Iced Tea?

High tea

It looks like the perfect spot for high tea - at a new restaurant more than 10,000ft up a mountain in the Austrian Alps.

The eatery - perched on top of the Pitztal glacier - will be linked to a new ski lift to get holidaymakers up the Wildspitze mountain.
The £20million project is due to be open in time for this winter's ski-ing season.
But marketing manager Stefan Richter - who's promised to keep the restaurant's prices more down to earth - explained: "It's going to be breathtaking with amazing views. It will be called '3440' because it is located 3440 metres up the glacier."

Don’t Ask??

American ISP Got Sued For Asking Questions

US Internet service provider decided to speak freely for its subscribers and was sued by the DOJ for questioning a National Security Letter.
The anonymous US broadband provider scrutinized, in a legal manner, a NSL request sent by the authorities. Of course, the Department of Justice was unhappy about it, and instead of investigating the legitimacy of the NSL, it sued the company.

Unfortunately, this is the type of behaviour which pushes the US farther from what the country used to be – the Land of the Free. According to media reports, in 2011, when the ISP received an ultra-secret demand letter from the governmental authorities seeking data about its subscribers, the company took an extraordinary step – the ISP challenged both the underlying authority of the National Security Letter and the legitimacy of the gag order coming with it.

In fact, both challenges are allowed under a federal law which governs National Security Letters, a power greatly expanded under the Patriot Act which lets the authorities to receive detailed data on the US finances and communications without oversight from a court. It turned out that the feds have issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs and were reprimanded for abusing them, despite the fact that almost none of the requests have been challenged by their recipients.

When the ISP challenged its National Security Letters in 2011, the DOJ responded with taking its own extraordinary measure: they sued the telecom company, arguing in court documents that the ISP was violating the legislation by challenging its authority. The Electronic Frontier Foundation claims that it’s a pretty intense charge – its attorney is currently representing the anonymous telecom. The consumer outfit pointed out that it is a huge deal to say the ISP is in violation of federal law having to do with a national security investigation. They strongly believe that it’s extraordinarily aggressive to say the ISP is violating the law by challenging the authority.

This is not the first case that makes attorneys raise their eyebrows. This time the abuse of power came in the form of National Security Letters, and it can make one wonder whether the DoJ is actually embracing/applying justice or it is just a puppet for the interests of the entertainment industry…

USA Invent Everything??

America Realized Pentagon Didn’t Invent the Internet

The United States finally admit that its glorious government didn’t actually invent the web.
For years the United States has trotted out what amounts to an urban legend that it was Pentagon who created the net in order to keep its communications lines up even in a case if nuclear strike. This legend was used to explain why America should control the global domain system, not some international world body.

The legend in question was recently spouted by the President, who used it as proof that the government really was important to the development of technology. Barak Obama said that the web did not get invented on its own – it was government research that created the net in order to allow all companies to profit from it.

Nevertheless, media reports revealed that some in the United States have conceded it was much more complex than what is told in the legend. By the 1960s all technologists were making attempts to connect separate physical communications networks into a single global network. Although the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency Network was also working in this direction, it wasn’t close to maintaining communications in the event of a nuclear attack, and it did not create the Internet.

Robert Taylor, the person who ran the ARPA program 5 decades ago, sent an email to technologists in the 21st century, saying that what Arpanet had wasn’t an Internet. The latter is a connection between 2 or more computer networks, but Arpanet was nothing like that.

Robert Taylor explained that the full credit should go to Xerox PARC labs, where he was working in the 1970s – the Ethernet was first developed there to connected different computer networks. Meanwhile, Xerox PARC researchers realized that waiting for the authorities to connect networks was hopeless because ARPA was too slow and bureaucratic.

At the same time, Xerox, although having invented the Internet, managed to miss a major trick – in fact, the company was only interested in selling photocopiers, so its interest in the web was to share a printer. And it was Ethernet technology that connected networks together.

Finally, the real Internet appeared when Vinton Cerf created the TCP/IP protocol, the Internet’s backbone, and Tim Berners-Lee developed hyperlinks.

The Net Is Neutral??

Largest Internet Providers Refused to Accept Net Neutrality

It seems that a new voluntary code of conduct on net neutrality, which was expected to be unveiled soon, might be a waste of time, because top 3 ISPs aren’t signing up.
Net neutrality code lays down a set of principles in support of the open web. The signers will have to promise to provide users access to all legitimate material and not to discriminate against content providers within a commercial rivalry. The voluntary code was drafted between Communications Minister Ed Vaizey and Internet service providers.

The code has been signed by BT, BSkyB, O2, TalkTalk and Three. However, Virgin Media, Vodafone and the two Everything Everywhere networks – T-Mobile and Orange – aren’t signing.

According to Virgin Media, it had refused to sign because it was too pro-neutrality and it found the agreement not tough enough. The ISP admitted it wasn’t going to sign as it stands, pointing out that it had no intention of discriminating or treating information differently on the basis of who owns or publishes it.

Virgin Media is looking for something clearer for industry and what can give consumers improved transparency. However, the agreement is worded in such a way that it’s open to misinterpretation and potential exploitation.

The industry experts admit that Virgin does have a point. Net neutrality assumes that Internet service providers and mobile networks wouldn’t use the term “Internet access” to describe any package that blocks some classes of material, apps or services. In other words, the ISPs are able to apply whatever restrictions they want if they don’t use this term. Moreover, the ISPs would be allowed to slow some types of traffic, like peer-to-peer services, in order to manage network congestion. In case they do so, they should inform their customers. However, Virgin is big on telling its subscribers exactly what it’s doing – in fact, the advertising watchdog once claimed that the small print in some of its ads was too small.

As for Everything Everywhere, it said that it was too early to understand how an agreement of this type would affect clients’ online experience. The ISP explained it did support the principle of the open web and believe that transparency really is the way to achieve this. It even signed up to the BSG’s code of practice on traffic management to make its policies clear to the subscribers.

Finally, Vodafone hasn’t explained why it refused to sign the code.

Crushed!!

A crushing blow

Our semi-religious fervour over recycling needs to be curbed or there could be an increase in fly-tipping

At the end of the last century, the term White Van Man was popular shorthand for a young, aggressive, often tattooed driver of a commercial vehicle who would happily shunt a Reliant Robin-driving granny into a ditch if it meant beating the next red light. Ben Forrer might loosely be described as a White Van Man, though of an altogether more benign, 21st-century kind. The Warwickshire fireman used his Citroen Relay to take a friend’s cooker for recycling, but the van was mistaken for the white goods waiting to be crushed. No good deed goes unpunished and the next time an appliance dies Mr Forrer, a man of commendable patience, could be forgiven if he chooses fly-tipping. A semi-religious fervour surrounds recycling these days, but things have come to a pretty pass when three minutes away from a van is taken for abandoning it to a grisly death.

American Trolls??

America Will Launch Online Trolling Program

The government of the United States has suddenly decided that the best weapon against terrorists would be trolls. The local media reported that after testing out their commandos and deadly flying robots, the State Department of the United States of America has unleashed its trolls.

The program, known as Viral Peace, represents a new initiative meant to annoy, frustrate and humiliate denizens of the extremist forums in the Internet. It seems that its planners still haven’t found out what its initial strategy is yet. In other words, the program in question appears to be running on a shoe string. The main target of the program is to discourage impressionable youth from turning into terrorists in an idiom they understand.

Meanwhile, Viral Peace was developed and implemented by Shahed Amanullah, a senior technology adviser to the State Department. His idea was to use logic, humor, satire, and religious arguments instead of simply confronting extremists – this is supposed to undermine and demoralize them. The strategy was dubbed “strategic trolling”. Its creator insists that it wasn’t necessary to deface the forums if you are able to troll them to the point where their most malign influences can be neutralized.

Shahed Amanullah says that Internet extremists have certain energy and vitality which usually attract people, appealing to macho and rebellious natures, as well as to people who feel downtrodden. Indeed, creating a comparable passion on the other side is quite tricky, but not entirely impossible.

In case Viral Peace works as intended, trainees will take control of the program, so the creator and the State Department will have almost no control over how it actually trolls the terrorists.

Whoops…..It’s Too Expensive!

French “Three-Strikes” Appeared Too Expensive and Ineffective

After the country’s “three-strikes” regime, better known in France as HADOPI, was praised by both President Sarkozy and local movie company Gaumont, the Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti suddenly made a shocking announcement. She claimed that HADOPI was not just costing France too much money, but also failed to improve the availability of legitimate content.
As you might remember, HADOPI was suggested by President Nicolas Sarkozy in order to tackle piracy and discourage file-sharing. After the law came in force, Sarkozy was very happy with the results, claiming that 95% of users who got the first notification stopped infringing copyright, according to a report covering the year 2011.

However, it turned out that the country’s new Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti didn’t agree and promised not to support the “three-strikes”. In the interview, the new minister said that the law is actually costing France too much money, particularly with the economic crisis happening around. Aurélie Filippetti pointed out that in financial terms, 12,000,000 euros annually and 60 officers is a very expensive way to send a million e-mails. She promised to ask that funding of HADOPI is greatly reduced as part of budgetary efforts. However, it is unclear how much her “reduced” means. Anyway, that is expected to be established sometime in September 2012.

The French “three-strikes” keeps working: according to HADOPI’s statistics for this past June, 340 unique Internet accounts are already on their 3rd strike and are to be closed under the law. Aurélie Filippetti doesn’t agree with the established kind of punishment and says that the suspension of broadband connection is a disproportionate sanction against the end goal. In addition, the Minister is disappointed with the copyright law failing to promote and create legitimate services in order to reduce the number of infringements.

The Culture Minister has no idea what will become of this institution, but she says that one thing is known for sure: the law hasn’t fulfilled its mission to create alternative legal offers. In the meantime, the experts are looking forward to a meeting to discuss the future of HADOPI, led by former Canal+ director Pierre Lescure, sometime in the following months.

One Rule Of Law??

UK Handed British Sovereignty to Entertainment Industry

British Home Secretary seems to be sacrificing the life of a young British guy who committed no crime other than hacking off the content industry.
To be fair to the Home Secretary, she would send anyone abroad to face a kangaroo court if the authorities asked her. However, the case of Sheffield Hallam student Richard O’Dwyer is now widely known as a particularly unpleasant one. Under pressure from the entertainment industry, the United States has started criminalizing cases of piracy and using its legal system as a private police force for the Big Content. Unfortunately, this also involves enforcing content industry’s view about what can be referred to as a crime.

Now a sensible Home Secretary would look at the charges its citizen faces and question what he had done. The matter is that O’Dwyer, when he was 19, started an online service called TVshack.net. The website linked to places to watch TV shows and movies online. In the United Kingdom, by the way, this wasn’t a crime – the film companies complained and the CPS said it wasn’t worth pursuing. So the entertainment industry leaned on its tamed American cops to get an extradition on the British guy so he could face the full wrath of the American law.

In the United States O’Dwyer can go to jail for ten years for doing something that is legal in the United Kingdom. Of course, this created a bit of stink with the citizens who feel that the Home Secretary is ruining a guy’s life in order to keep the American government happy.

Worse still, an American citizen who carried out a crime in the United Kingdom wouldn’t be extradited back to face the music, which means that the United States is better at protecting its own citizens than the UK.

Meanwhile, the local media confirmed that Theresa May has told the House of Commons she wouldn’t revisit plans to extradite to the United States on copyright charges, because her mind was already made up.

Perhaps, the Home Secretary hopes that such approach will push her tough Margaret Thatcher style image, but in fact she just looks like a heartless careerist ready to sell her own grandmother if she thought she could look good on the cover of the Daily Mail.

So, Richard O’Dwyer’s only hope now is a court appeal. At the same time, Theresa May might find herself facing public support for O’Dwyer, because Wikipedia heads Jimmy Wales is already arranging an army of celebrities to take her on.

God Knows??

The parent filter of the Internet service provider Claranet seems to be built upon the advice of religious groups. Local media confirm that the broadband provider wanted to develop a filter which would keep kids safe, so instead of simply using common sense to determine what should be in a filter, the ISP turned to religious groups to decide.
Besides, it also allows schools and kids safety experts to help. The only problem is that it is for some reason consulting people who fight for a worldviews claiming “the world was created 6,000 years ago” and “women should be dressed like Satan’s pillar box”.

Worse still, the ISP is going to use volunteer guardians in order to decide the filters, which means that it won’t even be recognizing people from churches or religious groups – only those who want to have a go at filtering.

Meanwhile, in religious groups, the kind of people who volunteer for such things are usually a special breed that largely believe that their own religious leaders have got it wrong. In other words, they think that Jesus tells them to filter all references to ankles, and that other religions are run by demons.

The ISP announced that it was recruiting volunteer guardians from various outfits, although it won’t identify them. Claranet issued a statement saying that it had an “Islamic advisor”, and kids safety campaigner Sara Payne was among them. The ISP’s guardians will be asked whether they believe 140 categories of online content are appropriate for the modern children. The volunteers will be able to add or remove certain online services from the blacklists created by a 3rd-party company whose name is currently kept in secret.

In other words, any guardian may decide that Bebo has been blessed by God, or Jeff, or Xenu in the category of social networking, but at the same time decide to block Facebook as its users are the spawn of Satan and will burn in hell, Hades or Slough for all eternity.

Hopefully, the subscribers will be allowed to choose to set up and customize their own filters, or accept a pre-selected list from one of the volunteers and edit it themselves if they want.

Apparently, most people who opt for a religious filter are those who want to be told about sex or relationships by someone who has sworn not to have done either.