Iain @ Internet

Just had my first experience going through the ‘chipped’ passport line at Heathrow; pretty shambolic would be my first impression:

- no clear explanation of what those machines with the big lights and cameras are doing

- have to take your specs off for the (presumed) photo, when the passport photo has specs on…?

- seemed to be about 1/3rd of people getting rejected by the machines, most noticeably people with Dutch passports

…. all very strange…

Just checking out the Guardian open platform API, looks really good. I picked this story for starters because it reminded me that I have yet to meet a Scots person who thought we should have released that guy. Needless to say we’re not being told the truth, the whole truth, or anything like the truth by UK.gov and Scots.gov.

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This article was written by David Batty and agencies, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 24th July 2010 15.22 UTC

The release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was “wrong and misguided”, the foreign secretary, William Hague, has told US senators.

In a letter to John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee which is holding an inquiry into the bomber’s release, Hague said that nevertheless it was “legally and constitutionally proper” that the decision was one for the Scottish government.

Hague said the then foreign secretary Jack Straw held several discussions with the oil giant BP about Megrahi before his transfer to Libya was agreed in 2007 but denied that this had any impact on his bomber’s release.

Megrahi is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing in which270 people died and his release on compassionate grounds last August provoked outrage in the US.

Medical evidence indicated Megrahi had three months to live but next month will mark a year since he was freed.

The issue overshadowed David Cameron’s first official visit as prime minister to the US, amid concern that BP had lobbied the UK government over the prisoner transfer deal with Libya.

Hague said both he and Cameron had criticised the decision to release Megrahi.

“We think that the decision taken by the Scottish executive to release him on compassionate grounds was wrong and misguided,” the foreign secretary writes.

“Notwithstanding that, however, we must also recognise that it was legally and constitutionally proper that the decision over his release was one for the Scottish executive alone to take.”

The Scottish government had wanted anyone convicted of the Lockerbie bombing excluded from a controversial prisoner transfer deal agreed with Libya in 2007. But this condition was opposed by the Libyans, and the UK government eventually agreed to deal without exclusions.

Hague’s letter acknowledges that several conversations took place between the UK government and BP about the exclusion.

BP made the government aware of a warning from the Libyans that failure to agree the prisoner transfer scheme could damage an oil exploration deal that the company had signed with the country, Hague writes, adding that this was “perfectly normal and legitimate practice” for a British firm.

Hague adds: “There is no evidence that corroborates in any way the allegation of BP’s involvement in the Scottish executive’s entirely separate decision to release him on compassionate grounds in 2009, nor any suggestion that the Scottish executive decided to release him on compassionate grounds in order to facilitate oil deals for BP.”

A US senator today asked the Scottish government to reconsider its decision not to send officials to a hearing into the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

In a letter, Frank Lautenberg said he was “pleading” with first minister Alex Salmond to help shed light on claims that BP had influenced the release.

Salmond has declined an invitation to send his justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, who took the decision to release Megrahi, and a medical expert to the senate hearings in Washington.

The New Jersey senator expresses frustration at what he portrays as the UK and Scottish governments blaming each other for the row.

He writes: “I am pleading for direct representation from the Scottish government at our hearing next week to help us seek answers.

“Your co-operation in sending a knowledgeable person will help establish a credible record of what transpired.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

I was glancing at BBC News web site and at the top stories. It strikes me that on this evidence the world (or at least the UK part of it) has gone even crazier today than usual on the privacy front….

…..illegal body scanners…

…..illegal Police drones

….Google ‘accidentally’ making a big data grab with their Buzz service

Time to go and live somewhere else I think, maybe Outer Mongolia.

Check out this worthy petition on No10 site.

‘Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. He laid the foundations of computing, helped break the Nazi Enigma code and told us how to tell whether a machine could think.

He was also gay. He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated as a ‘cure’, and took his own life, aged 41.

The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing for his treatment and recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany. And an apology would recognize the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended this man’s life and career.’

This sums up the weather in Scotland over the last two weeks….

Remind me to go somewhere else for summer next year.

I was shocked today to read this …..about the death of Nick Givotovsky, age just 44.

I first met Nick, along with Mark Lizar, over many beers, in the Sun in Splendour pub in Notting Hill – a few years back. His views were very aligned with mine – and since then every contribution he has made to the Identity and VRM discussions has been rich and perceptive.

Here’s just one example quote:

‘I believe we need explicit, uniform and enforceable and yes, universal rights to our own user-related data. Not just for purposes of privacy, but so that individually and collectively we can use our leverage as rightful owners of what are in fact valuable assets to obtain and enforce a much better “digital deal”, not just for us, but for others not (yet) directly addressed here, who will have to deal with the consequences of our collective (in)actions.

There are indeed technologists fully qualified to architect the infrastructure to enable a better, more equitable, reciprocal, transparent and accountable digital realm, and they have to a large extent already built the tools and system. Now, the application of that prospective infrastructure to systems and services with the potential to change “the digital deal” from the user-centric perspective is what’s needed, and I hope, what’s next.

Going forward, the formulation, creation and assertion of binding identity rights agreements in the context of “leverage” that in turn drives change enabled in the market by market forces is the most pragmatic, short path to something better than a-shrug-a-click-and-a-sigh privacy statements.

It’s exactly the implementation of such use cases to which I think the most beneficial and productive (though not always the most immediately profitable) effort can and should be devoted. We all need a better, fairer, more accountable and credible digital deal. If we are to be “digital citizens” should we not also know the real “digital deal”? Thoughts? Words? Deeds?’

Wonderful stuff – which we’ll now deliver on; unfortunately Nick won’t be here alongside. My thoughts are with his wife and familiy.

Iain

I flagged to them that I did not want our flat shown on the view; they responded as per below…..and wiped out about 40 flats alongside mine. Not very subtle then….

Hello,

Our records show that you recently flagged an image within Google
Maps Street View as inappropriate. The image has been removed from
our service.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and
appreciate your patience while we dealt with this.

Regards,

The Google Team

Well, it does not happen often, but i’m actually very pleased with a new product i’ve bought – a Toyota Prius. It’s not flash, but it has good gadgets in it and just drives well.

Of course all did not go 100% smoothly; I leased the car and had a torturous time getting the paperwork I need from the lease company to get residents parking and residents discount for congestion charge.

Same happened with the last car – reminder to self, don’t lease another car without sorting this out in advance.

Well, it had to happen eventually given the pace at which this crime is growing.

I’ll keep a running commentary here for my own records as much as anything else.

Here’s what’s happened so far:

- My Barclaycard Visa bill arrived this morning.

- I almost choked on my breakfast when I saw an charge O2 for £1,027.31; my iPhone bill should be £45.

- I assumed that it was a mistake at O2, who had a lot of trouble moving from my old O2 account to the new iPhone one (not a surprise given my previous post on the matter).

- I phoned O2 who, on the first call, handled it badly, telling me that they could not see such a transaction on my account and that I needed to phone up Barclaycard and get a ‘GED’ number for the transaction.

- I phoned up Barclaycard who told me that only a merchant could request such a number.

- While I was on the phone to Barclaycard, I noticed another two Paypal payments that I did not recognise…..the penny was starting to drop.

- I asked Barclaycard to put a stop on the account and send out a form for me to challenge the transactions.

That’s where we are at the moment. I don’t really regard it as identity theft at the moment, much more likely just plain old credit card fraud….but let’s run with it and see what happens.

I took out a 12 month subscription to Setanta in July 07 and then found that I did not use it much (Rangers were having a very poor season so not much reason to watch).

I called them in mid July to cancel but could never get through – the call centre system did not have a queue and just kept asking me to ‘call back later’.

So, I backed things up with two e-mails – neither of which were responded to. Bear in mind that they had already taken my August payment and no doubt will be trying to take my September payment.

I finally got through to them on the phone this morning, only to be told that I had to put my cancellation request in writing.

They have wasted a lot of my time, and stolen my money – not good!!!! Now i’ll need to spend more time fighting to get my money back.