TorrentSpy loses case - what’s the future of P2P?
By Dave Adamson in Reader
Posted in Data, Internet on December 22, 2007 at 7:49 am
Could this be a turning point for torrent tracker sites?
TorrentSpy has lost its legal case with the Motion Picture Association of America after it was discovered that those involved in the case had taken deliberate steps to delete tracking data - IP addresses and server logs - despite an order that they retain the data.
The odd thing here is that the data they were being asked to hand over had been stored in RAM and, despite their insistence that such data is temporary, they failed to convince the judge. The judge accused the defendants of systematic and widespread attempts to destroy evidence - I guess that there’s more to this than just a reboot.
Could this herald a change of direction in the world of torrent trackers? Many are pretty vocal about their status - the idea that they do not hold any of the actual data being served, that they are only a gateway - pretty much a Google for torrents. Is it possible that these sites, like TorrentSpy and the many before them, are actually breaking the law either intentionally or unintentionally? And, what lies in the future for file-sharing? P2P hasn’t died, alt.binaries newsgroups are still alive and kicking, whilst the torrent concept is still a robust one, but what do people think will be the “next generation” of file sharing?
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Thinktank States the Obvious about the Government and our Data!
By Dave Adamson in Reader
Posted in Data, Government on December 10, 2007 at 12:55 pm
“The government needs to ensure greater protection for people’s personal information,” begins a BBC News online report from the thinktank Demos.
I feel that my career direction should head towards thinktanks at some point or another because without them we’d not be able to see the blatantly obvious!
The loss of discs of data by any organisation is a bit of misfortunate, but add this to the loss of god knows how many laptops and a belief that “we’re pretty sure they haven’t fallen into the wrong hands” is downright bizarre. I bet if they’d been asked a few weeks before the event, those in the know would have crowed “we’re pretty sure that the data will be safe.” I guess we should just be glad that it wasn’t a print out with a fancy cover and a little tiny girls’ diary padlock on the front - though that would have probably proven more secure.
Surely, it is implicit in the nature of any organisation handling data that said data, regardless of the “importance” is handled in a secure, confidential manner that is fit for purpose! Procedures should exist for the protection of all data handled, in the same way that one wouldn’t give out your own home address, telephone number and bank account details to anyone who just happened to ask for them. Oh, wait a minute, some people would.
Anyway, I digress. I do believe that any government should share with us details about how data pertaining to us is being used and how this could impact on our lives - after all, banks and loan companies advise us when you apply for a loan/credit card any other services - they advise us of the credit agency that they will refer to and, in theory, we can have this data sent to us and corrected if the need is there. Companies can also be asked to make available to us, under the Data Protection Act, information that they hold about us - I guess this could even stretch, if it doesn’t already, to being able to access CCTV recordings. Data, not the information that the data becomes once interpreted, seems to be the true currency of our time. We can’t escape this fact and nor should we expect to. Sadly, we are only a number to some organisations and, furthermore, it seems the government of today (as with many organisations the world over) is quite happy to forget that behind that number there is a person .
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Wifi - Not as big a danger as they thought!
By Dave Adamson in Reader
Posted in Uncategorized on December 4, 2007 at 10:14 pm
It turns out that the BBC programme Panorama may have misled viewers into the dangers of Wifi in May 2007.
Yes, whilst the programme may have claimed that wireless networks give out more radiation than a mobile phone mast (really!) it turns out that that wasn’t true. You see, research could have told them that, but this is a channel that inadvertently showed footage of The Queen storming out of a room by cleverly re-editing footage together.
The BBC’s own complaints unit had this to say http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/news/2007/11/30/51156.shtml
I found it difficult, following this piece of sensationalist journalism, to defend wireless as people were more convinced by the voice of reason (the BBC) than the voice of reason (someone who might know a thing or two about a thing or two.) The result tended towards people who demanded research into the dangers of wifi whilst speaking on a mobile phone, microwaving food whilst pressing their other ear to a radio.
Now, I wouldn’t mind but I don’t claim to know everything, I just claim to have a bit of common sense, which is more than can be said for the scare mongering of the Panorama programme.
I’ve no doubt that, in the future, we’ll discover something untoward about wireless transmissions - after all, it turns out everything is bad for you.
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