Winter is nearly here

We were going to call this blog ‘Winter is coming’ but saw that the incredibly litigious HBO organisation owns the trademark to these words (bloomin’ ludicrous if you ask us, but anyhow…) and has been persecuting its wrath with a fiery vengeance. If you didn’t see it, HBO’s lawyers demanded that a nine year old girl took down some of her school art from ‘tinterwebs’ because those very words were used. Not that it makes any difference other than adding to the mindlessness of this action but the little girl in question has autism.

The lunatics really are taking over the asylum, read here.

Over in Blighty, another army of sharp-suited, sharp-minded, sharp-shooting legal types have been put to the sword by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which is by the way, still in charge.

The issue in question is the new Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) referred to as ‘The Snoopers Charter‘ by some. It turns out that in the opinion of the ECJ, the Government’s justification for mass surveillance of the entire population in order to catch the odd criminal here and there is less than compelling.

As well as dismissing the justification for the indiscriminate mass surveillance, the ECJ made the point that once implemented, everyone in the UK will know that their every online activity (all of it) is being watched and recorded but have no idea for what purpose.

The ECJ think that this is unreasonable, however the Bill comes into effect on December 31 this year, the day of our last Threat of the Week for 2016 and our last un-spied on blog ever most likely. Mr Orwell 33 years ahead of his time.

It seems a bit crazy to us that the Government can unleash such an organised and expensive monster sledgehammer to crack a walnut when they can’t do much to force ISPs to do something about DDOS or regulate simple things like the default configuration of consumer and home networked devices. ‘Protecting The People’ and ‘protecting the people’ are clearly very, very different.

Readers of the BBC News Website, no doubt soon to come under the direct control of The Ministry of Truth, will have seen this excellent article, hot on the heels (well 2 weeks later) of our own piece regarding the perils of toys and other Internet of Things tings which connect to the net, read here.

This one is written by a Professor no less; Professor Alan Woodward of the University of Surrey, and he knows a thing or two, being a specialist in quantum computing and its application to public key encryption. So if you don’t believe us, please believe the good Professor and be very careful with any of these tings, especially children’s toys. You never know who might be spying on your kids, apart from the Government – you know they will be.

Please join us next week for a review of the year and thoughts for next year.

We are off to The Moon Under Water for a couple of draught Stouts. In the meantime, from all us at ITC Towers have a Very Safe, Merry Christmas and New Year.