Right, there is more and more happening with this bloody phorm thing!! check the link and sign up to the petition if you want to protect your privacy… http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ispphorm/
… but here is a summery…
Archive for March, 2008
Hay festival 2008
March 20, 2008Programme and Ticket Booking
The programme for 2008 has not been released yet. Please register for immediate notification.
Full schedule available here 4 April. Here is a sketch to identify who’s headlining throughout the week:
Thursday 22
KEN DODD, KATHERINE JENKINS, TIM SMIT
Friday 23
JAMIE OLIVER, TINARIWEN, BARRY CRYER
Saturday 24
CHERIE BOOTH, GORE VIDAL, JOSEPH STIGLITZ, OMID DJALILI
Sunday 25
SALMAN RUSHDIE, JIMMY CARTER, BISHOP GENE ROBINSON, HITCH
Monday 26
PAUL GREENGRASS, BORIS SPASSKY, GEN SIR MIKE JACKSON
Tuesday 27
JACQUELINE WILSON, TARIQ RAMADAN, JEREMY CLARKSON
Wednesday 28
FRIEDA HUGHES, AMBASSDOR JOHN BOLTON, JOOLS HOLLAND
Thursday 29
JIMMY CARR, JUDITH KERR, JULIA NEUBERGER
Friday 30
MICHAEL WOOD, ALAN BENNETT, SETH LAKEMAN
Saturday 31
GARRY KASPAROV, IAN McEWAN, JOHN IRVING
Sunday 1 June
SUSAN GREENFIELD, TERRY JONES, KAREN ARMSTRONG, CARL BERNSTEIN
Check out some of the conversations and performances from previous years. They are available online and as downloads from our audio/video archive.
Music Round Up
March 18, 2008Found this band today …think your might like it …..
Also … Mr Benjamin recomended this to me yesterday – think its good Yah!!
JEFFREY LEWIS – ‘WILLIAMSBURG WILL OLDHAM HORROR’ – awesome!! 
Gov advisors: Phorm is illegal
March 17, 2008Leading net think tank shells embattled ad targeting firm
Nail down your security priorities. Ask the experts and your peers at The Register Security Debate, April 17, 2008</a>
The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), a leading government advisory group on internet issues, has written to the Information Commissioner arguing that Phorm’s ad targeting system is illegal.
In an open letter posted to the think tank’s website today, the group echoes concerns voiced by London School of Economics professor Peter Sommer that Phorm’s planned partnerships with BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse are illegal und the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).
The letter, signed by FIPR’s top lawyer Nicholas Bohm, states: “The explicit consent of a properly-informed user is necessary but not sufficient to make interception lawful.
“The consent of those who host the web pages visited by a user is also required, since they communicate their pages to the user, as is the consent of those who send email to the user, since those who host web-based email services have no authority to consent to interception on their users’ behalf.”
Phorm claims that all sensitve data will not be profiled, but FIPR argues its “restricted sites” blacklist system will be ineffective because of the vast array of webmail and social networking sites web users now visit.
Bohm uses the letter to urge the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, to ignore the conclusions of the Home Office, which advised BT and the other ISPs that Phorm’s technology is legal. Thomas’ office first said it planned to look into Phorm on 29 February. It told El Reg it only learned of the ISP’s data pimping plans two days before they were publicly announced on 14 February.
Earlier today web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee said he would personally not want his traffic to be profiled by Phorm, and called on BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse to make the “service” opt-in only. ®
Da Bees Knees …
March 17, 2008The California Highway Patrol drafted in apiarists and Romanians this weekend after a truckload of beehives toppled on Highway 99, leaving 440 colonies strewn across the freeway.
The commuting workers, and their queens, were set loose when the truck flipped over on the on-ramp to the highway heading north, toppling the palletes carrying the hives. The bees were thought to be heading North to Washington State, after a stint working the almond Orchards of California’s central valley.
According to local paper the Sacramento Bee, the California High Patrol drafted in Jesse Young, a 66-year-old former beekeeper, together with a “a couple of pretty strong boys who were beekeepers in Romania” to sort out the resulting apiarian pile-up.
Young told the paper the colonies would have to be re-sorted to make sure each had a queen, before they could head back up the free way. He predicted this would be done in the nearest prune or apple orchard. Those bees which did not survive the accident were simply swept up.
The paper said it had trouble getting more information about the pile-up, as the onsite CHP spokesman was attacked by a bee in his car.
The truckload of hives was apparently worth around $75,000. However, this figure belies the importance of the load as the US continues to grapple with the mysterious phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder, which has caused the loss of large numbers of bees in the US. While this may seem a small problem it actually presents a major issue, given that agriculture relies on bees to pollinate crops. Britain’s beekeepers are demanding the government pump £8m into researching the problem, while Häagen-Dazs is stumping up $250,000 for US academics to look into it. ®
Some Random Facts for Today …
March 17, 2008-
Fingerprints of koalas are similar (in pattern, shape and size) to the fingerprints of humans
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Genetically-engineered babies were born first in 2001.
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If an Amish man has a beard, he is married.
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If a native Hawaiian woman places the flower on her right ear, she is available. (The bigger the flower, the more desperate)
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Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
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Pope Pius II wrote an erotic book “Historia de duobos amantibus” in 1444.
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SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below
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Pele has always hated his nickname, which he says sounds like “baby-talk in Portuguese”.
- As of 2006, 200 million blogs were left without updates
ScribeFire
March 16, 2008ScribeFire
(previously Performancing for Firefox) is a full-featured blog editor
that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.
(previously Performancing for Firefox) is a full-featured blog editor
that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.
ScribeFire
(previously Performancing for Firefox) is a full-featured blog editor
that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your
blog. You can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing,
take notes, and post to your blog.
(previously Performancing for Firefox) is a full-featured blog editor
that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your
blog. You can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing,
take notes, and post to your blog.
Works with:
-
Firefox:
2.0 – 3.0b4
Top security firm: Phorm is adware
March 14, 2008Home Office advice suggests RIPA worries for webmasters
Published Wednesday 12th March 2008 15:38 GMT
In a fresh blow to its hopes of winning consumer acceptance, a top three anti-malware firm has said it will very likely include Phorm’s targeting cookies in its adware warning database.Trend Micro told The Register: “The nature of Phorm’s monitoring of all user web activity is certainly of some concern, and there is a very high chance that Trend Micro would add detection for the tracking cookies as adware in order to protect customers.
“Obviously, as with other adware/spyware Trend Micro would need to constantly monitor things like… how aware users are that they are being tracked and whether the user has the ability to completely opt out of the service.”
If Trend adds detection for Phorm then millions of home computers running a scan using its protection software would get a warning that their ISPs have dropped either a Phorm opt-in or an opt-out cookie onto their systems.
