Limiting Family Size For Those On Benefits

 Politics  No Responses »
Nov 042012
 

Those sneaky Tories have announced plans to limit child related benefits so that families with large numbers of children would only get benefits for the first two. With this, they have implied that “out there” is a large population of benefit scroungers who make tons of cash by simply breeding like rabbits.

And of course when you put it that way, it sounds like a great idea. Why should those in work pay for the comfort of those too lazy to do anything other than breed like rabbits?

Except those benefits are for the children involved. It is always worth remembering that any benefit cuts in this area will have a negative effect on the children involved. Or do the Tories plan to take into care any “surplus” children by force?

And even if there were a large number of benefit scroungers benefiting from the “generous” child related benefits, they are almost certainly far outnumbered by those who are not scroungers, but need benefits for genuine reasons.

What about the carpenter who whilst he earns a reasonable wage to support himself, his wife, and a single child, suddenly finds himself the father of sextuplets ?

What about the house husband whose wife previously earned big money as a hot-shot barrister, had 6 children over a number of years and who suddenly finds himself along with those six children after his wife is killed in a road accident ?

Or the single mother who works hard at a cleaning job, but finds it hard looking after her three children that her feckless husband left her with ?

The Tories have come up with a scheme to punish the poor, and yet have sold it in such a way as to get those poor to support it. What you could call a masterpiece of Machiavellian politics.

 

Apple Demonstrates Its Stupidity Again

 Computing  No Responses »
Nov 032012
 

Previously I ranted about how Apple had “complied” with a UK court order by criticising the decision made by the UK courts and implying they had gotten it wrong. Now Apple have been dragged into court again to explain their lack of compliance, and been ordered to remove their previous statement and replace it with another whose wording has been dictated by the court.

Apple in a mind-blowing exhibition of stupidity tried to claim that whilst it would take just 24 hours to take down their previous statement, it would take up to 14 days to put up a replacement statement. For “technical reasons”.

Now as it happens, in addition to writing drivel on this website (where the only delay “technical reasons” might impose would be due to an infrastructure failure/upgrade, but “personal reasons” might well impose a 14-day delay), I have been involved in more “corporate” websites where content management systems can indeed impose “technical reasons” for a delay in updating a website. But not 14 days! More like a few hours, or at most 24 hours.

And if a content management system does impose a long delay in publishing website updates, it is always possible to bypass the CMS to publish emergency updates. Even if it is necessary to “break” the CMS to do so.

It may very well be that an internal approval process within Apple’s CMS normally requires 14 days for an update to be published. In which case the reason for the supposed 14 day delay is for “business reasons” rather than “technical reasons”.

Of course there is also another possibility. Given that Apple have recently launched new products, they may be very reluctant to put anything up on their home page (which the revised court order now requires) which distracts from their new product. You do have to wonder if this mysterious delay for “technical reasons” is in fact so that nobody gets distracted from the pretty pictures of Apple’s new products.

That would be very, very silly of them.

The court evidently did not think much of Apple’s excuse of why they could not put up a replacement statement promptly and have given them 48 hours to comply. So either Apple has to comply within 48-hours – demonstrating that they lied in court, or has to come up with detailed technical reasons why they cannot comply – which will demonstrate they are surprisingly incompetent when it comes to technical matters.

Neither alternative is comfortable for Apple executives, but this position is all their fault.

Apple’s Enforced “Apology”

 Computing  No Responses »
Oct 262012
 

Apple actually lost a court case recently, and as part of the settlement they were asked to publish an apology in both printed media and on their website. Which may well come close to the letter of what they were obliged to publish, but in no way comes close to the spirit … and indeed may well be contempt of court. The relevant part of the apology reads:

However, in a case tried in Germany regarding the same patent, the court found that Samsung engaged in unfair competition by copying the iPad design. A U.S. jury also found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple’s design and utility patents, awarding over one billion U.S. dollars in damages to Apple Inc. So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple’s far more popular iPad.

Or to re-phrase it: The UK courts are complete idiots and should pay closer attention to the judgements reached in the US and Germany which of course have far wiser judges. If I were that UK judge I would order Apple to pay “over one billion dollars” to the court and prohibit Apple from selling any products in the UK until it was paid.

You do have to wonder just how dumb the relevant executives at Apple are. When you are forced into publishing an apology, the sensible thing is to do just that … and not try and weasel out of the apology by saying “but ….”.

 

Kate’s Topless Photos – So What?

 Media  No Responses »
Sep 152012
 

Some French gossip magazine has published topless photos of Kate Middleton (who is married to someone who may eventually become a notional head of state) taken when she was staying at a private location on holiday. My first reaction: So what?

Who cares if someone famous was topless in private? We’re all naked in private at some time or another … even if it is just getting into the bath or shower. It’s hardly a revelation to learn that the rich and famous can also be found naked (or in this case topless) at some point or another.  This hardly qualifies as news … or frankly even gossip.

But on second thoughts, this is an invasion of privacy – at the same level as some pervert setting up hidden cameras in your bathroom to take photos of you naked … and then gets them published. Sure the royal couple are famous, but unless they’re getting up to something evil or hideous they should be able to expect a reasonable level of privacy when they are in private.

And the fact that Kate can sometimes be found topless isn’t the sort of thing that counts as in the public interest to reveal.

Are Julian Assange’s “Hacktivists” Becoming Mindless Thugs ?

 Computing, Media, Security  No Responses »
Aug 312012
 

There comes a moment in some violent anti-capitalist protests where genuine if illegal protest becomes mindless thuggery; for example turning from daubing slogans on the windows of the nearest bank, to throwing objects through the windows of the small independent shop next door. And you do have to wonder if those “hacktivists” who are supporting Julian Assange’s wish to be given safe passage to Ecuador have reached beyond that point.

First of all, I should point out that whilst I’m a supporter of WikiLeaks – or at least the idea of a website where whistleblowers can responsibly publish leaked material in raw form – I’m no supporter of Julian Assange in his attempt at escaping justice. A mentioned previously, I believe he should go back to Sweden to face the charges that will be made once he arrives.

But neither do I think that Julian Assange’s supporters should be silenced however mistaken they are about the situation. They have a right to protest, and I’m not even opposed to a bit of responsible “hacktivism” – in my private life I’m quite willing to go along with the ideal that sometimes it is ethical to break the law. But I also believe that the current flood of ‘hacktivism” is going just a little bit too far.

Those who have been reading just the mainstream media (and here) may be under the impression that the hacktivists have been attacking just a few places; more relevant media makes it plain that there is something more widespread. The first story mentions Cambridge University; none of the stories mentions that the hacktivists have claimed to have broken into up to 5 universities. The list of victims of this week’s surge seems to include :-

  • Up to 5 UK Universities.
  • One or possibly two UK police forces.
  • A UK recruitment agency (which just so happens to mention a couple of UK government bodies).
  • A Pakistani agency specialising in assisting students to come to the UK, or other English-speaking countries.
  • Plus a few UK government agencies.

And this list looks a little random to me.

It’s not that difficult to break into a website – even I could do it, but the question to ask is just how many websites did they rattle the doorknobs of before they found these low-hanging fruits? And it’s always worth remembering the old classic cartoon by xkcd.com :-

Of course they didn’t just widdle a picture of Julian Assange over the front page of a web site; they also broke into some databases and stole some personal information! That’s a bit more serious. And in the case of the information grabbed from the police, it’s a lot more serious.

But if you look closely at the data stolen from the UK universities involved, it becomes a little less dramatic. It would appear that the hackers have managed to break into a few databases used by various departmental web applications. Web applications often use databases as a convenient place to “stash” stuff including account details, which is what appears to have been leaked here. These account details are normally separate from any other account details (unless of course the owner of the account uses the same password), and give access only to the web application itself.

It does not appear that any core business function data has been exposed by this – i.e. the personal details of all the students for example. If it were not for Julian Assange’s name being attached to the incident, it is very likely that the media would not be interested in the story itself which would make it far less serious for the institutions concerned.

When you come down to it, Julian Assange’s real supporters should probably be a bit dismayed by this mindless thuggery – it doesn’t reflect well on their protests if it appears the best hacktivists that they can get to support them are rather on the low end of the scale. Of course a conspiracy theorist might take this as evidence that the hacktivists here are actually deliberate making the supporters of Julian Assange look bad.

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