer Panel, Open Rights Group, Nintendo.

The scope of the meeting was to discuss the Appeals Process for subscribers accused of unlawful copyright

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Business internet piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

BT support call highlights extent of Digital Economy Act problem #deact #debill

A friend of mine works in Tech Support for BT.  He gets a lot of consumer support calls for broadband. This brief transcript is of one of his calls recently:

Customer: I can’t get my wireless to work
Tech Support: Is your wireless light on the hub holding colour or not?
Customer:I don’t know it’s next door
Tech Support: Oh right could you go back home and check?
Customer: Oh no sorry its my neighbours hub and they are at work
Tech Support: Oh so do they know you use their internet connection?
Customer: No he told me his password once when he was drunk
Tech Support: Do you know that is illegal (long pause). Phone goes dead.

Lets hope that the “customer” hasn’t been using his neighbour’s broadband for unlawfully downloading copyrighted material. Who needs enemies eh?…

DEAct DEBill

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Business internet Regs security surveillance & privacy

cleanternet – you know it makes sense #debill #deact

This video is doing the rounds. It helps you understand why the web filtering aspect of the Digital Economy Act is a very bad thing.

http://www.cleanternet.org/

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Business internet ofcom piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

Digital Economy Bill–Act–Farce continues beyond Parliamentary grave #DEAct #DEBill

In a continuation of the farcial speed that the Digital Economy Bill was rushed through into Law I’m told that Ofcom has already conducted two meetings with the 5 largest ISPs to discuss the implementation of the Code of Practice with a third planned for next Wednesday.

I’m also told that Ofcom has also met with 9 Music Industry Rights Holders and 5 from the movie making industry. Perhaps Ofcom could elaborate on this? If this is the case it seems hugely disproportionate in terms of representation. Hugely unfair in fact and feels very familiar with the way the Law was rushed through in the first place.

Despite what seems on the face of it to be a substantial consultation with Rights Holders no attempt appears to have been made to involve any small ISPs, the ISP Association, ISPA, or the London Internet Exchange, LINX. In fact the majority of the organisations that stand to lose out under the Digital Economy Act.

A threshold is likely to be applied in respect of which ISPs must comply with the DEA. This however has not been set yet and without it seems reasonable that all ISPs likely to be affected by it get a chance to participate in the discussion.

Being a reasonable minded person I am able to look at it from Ofcom’s perspective and observe that they have very little time to put together a Code of Practice around a hugely complex and controversial subject.  You might say Ofcom has been stitched up just as the ISPs have been. However in this case it just isn’t good enough. I think everyone concerned here should complain to Ofcom in the morning.

The Ofcom Switchboard number is 0300 123 3000 or 020 7981 3000. Ask for Ed Richards, Chief Executive.

Follow on note – check out these posts from Andrew Cormack, Chief Regulatory Adviser, JANET . He was at one of the meetings.

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Business Regs surveillance & privacy

It’s a good life – the 4 week working holiday for the civil service #ge2010

You might wonder what happens to the Civil Service now that an election has been called. Well Civil Servants enter a period called Purdah where they are not really allowed to do anything in case it is seen to favour one party or another, or turns out to be contrary to what the Government to be decides is sensible policy.

They actually have a 51 page instruction manual on how to conduct themselves during Purdah.

Instructions include:

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Business Regs surveillance & privacy

It's a good life – the 4 week working holiday for the civil service #ge2010

You might wonder what happens to the Civil Service now that an election has been called. Well Civil Servants enter a period called Purdah where they are not really allowed to do anything in case it is seen to favour one party or another, or turns out to be contrary to what the Government to be decides is sensible policy.

They actually have a 51 page instruction manual on how to conduct themselves during Purdah.

Instructions include:

Continue reading “It's a good life – the 4 week working holiday for the civil service #ge2010”
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Business Regs surveillance & privacy

Official Lib Dem line on Digital Economy Bill #deb #digitalbritain

The Lib Dem team focussing on Dept of Cuture Media and Sport issues now has an official party position on the Copyright Protection aspects of the Digital Economy Bill.

It is a sensible approach opposing website blocking whilst recognising the need to support the Creative Industries.  It is worth reading over at Bridget Fox’s blog.

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Business Regs surveillance & privacy

Petition Number 10 against P2P legislation

I don’t always agree with Andrew Heaney of Talk Talk but on this occasion he is spot on.  He has distributed a link to a petition at Number 10 Downing Street which reads as follows:

‘We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to abolish the proposed law that will see alleged illegal filesharers disconnected from their broadband connections, without a fair trial.’

The link to the petition is to be found here. I’ve already signed up. There are currently 15,939 signatures but this is early days. Make your voice heard.

PS Less than 1 hour later it is up to 16,991 signatures.

PPS 18.10 hrs up to 20,934 signatures

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End User Regs surveillance & privacy

Big Brother is watching you

Imagine a world where individual sales people could see how many customer contacts they take and make, be it mobile, desk phone or email. Then they compare their performance with their peers and can see how much sales revenue they each generate.

An underperforming sales person is going to either buck up their act or realise the writing is on the wall. That person’s manager can also see the same information, how much time is spent making personal calls, calls to colleagues or calls to customers.

Who’d be a salesman eh?  The fact is that this type of management information isn’t typically available, or at least not easily so and certainly not in real time. If it was then companies would be able to use the information save communications costs and to optimise the effectiveness of their commercial teams.

I just saw a demo of an online product called the “Comms Dashboard” which integrates with a company’s CRM package. Every time a registered user makes a call it is logged on the “dashboard” and a picture is built up of an individual’s spend and activity levels.

This might sound a bit Big Brotherish but I doubt that the owner of a business cares if it is going to improve the bottom line, especially in this day and age. The Comms Dashboard integrates with pretty much any CRM system as long as the company database is available and doesn’t care how many users are registered so it can be used by businesses small or large.

The demo I saw was provided by Terence Long, CEO of RTP Solutions. I have to hold my hand up here and tell you that Terry Long has been a successful business partner of Timico almost since we started the company. Notwithstanding that the Comms Dashboard does represent innovation that will make the difference when business is difficult to come by – both for RTP Solutions and for their customers.

Since the product went live their clients have seen a reduction of over 30% of minutes usage with very little management intervention. Once users are aware of the system they manage their own costs. Result!

Check out their website if you want to see more but in the meantime here is a screenshot.

comms-dashboard