Computer Security

 Computing  No Responses »
Aug 102007
 

The UK news this morning (and last night) had an item on about plans to tackle the problem of phishing with various suggestions (most of which make sense). Similar stories about phishing and how people are being ripped off by fraudsters regularly come up on the news. One thing that rarely gets a mention except in passing with a suggestion to run a ‘protected computer’ is how regular computer users who ignore security are contributing to the problem.

Almost all spammers (and phishers) these days use botnets to spew out their sewage; as someone who runs a mail server for a large organisation I regularly take a look at where spams entered the Internet mail system. In the vast majority of cases it has entered via a location that is obviously a client machine operated by an ‘innocent’ person ignorant of what their computer is being used for.

There are plenty of places to point the finger of blame …

  • The companies who produce operating systems that are so vulnerable to being compromised when connected to the Internet.
  • Those who use viruses and worms to create ‘botnets’ of vulnerable machines to be used for a variety of purposes.
  • The ISPs who irresponsibly fail to block outgoing mail not going through their mail servers. Whilst some (me!) should be able to opt out of such a block because we (I) run our own mailserver it should not be open by default.

Finally, the person who runs a computer irresponsibly is also to blame. Obviously not everyone wants to become a security expert, but there are a few easy steps to make it more difficult for your computer to be broken into. And they should accept that if they get infected they could get slung into a ‘quarantine’ … ISPs can and should be able to detect infected machines being used by spammers and sling them into a ‘quarantine’ network with limited functionality. This ‘quarantine’ is dead simple to setup, as I’ve done it myself.

To reduce it to an analogy, if you were to leave a car parked with the handbrake left off are you totally blameless if someone leans against the car and it rolls down a hill and kills someone ? People tend to regard leaving an infected computer online as being a trivial matter; it is not.

Uk Housing

 General  No Responses »
Jul 112007
 

The UK government today announced tentative plans to encourage the building of low cost homes that would be affordable by ordinary people. The idea of affordable homes is definitely good in a country where most young people will probably never be able to afford a home of their own given that in many places average homes cost ten times an average salary.

However the interesting thing is not so much about homes, but about the failure of the capitalism system to provide a product at a suitable price point. Since WWII, the government has taken the lead in home building for the lower end of the market although the vast majority of government built homes were for rent (and in fact old council houses are still fantastic buys because of the build quality and relatively low prices). Since the early 1980s the government has pretty much left it to the private sector to provide housing. They have failed.

To demonstrate this, look at house price inflation … it vastly exceeds ordinary inflation. The Halifax House Price Index shows that since 1983, house prices have increased at a rate of 8% a year whilst ordinary inflation increased at 4.5% a year. Even more dramatically (and expanding on statistics given earlier), the ratio of house price to salaries has a long-term average of 3.5:1 whereas in 2006 this ratio was 6:1 and a later survey shows that in some areas 10:1 is being exceeded.

There are a variety of reasons given as to why house prices are so inflated including :-

  • Increased life expectancy means homes are released back into the available housing pool more slowly.
  • Greenbelt legislation means land for homes becomes more difficult to find and is more expensive.
  • An increase in the tendency of people to live alone means a greater increase in the level of demand for homes than would be suggested by the increase in population.

But the fact remains that the original Thatcherite theory that the market would provide has failed. In theory entrepreneurs would seek to find a way to produce homes in a quantity and at a price point to fill the gap in the market … cheap homes for first time buyers who could not otherwise afford to get onto the housing ladder. There is plenty of demand for such homes.

As an example, it should be possible to build much more densely in cities than is currently the case … not far from where I am writing, there are large amounts of land occupied by single-story garages and this in one of the most densely populated cities in the UK! Another example, why are there not property developers experimenting in alternate building strategies to produce homes cheaper ? For instance using pre-fabricated modules to provide a snap together set of prepared rooms would probably be cheaper than doing things as we currently do.

Not that I am covering all possibilities here … after all that is what the property developer is supposed to do. The one that comes up with a way to build cheap high quality homes in bulk will probably make far more money than the property developers who produce high value homes … “pile it high and sell it cheap”.

Just How Democratic Is The UK ?

 Politics  No Responses »
Jun 292007
 

Well the answer to that question is not very … we elect representatives who make the necessary decisions on our behalf. Of course we’re a lot more democratic than some other places, and less that some others. For the record we’re probably more democratic than the ancient historical source of the idea of democracy … Athens. The Athens city state was only democratic if you were rich and male.

We happened to have had two examples of exactly how undemocratic the UK is this week … the resignation of Tony Blair and his replacement as Prime Minister by Gordon Brown, and the defection of Quentin Davies from the Conservative party to the Labour party.

The constituents of Grantham & Stamford are probably somewhat taken aback at finding themselves represented by a Labour MP; after all they were under the impression that they had voted for a Conservative MP. Well, no they hadn’t really … they really voted for Quentin Davies through thick and thin, and officially the party he belongs to is irrelevant. Of course his constituents might disagree, but their only avenue of complaint is when he tries to get re-elected.

Similarly nobody voted for Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. We all knew he was going to get into the hot seat of course … unlike Mr Grey’s (John Major) coup d’état where he replaced Margaret Thatcher. We didn’t have any say in the matter … the largest party’s leader is always (by convention) asked by the Monarch to become the Prime Minister. We may think that we are electing a Prime Minister (and the politicians encourage this), but really we ave no say in the matter except in having some influence on what party becomes the largest.

Does this need reforming ? Well perhaps, although there is always a danger in reform that we make things less stable. I think at the very least MPs who leave their party should resign their seat because we really are not living in a time where each MP acts more or less independantly.

UK Gets Right To Breast Feed In Public

 General  No Responses »
Jun 172007
 

The UK government has done something sensible for once and given the right to breast feed in public without harassment … it is admittedly a sad comment on the state of Britain that such a law is necessary. It seems that some people think it is “disgusting” or something and object to it in public. Personally I find people eating decaying corpses in public disgusting, but I don’t make a big song and dance over it … because once someone has made the decision to eat meat it is none of my business (although a bit of gentle campaigning is not wrong … when they are not eating!).

If you are one of those odd people who find breast feeding disgusting, don’t look! After all it’s hardly polite to stare at someone eating anyway, and if you don’t look it won’t bother you. If you are in a restaurant and someone breast feeding is putting you off your food, go and eat in the toilet (which is where these nutters think breast feeding belongs).

This is a symptom of a more general problem … that people somehow feel they have the right to restrict the actions of other people, because they might be offended. In many cases these people just need to be told mind your own business; whilst we do have to have restrictions on what we can do such as when we cause (or potentially) direct harm to others, we should not be restricted because somebody might be offended.

I find the act of people eating meat offensive, but I don’t expect the law to stop them. I accept the fact that other people have different ideas. I dare say some people find the fact that I grow my hair long offensive, but just because there are a few who do doesn’t mean it should be illegal. It is not even something where the majority can rule the minority.

The Arms Are Out Of Reach

 History, Politics  No Responses »
May 032007
 

The UVF made a little announcement today, saying that they’ve put violence behind them and their arms are “out of reach” … whatever that phrase is supposed to mean. This is of course great news after all the UVF is one of the organisations that began with the “troubles” in Northern Ireland/6 counties. And from the beginning they were one of the most violent … the first killing of a policeman was them, and they gloried in sectarian killings far more than most paramilitary organisations.

But there is one thing that has always puzzled me about the peace process in NI. Whilst the IRA was still armed, all the pressure on disarmament was directed towards them with only occasional mention of organisations such as the UVF. It seemed very one-sided especially when you consider the origins of the “troubles” where peaceful protests by catholics was met with increasing violence by “loyalists” (I’ve always hated that description). It is easy to forget that British troops were first sent to NI to protect the catholic community.

Anyone who knows the history of the IRA knows that after the border wars of the late 1950s/early 1960s, they had stopped using violence and were interested to see what the independent peaceful protests about the atrocious treatment of the catholic community could achieve. The loyalists claim that these protests were wholly controlled by the IRA … not so! Sure there were IRA members who took part … as (mostly) catholics themselves they had some interest in seeing the aims of the protest movement succeed, but it was never an IRA cover organisation.

So why were the loyalist paramilitaries treated so leniently by the peace process ? Why were the loyalist politicians allowed a voice when the republican politicians gagged ? Well, part of it is because the loyalists politicians managed to maintain a better illusion of distance between themselves and the paramilitaries … I guess you could say they were better politicians. And perhaps the British and Irish governments took the rantings of a certain loud and vile politician too seriously.

The peace process tends to give the impression that the republicans were more responsible for the troubles than the loyalists. They are certainly not without fault, but hopefully history will spread the blame more evenly.

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