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Month: November 2006
Our next Prime minister Gordon Brown backs call to extend 28-day limit on detention.
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The Google’s Garden
FAR! FAR away, the Google lives, in a land which only children can go to. It is a wonderful land of funny flowers, and birds, and hills of pure white heather.
Google wants people to stop googling or at least stop using the term googling as they view it as diluting their trademark much in the same as what has happened in the past to Xerox and Hoover.
However it would appear that not only have people been googling long before the search engine was even a twinkle in the eyes of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, but the Google also has existed for a long long time as well, in The Google Book by V. C. Vickers. [via]
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Funny haha or funny peculiar?
BBC News: Is this the perfect comedy face?
Scientists have used computer software to come up with what they say is the perfect comedy face.
The University of Stirling team blended together 179 different facial aspects of 20 top comedians.
They said soft and feminine features, typified by Ricky Gervais, were more likely to make people laugh.
I don’t know about you but the guy in the computer generated photo looks more like a serial killer than a comedian to me.
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Dudes already know about chickens.
Who knew that chickens could be such a controversial topic?
Ryan North that’s who. But he believes in fictional Jimmy Wales so his judgement is suspect especially given he’s the source of the latest bout of controversial chicken chicanery.
And still no mention in Wikipedia’s Chicken topic of the little-known phenomena of a chick armed with a revolver, shotgun or a bazooka.
Britain: the most spied on nation in the world
David Murakami Wood, from the Surveillance Studies Network, said: “Surveillance is not a malign plot hatched by evil powers to control the population.
“But the surveillance society has come about almost without us realising.”
He added: “With technologies that are large-scale, taken for granted and often invisible, surveillance is increasingly everywhere.
Privacy International: Leading surveillance societies in the EU and the World ((Graphic depicting stats.))
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Greatest Living Englishman
The highlight of tonight’s National Television Awards was seeing Sir David Attenborough 
receive the Special Recognition Award for his lifetime achievement in bringing the wonders of the natural world to British TV screens over the past five decades.
He is a wonder of the natural world himself as he really does not look anywhere near the 80 years he has lived. I have always loved the many series of nature documentaries I have seen in my life presented by Sir David Attenborough and he really is in my opinion the Greatest Living Englishman.
Then from the sublime to the ridiculous he was followed to the stage by Peter Andre and Jordan who were there to present the award for Most Popular Serial Drama.
The BBC reports on a new service that is designed to help users reduce their risk of identity theft through a monitoring facility. The service is kind of like the constant surveillance of the Orwellian Big Brother but where the individual is in control of the surveillance upon themselves.
The Garlik Datapatrol service has been set up by the founders of the internet bank Egg with the intention of putting users back in control of the information that is held on them in public databases that are easily accessible through the internet.
The service brings together from the internet, public databases, and Credit Reports all the personal information it can find on a user and then displays it in a simple online format. Then on a monthly basis users will receive an update summary of additions or changes to their online profile as well as highlighting any risks or suspicious activity.
By facilitating individuals access to the information that is held on them the service puts its users on an equal footing with the criminals that might seek to steal their identities and as irregularities are often the first indication of a problem the monitoring system gives users an early warning and the possibility of nipping it in the bud before any negative consequences have occurred.
My only concerns are the security of Garlik’s database and the trustworthiness of the company. They seem to have a fairly robust system to establish user’s identity and to then authenticate users accessing the personal information gathered in the server database. But it presupposes that an individual’s identifying information hasn’t already been compromised or stolen.
I can see this service being a boon for identity theft rings who have enough data to register falsely for the service in order to further the scope of their thefts by letting Garlik do the legwork as it were in accruing further information.
Garlik’s secure servers would also be a prime target for criminals and so I would hope that they have taken the security of their servers as seriously as any bank would with theirs. Is the physical access to the servers as well secured as the online access is?
My second concern would be that as a new company they haven’t had the time to build a reputation or a record of establishment of trust. Registered users will be empowering the company and placing a lot of trust in the security of the service and the authenticity and accuracy of the personal information data provided to users. Having said that there is nothing to suggest that Garlik is in any way a disreputable company it is merely my natural paranoia.
I would have more faith in Garlik presently than I would in the UK government in securing any personal information I would give them.
Garlik are currently offering free trials to people signing up for the Datapatrol service at their website. http://www.garlik.com.
People with concerns about identity theft and security online should also take a look at the following website Get Safe Online which has been set up by banks and prominent internet companies.