Encryption as Evidence of Criminal Intent

Bruce Schneier has noted that a Minnesota court has ruled that the presence of Enryption software on a computer as Evidence of Criminal Intent.

Obviously this is nuts. Would this include VPN software? GNU PGP? How long before key eschrow comes back on the table.

AJAX GUI toolkit

Just saw this AJAX GUI toolkit.

Wow.

It a GUI toolkit for Javascript/ECMA-script widgets (i.e. buttons, trees, folders etc) - but it supports drag-n-drop and all sorts of goodies. That's pretty impressive - but then they developed an IDE using this toolkit. Let me just say that again, an IDE written in Javascript for authoring applications in their framework.

All of this runs in a browser and they've implemented their own SOAP stack in Javascript so that they can have integrated debugging of web-service calls within the IDE!

FACT goes all 1984

The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) have moved from their vaguely hilarious "piracy funds Al Qaeda" pre-cinema adverts to something a lot more sinister. In it you, the customer have to sit through about 1-2 minutes of a really objectionable advert. The advert consists of a series of statements. Each statement arrives within a giant red square (accompanied to suitably stark clanging noises) being dropped from above, to be replaced by another one, and another one, and so on. They read something like this (one per annoying loud red square)

• Any recording of Film using any device is outlawed yada yada yada..
• Anyone caught doing this will be drawn to the attention of staff.
• You will be thrown out of the cinema.
• You will be barred for life from this cinema and possibly others.
• You will possibly face prosecution.
• Where you can face significant fines
• Or a prison sentence.
• Ignorance is not a defence.
  
• Dissenters will be shipped off to work-camps.
  

OK I lied about the last one.
So there you sit for a couple of minutes while you are being "re-educated" in a style which makes Nazi-era propaganda seem subtle. FACT have a right to lobby and popularize their cause. They do not have a right to treat cinema-goers as potential criminals or subject them to such crass abuse.

Sticking it to Eircom

Sometimes timing just isn't with you. The patina of my spiffy Irish Broadband 1Mbs symmetric connection started to rub off about a week after I signed up. Now I should point out their service does what it says on the tin, but a week after I signed up, Smart telecom launched on the Irish market. Smart offer a 2Mbps LLU-unbundled product. This immediately caused Eircom, the incumbent, to upgrade their entry-level 512Kbs service to 1Mbps asymmetric (and thus all the other people who resell this service - UTV, EsatBT etc). Meanwhile Eircom are also reputedly stalling on providing access to their exchanges (expect regulator-led high-court action) - meaning that only a small percentage of Smart telecom registrants are going to get a Smart broadband/telephone service any time soon. This is all sounding deeply familiar.

Anyway, being a complete convert to Skype. I'm really starting to seriously consider kicking eircom out of my life by getting rid of my landline. Unfortunately (a) SkypeIn isn't available in Ireland and (b) They don't offer Wifi phones. But a small Irish company that lauched in November 2004 do:

Blueface | Ireland's broadband phone service

And you can use them with this phone: Zytel P2000W a wifi phone that I can use without having to have it connected to my computer.

The rates seem good (when compared to eircom) and banishing eircom from my life has a certain sunny-side to it. Main reservation I have is the VOIP market is early days in Ireland - comreg has allocated . Would prefer someone else sorts out the teething problems.

Here are the current set of VOIP allocations (available on comreg.ie) which gives an indication on who's planning services in '05

STD   Start Range   End Range   Licensee   
076  6000000  6009999  Skytel Networks  
076  6010000  6019999  Access Telecom (Ireland) Ltd
076  6020000  6029999  NTL Communications (Ireland) Ltd
076  6030000  6039999  BlueFace Ltd.
076  6040000  6049999  digiweb  
076  6050000  6059999  VoIP Ireland  
076  6060000  6069999  Colt  
076  6070000  6079999  TalkTelecom  
076  6110000  6119999  Finarea  
076  6200000  6209999  BT Ireland  
076  6210000  6219999  BT Ireland 
076  6300000  6309999  MCI  
076  6660000  6669999  Tele 2   
076  6700000  6709999  Smart Telecom Limited 
076  6770000  6779999  Wireless Projects  
076  6880000  6889999  Eircom 

Being a simple soul I would prefer to get all this crap from one provider. So Irish Broadband are you launching VOIP services this year? There were PR-"sources" saying they were but so far nothing concrete and certainly no number allocation.