B2fxxx

Forensic science and human rights: the challenges

2009-07-12T19:19:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Caspar Bowden for directing me to the Hon Jack Beatson's recent speech on forensic science and human rights.

"30 years ago Sir Robert Megarry VC in Malone v Metropolitan Police Commissioner1
said that if something “can be carried out without committing any breach of the law it
requires no authority by statute or common law; it can lawfully be done simply
because there is nothing to make it unlawful”. In that case he was talking about
telephone tapping. Had the issue arisen more recently he might have been talking
about CCTV or retention of biodata.
Sir Robert said what he did because, following the nineteenth century constitutional
lawyer AV Dicey, he considered this to be “a country where everything is permitted
except what is expressly forbidden”. Their approaches ignore the special position of government officials. They do not recognise that the power of government officials to
act depends on statutory authority and that the institutional position and de facto
power of government officials may justify their being subjected to greater restrictions
than ordinary citizens. Modern examples of such de facto power include the ability
of the state to erect a network of CCTV cameras in a city centre or on a motorway, to
track the movements of an individual using signals from his mobile telephone, and
other manifestations of what the Information Commissioner and the House of Lords’
Constitution Committee have called a “surveillance society”.2
Things have changed in the 30 years since the decision in Malone’s case. Common
law rights such as the right of access to an unbiased and independent court or
tribunal, the right to property, and the right not to be detained capriciously have been
recognised as fundamental.3 Our rights under the European Convention on Human
Rights (the “ECHR”) have been brought into our domestic law by the Human Rights
Act 1998. The result is that those embarking on a legal career today would find Sir
Robert’s approach to the position of a public authority extraordinary. But the mindset
underlying his approach has not vanished altogether. It bears a similarity to some of
the approaches to the possibilities open to the state today as a result of technological
and scientific developments.
My topic this evening concerns the intersection of forensic science and human rights.
It is a big topic and I shall only deal with a small part of it. Forensic science may
impact on a number of the rights under the ECHR, but the human right I am
concerned with today is the right to respect for private life in Article 8. Privacy, and
thus the right to respect for private life, can be more vulnerable in the modern world
as a result of technical and scientific developments. Developments such as a system of CCTV cameras and a DNA National database have the capacity to narrow the area
of an individual’s autonomy and privacy. This area may also be narrowed as a result
of an increase in the role of the state. In his book, Genetic Privacy, Graeme Laurie
said that one of the greatest threats to individual privacy in the last century has been
the development of a public interest in the welfare of individuals. The state has taken
responsibility for basic services, such as housing, subsistence, education, and health
care. Notwithstanding the attempts since 1979 to “shrink the size of the state”, the
state’s legal responsibilities and the very significant financial burdens upon it have
led to the development of a position in which the state considers it has an obligation
to guide individuals to prudent behaviour that is considered to be of benefit to the community, for example in relating to smoking, consumption of alcohol and the
wearing of seatbelts in cars. It is this position that Laurie sees as threatening
individual privacy and autonomy.
Within forensic science, the development that has led to most discussion in recent
years has centred around DNA. This is understandable. The UK has been the
scientific pioneer in this area. The position in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland
(but not, as we shall see, in Scotland) has, broadly speaking, been that all
bioinformation taken from those arrested is retained indefinitely whether or not the
person providing the sample was subsequently convicted or even charged. At present
volunteers who have given bioinformation, for example in mass screens, have no
right to have it removed from the database. Chief Constables, however, have
discretion to destroy the samples and profiles of both those arrested and volunteers
in “exceptional circumstances”.
Our National DNA Database is the largest database in Europe. In March 2007
approximately 4 million people were on it.4 The figure included over a million
children. 5By March 2009 the figure had risen to some 5.1 million people,6 over 7% of
our population. The comparable figures for France and Germany are respectively
approximately 856,000 people, 1.44% of the French population, and some 611,000
people, 0.74% of the German population.7
There are notable examples of the use of DNA both in detecting crime and in
exonerating individuals. So, for example, a number of “cold” cases of murder and
rape have been cleared up, sometimes years later, when an individual is arrested on
another matter and a sample taken from him which implicates him in the unsolved
crime.8 Again, as shown by the cases of Stefan Kisko and Sean Hodgson, DNA can
exonorate.9 The European Court of Human Rights (the “ECtHR”) has recognised the
“rapid and marked progress [of member states] in using DNA information in the
determination of guilt or innocence”.10
The potential uses of DNA material of course go far beyond the prevention and
detection of criminal activity with which many members of the British Academy of
Forensic Science (hereafter “BAFS”) are concerned. Issues of genetic privacy arise in
the context of health care, insurance, and personal identity.11 There is a natural and
understandable desire to make full use of technological and scientific developments
in combating disease and crime, and improving our quality of life. But, equally
understandably, there are also sensitivities about the retention and use of such
material by public authorities and companies whether or not the material is retained
in order to assist in the prevention and detection of crime.
It is clearly justifiable to retain and use DNA material for the overall good of society,
whether by enhanced screening for disease or by creating a method of deterring and
detecting crime. But should the increased power of technology and science be
balanced by a greater sensitivity to the need to protect legitimate areas of “privacy”
and “autonomy”? No one argues against a balanced approach. It is recognised to be
necessary in order to maintain public confidence in systems, to ensure fairness and
appropriate autonomy to individuals, and to provide a method of identifying and
correcting error. But there is controversy as to what constitutes a balanced approach."

He goes on to look at the S. and Marper case (where the UK lost in the ECJ on the issue of retention of DNA and fingerprints) in one of the most comprehensive clear minded analyses of the issues I've seen anywhere. Highly recommended. Caspar tells me that the honourable judge also wrote the first human rights QC’s Opinion for FIPR pro bono in 1999 http://www.fipr.org/ecomm99/ecommaud.html).

Berners-Lee OU-BBC 'Digital Revolution' speech

2009-07-12T10:47:00.002+01:00

Along with several colleagues from the OU I had the privilege last Friday of attending the launch for a series of BBC/OU programmes on the history and future of the web. It was an interesting session.

Tim Berners-Lee's talk and responses to questions at the event are available on YouTube.

What does Tory plan to scrap ID cards really mean

2009-07-11T21:11:00.002+01:00

John Lettice suggests in the Register that the Conservative Party are not being entirely straightforward when stating they are planning to scrap the government's ID card plans if they get elected next year.

"A future Tory government will cancel the ID Card Scheme - but, as The Register has asked several times, what does that mean? A broad commitment to abandon ID cards, even to cancel the National Identity Register database, leaves a certain amount of wiggle-room, particularly if - as is Tory policy - you're likely to be keeping plans for adding fingerprints to passports in place."

Filmmakers speak out against management of web traffic

2009-07-09T19:44:00.001+01:00

From the Canada.com movie guide:

"Canada’s largest Internet providers are having a chilling effect on independent filmmakers by slowing down certain Internet technologies that enable producers to distribute movies and other programming online, federal regulators heard Wednesday.
Increasingly, independent filmmakers and television producers are turning to online peer-to-peer technologies as a primary means of distributing their creations in the face of rising competition for broadcast time from Hollywood studios."

Thanks to Michael Geist for the link.

Pirate party in the FT

2009-07-09T14:31:00.001+01:00

Sweden's Pirate Party MEP, Christian Engström, has an article in the FT this week, unsurprisingly entitled Copyright laws threaten our online freedom.

RIAA object to Nesson recordings

2009-07-09T13:43:00.002+01:00

I don't think I quite appreciated the depth of the RIAA's animosity towards Charles Nesson, the founder of the Berkman Center at Harvard, until very recently. It's well known that Nesson is defending Joel Tenenbaum in the case for p2p copyright infringement brought against him by the RIAA. He is also using it as a case for his students to observe the US legal system in real time, something the opposition attorneys are not too keen on. The latest development in the case is that the RIAA are reportedly asking the judge in the case to order Nesson to remove “unauthorized and illegal recordings” of pretrial hearings and depositions from the net.

I was prompted by the story to listen, for the first time, to Nesson's recording of Tenenbaum's deposition in September 2008 (available at the Berkman Center).

Right from the start it is clear the RIAA lawyer doing the main questioning is trying to deconstruct Nesson's involvement in the case, presumably to gather evidence for the courtroom battles to come. The emotion in the voices of both the RIAA supervising attorney and in-house counsel - and this is purely subjective perspective on my part - displays more than simple irritation with Tanenbaum and Nesson. The in-house counsel got particularly annoyed at one point when declaring that Nesson didn't seem to appreciate that many people were getting laid-off every year because of lost sales due to file-sharing and that was who he was fighting for. In fairness to him he seemed genuinely upset at the job losses and committed to his desparate attempts to stem the flow by pursuing file sharers through the courts.

But in spite of drm, draconian copyright laws, monster lawsuits, lack of interoperability, Apple's oliopoly on online music sales, electronic files are unlikely to get harder to copy and distribute because computers are continually getter faster, storage is getting cheaper and more compact and internet pipes are getting fatter. So the RIAA has to find a new strategy, beyond litigation, to work with the technology to monetize their wares - more competition in cheap, reliable, convenient, clean, comprehensive catalogue of online music sales. Convenient, clean and reasonably priced will beat free every time.

Pope criticises rich countries excessive zeal on intellectual property

2009-07-08T10:35:00.002+01:00

The Pope has decided to get involved in the debate about the value of intellectual property. In section 22 of Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI, he says:

"The world's wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase. In rich countries, new sectors of society are succumbing to poverty and new forms of poverty are emerging. In poorer areas some groups enjoy a sort of “superdevelopment” of a wasteful and consumerist kind which forms an unacceptable contrast with the ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation. “The scandal of glaring inequalities”[56] continues. Corruption and illegality are unfortunately evident in the conduct of the economic and political class in rich countries, both old and new, as well as in poor ones. Among those who sometimes fail to respect the human rights of workers are large multinational companies as well as local producers. International aid has often been diverted from its proper ends, through irresponsible actions both within the chain of donors and within that of the beneficiaries. Similarly, in the context of immaterial or cultural causes of development and underdevelopment, we find these same patterns of responsibility reproduced. On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care. At the same time, in some poor countries, cultural models and social norms of behaviour persist which hinder the process of development."

JK Rowling heading for court again

2009-07-07T18:17:00.001+01:00

From Fernando Barrio (something I missed at the time):

"The Australian Daily Telegraph brings the news that the estate of Adrian Jacobs is suing JK Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury, for copyright infringement and claiming £500 million. The suit has its origin on the allegation that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire contains the same concepts presented in Jacobs’ Willy the Wizard, a 36 page book of which 1,000 copies were made."

Fernando does a terrific analysis of the case. Highly recommended.

The web, copyright and enlightening discussion

2009-07-07T16:34:00.004+01:00

This is an example of one of the things I like about the web. Barrister and computer forsensics expert, Alistair Kelman, wrote a short review of Music and Copyright by Ronald S. Rosen a little while ago.

Rosen, who defended John Williams when he got sued for copyright infringement over elements of his music for E.T., noticed the review and contacted Kelman about it. There followed an enlightening exchange about copyright law which is now available for anyone with a computer and a web connection to see.

Kelman had suggested that if some of the discussions about the specifics of the music in the book could have been recorded then it would make the arguments accessible to those not familiar with musical notation. Rosen agreed but noted that although he would have liked to record samples for the book and post an accompanying audio/video files on the web, the budget didn't stretch to getting the required licences for permission to do such recordings.

So to enlighten people about the intricacies of the arguments in the ET music case it would have been valuable to have illustrative audio and video samples. Yet to provide such samples (freely or commercially) would have laid the author open to a copyright infringement lawsuit (although he would probably be allowed to use such samples to illustrate his points in a courtroom) . Rosen, and remember he is a very experienced music copyright lawyer who knows the system better than most, hasn't given up hope of acquiring audio licences for a second edition of the book but this is complicated even if the music under consideration is in the public domain:

"If we are fortunate enough to publish a second edition, we might be a position to secure licenses for small portions of the sound recordings at reasonable rates. If, however, the current edition is highly successful, we may be able to get licenses for the second edition in exchange for crediting the record companies for the use of these extracts, if the composition is in the public domain. If, however, the music itself is also protected by copyright, we would need licenses from both the copyright owner of the sound recording and the owner of the copyright in and to the music. Looking over this paragraph, you will notice a lot of "ifs", which sums up the situation."

Interestingly enough the description of the book itself says:

"The highly topical area of copyright law, as applied to music, is widely misunderstood by lawyers, business people, and - perhaps most seriously - the federal judiciary. More than ever, there is a need to understand music infringement issues within the context of copyright litigation. In Music and Copyright , Ron Rosen provides readers with a practical and strategic roadmap to the music-infringement litigation process, beginning with the client's claim or defense and continuing through the selection and use of trial experts, discovery, motion practice, and trial."

If Rosen is right that music copyrights are so seriously and widely misunderstood (and I think he is) it is more than a little ironic that copyright law itself might be interfering with the ability to put a substantial dent in that unsatisfactory state of affairs.

Quote of the day

2009-07-07T16:07:00.000+01:00

From Charles Nesson:

"If you see the United States in a competition with other nations in a digital world, and you think the best asset you have for the future are your own children, who will become the digerati, who think imaginatively in that environment, you will be against the idea that you use the law, the power of the state, to make those learners fearful of clicking on the Net."

Centocor v. Abbott: Biggest Patent Verdict Ever

2009-07-07T15:59:00.001+01:00

The week before last a Texas jury apparently awarded the largest damages for patent infringement in history.

"Abbott Laboratories must pay $1.67 billion to Centocor, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, because its Humira arthritis treatment infringes U.S. Patent No. 7,070,775. The patent was developed at New York University and licensed exclusively to Centocor, which makes a medicine called Remicade that competes with Humira."

Jammie Thomas appeals again

2009-07-07T15:27:00.004+01:00

Unsurprisingly Jammie Thomas, who saw jury damages for copyright infringement via KaZaa increased from $9250 per song to $80,000 per song on appeal, has decided to further appeal the latest award against her.

"Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman found liable for willful copyright infringement of 24 songs last month, has asked a federal court for a new trial or a reduction in the amount of the $1.92 million damages she was ordered to pay.

Thomas-Rasset, who a jury found liable for willful copyright infringement, asked the court Monday to either alter or amend the judgment, remove or change the award of statutory damages to the minimum, or give her a new trial."

Update: I should of course have noted as Fernando does that "the claimants specialists could only link 11 songs to the defendant’s computer, so the actual tag is not U$S80,000 per song as the jury decided but U$S174,545.45 per song (for the other 13 songs even the claimant’s specialists recognized that they couldn’t probe that they had been actually shared)."

Comedian Bishop sees the power of YouTube?

2009-07-07T12:05:00.002+01:00

A close friend has pointed me at American Irish comedian Des Bishop's new website. I find Bishop to be very funny but I guess you have to be Irish to get some of his material, especially the stuff on the catholic church in Ireland.

What's of interest to the b2fxxx sphere, however, is not that Bishop does Irish humour exceptionally well but that he actively points people from his website to freely available videos of his gigs on YouTube. He's been known to joke about the less well off members of the Irish diaspora in the US passing copies of his DVDs amongst themselves and not paying for them. Yet here he is on the web linking to free versions of the same materials.

Perhaps he subscribes to lesson 1 of Tim O'Reilly's notion of piracy as progressive taxation: obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy?

DOJ confirm official Google book settlement investigation

2009-07-06T17:17:00.001+01:00

From John Paczkowski,

"The Justice Department probe of the Google Books settlement is heating up. On Thursday afternoon, the agency officially opened an investigation into the deal, which would allow the search sovereign to make millions of books available online.
“The United States has reviewed public comments expressing concern that aspects of the settlement agreement may violate the Sherman Act,” wrote William F. Cavanaugh, a deputy assistant attorney general. “At this preliminary stage, the United States has reached no conclusions as to the merit of those concerns or more broadly what impact this settlement may have on competition. However, we have determined that the issues raised by the proposed settlement warrant further inquiry.”"

Quote of the day: we like to learn...

2009-07-06T16:02:00.002+01:00

One of my favorite pieces of advice about education is encapsulated in John Holt's simple philosophy:

"Basically... the human animal is a learning animal; we like to learn; we are good at it; we don't need to be shown how or made to do it. What kills the processes are the people interfering with it or trying to regulate it or control it."

Holt was an educator who worked within the education system and hoped for many years it could be improved but eventually decided it was so dysfunctional it could not be fixed and became an advocate of home schooling. He also came to the conclusion that the main reason children don't learn in schools is fear - fear of failing, fear of being laughed at, fear of not being able to tackle the tasks set by teachers, fear of not being good enough, fear of being teased by teachers and fellow pupils.

Lori Drew verdict set aside in MySpace suicide case

2009-07-03T17:38:00.002+01:00

The judge has reportedly set aside the earlier jury verdict holding a Missouri woman, Lori Drew, responsible for driving a teenage girl to commit suicide, through exchanges in MySpace.

"A federal judge on Thursday overturned guilty verdicts against Lori Drew, issuing a directed acquittal on three misdemeanor charges.
Drew, 50, was accused of participating in a cyberbullying scheme against 13-year-old Megan Meier who later committed suicide. The case against Drew hinged on the government’s novel argument that violating MySpace’s terms of service was the legal equivalent of computer hacking. But U.S. District Judge George Wu found the premise troubling.

“It basically leaves it up to a website owner to determine what is a crime,” said Wu on Thursday, echoing what critics of the case have been saying for months. “And therefore it criminalizes what would be a breach of contract.”"

The LA Times and others also have reports on the decision.

No re-trial for Pirate Bay

2009-07-02T09:48:00.002+01:00

Unsurprisingly the court of appeal in Sweden ruled last week that the judge in the Pirate Bay case was not biased.

"A Swedish court ruled today that the judge overseeing The Pirate Bay trial earlier this year was not biased by belonging to various pro-copyright organizations. The unanimous decision (Swedish) means that there will be no retrial; the defendants must hope for a successful appeal instead.
Judge Tomas Norström is a member of the Swedish Copyright Association, as are several of the lawyers who represented the recording and movie industries during the trial. He also sits on the board of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property, an advocacy group that pushes stricter copyright laws.

After receiving a verdict of a year in jail (each) and a shared 30 million kronor fine, The Pirate Bay defendants charged Norström with bias and asked a court of appeal for a completely new trial with a different judge.

That appeal was overseen by Judge Anders Eka, who doesn't normally hear copyright-related cases but did so here in order to make the ruling appear as fair as possible."

The four men who ran Pirate Bay are now planning sue Sweden for breaching their human rights.

Government mandarin director of firm that won passport contract

2009-07-01T11:20:00.002+01:00

On the surface this stinks.

"A legal battle was looming last night over the £400million contract to produce new hi-tech passports.
A losing bidder is threatening action over the fact that one of Gordon Brown's senior mandarins is a director of the firm which won the contract.
Gill Rider, a leading member of the Cabinet Office, not only directs the hiring of senior civil servants but is also director of De La Rue printers, which last week secured the job of producing biometric passports.
Rival firm 3M, furious that its bid was rejected, is considering a legal challenge based on potential conflict of interest."

Thanks to Peter Sommer via FIPR for the pointer.

Is UK Government U-turn on ID cards real?

2009-07-01T11:03:00.003+01:00

The new Home Secretary's apparent reversal of government policy on compulsory ID cards yesterday has been criticised as the government spin since they are still intending to include people's details on the ID register when they apply for a passport.

"British citizens who apply for or renew their passport will be automatically registered on the national identity card database under regulations to be approved by MPs in the next few weeks.
The decision to press ahead with the main elements of the national identity card scheme follows a review by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, of the £4.9bn project. Although Johnson said the cards would not be compulsory, critics say the passport measures amount to an attempt to introduce the system by the backdoor.
Johnson said he had halted plans to introduce compulsory identity cards for airline pilots and 30,000 other "critical workers" at Manchester and London City airports this autumn in the face of threats of legal action. Longer term plans to extend compulsory ID cards to other transport industries, such as the railways, as a condition of employment have also been scrapped.
But two batches of draft regulations to be approved by MPs tomorrow and next week are expected to include powers to make the passport a "designated document" under the national identity card scheme. This means that anyone applying for or renewing their passport from 2011 will have their details automatically added to the national identity databases.
The regulations also include powers to levy a fine of up to £1,000 on those who fail to tell the authorities of a change of address or amend other key personal details such as a change of name within three months."

ACTA update

2009-07-01T10:51:00.001+01:00

Michael Geist has noted an update on ACTA from Canadian government officials.

"The Canadian government held an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement consultation meeting today focused on pharmaceutical and access to medicines issues. The meeting was smaller than the earlier consultation in April, but featured some important new information about the ACTA process including a fuller description of planned negotiating meetings, details on the upcoming Morocco meeting, and confirmation on an inquiry from Brazil about joining the negotiations.

1. Negotiation schedule

The ACTA partners met on June 11th to discuss ACTA related issues and committed at the meeting to continue with the negotiations. The next meeting is set for Morocco in July with later meetings currently planned for October (Korea) and December (Mexico). There are additional tentative plans for meetings in February and April 2010.

2. The Morocco meeting

Officials advised that the Morocco meeting will be a two-day meeting that focuses on ACTA chapters involving international co-operation, enforcement, and institutional issues. The meeting will also address some "housekeeping" issues including ongoing transparency concerns. The Internet-related provisions will not be a focus and the Internet-related issues has not progressed beyond the U.S. non-paper that surveyed other ACTA participants on the state of their digital copyright laws (in other words, there is still no draft text).

3. New partners

During the meeting, I asked whether ACTA was open to new countries to join the negotiations before they conclude. Canada hedged, noting that the issue would be discussed at the Morocco meeting and that it would depend upon the country and the context. The issue has apparently become more urgent since Canadian officials confirmed that Brazil has approached one ACTA participant about the prospect of joining, but have not received an answer. Moreover, other countries may have made similar inquiries. I wrote about the desirability of broader participation earlier this year.

4. The De Minimis Exception

The issue of creating a de minimis exception within ACTA was raised during the discussion. The exception would be designed to carve out small quantities and personal use issues from border enforcement. Officials noted that the primary goal is to address large scale counterfeiting and that the treaty should be non-intrusive and practical. Canada is one of at least three countries that have put forward de minimis language. Officials said that there was agreement in principle with including some form of de minimis provision in the treaty."

US Supreme Court decline to hear Cablevision DVR case

2009-06-30T12:35:00.003+01:00

The NYT is reporting that the US Supreme Court has declined to hear the Cablevision DVR case.

"The Supreme Court on Monday delivered a blow to the television networks when it declined to hear a case about a digital video recorder technology, opening the gate for wider use of DVR systems.
The case began in 2006 when Cablevision Systems, the New York-area cable operator, announced plans for what is called a network DVR system. With it, a customer would use a remote control to digitally record a program like “60 Minutes” but instead of storing the show in the customer’s at-home DVR box, the technology would store the show on a faraway Cablevision server.
The technology would let Cablevision convert set-top boxes into boxes with DVR capabilities without requiring an installation or new equipment.

“It opens up the possibility of offering a DVR experience to all of our digital cable customers,” Tom Rutledge, Cablevision’s chief operating officer, said in a statement. Programmers including Turner Broadcasting System’s Cartoon Network, CNN and television networks sued Cablevision, saying the system violated copyright law. In March 2007, a lower court agreed, ruling that Cablevision “would be engaging in unauthorized reproductions and transmissions of plaintiffs’ copyrighted programs.” The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York reversed that decision in August 2008. The plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to hear the case, but the Supreme Court’s refusal essentially reinforced the Second Circuit’s decision."

Scotus blog commentary is here.

Update: The Washington Post also has the story.

Deep link to iPlayer content

2009-06-30T12:09:00.002+01:00

Tony has outlined the trick of deep linking into iPlayer content.

"One of the really handy things about Youtube is the ability to share bookmarks that “deep link” to a particular point within a video (e.g here’s Google having a dig at Microsoft; the URL? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5aJAaGZIvk#t=29m10s, which should start the video playing 29 minutes 10 seconds in. That is, just add something like #t=29m10s to the end of the Youtube video page URL to start the video playing that far in).
A similar service is offered on podcast material published through the wonderful IT Conversations, that lets you deep link in to a particular part of an audio file, which is great for sharing audio quotes and, err, messing around with: IT Conversations samples trigger pad;-)

Anyway, anyway, yesterday I saw this:

which means you can now deep link in to iPlayer content :-)

As with the Youtube deep linking, if you know the URL pattern, you can can create your own deep links on the fly (just add, ?t=21m45s, for example, on to the end of the URL to start the programme playing 21 minutes 45 seconds in.)

Something else I thought was interesting – the shared link is actually a BBC short link. So for an example, this is the sort of link you are given to share:

http://bbc.co.uk/i/l9n18/?t=13m55s

which then resolves to something like this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l9n18/Psychoville_Episode_1/?t=13m55s"

Neat.

UK Safeguarding Identity Strategy launched

2009-06-30T11:59:00.002+01:00

The UK's Identity and Passport Service has launched their Safeguarding Identity Strategy.

"Recognising the huge value and importance of individuals' identity information and tackling variations in how information is used across Government, 'Safeguarding Identity' is the focus of a new strategy launched today, 23 June 2009. The initiative has been led by IPS on behalf of Government and involved more than 12 departments and agencies. Building on a wide range of work already underway (including Directgov and the National Identity Service), it aims to deliver a common framework for the use and handling of individuals' identity information. The full version of the strategy is here. If you have any comments, contact: David White, Head of Safeguarding Identity Strategy, Identity and Passport Service. David.White2@ips.gsi.gov.uk T 020 3356 8064
Download documents

Safeguarding Identity Strategy June 2009 (PDF - 127Kb)"

Top 10 myths about sustainability

2009-06-30T10:50:00.002+01:00

Michael D. Lemonick at Scientific American has listed his top 10 myths about sustainability.

"
When a word becomes so popular you begin hearing it everywhere, in all sorts of marginally related or even unrelated contexts, it means one of two things. Either the word has devolved into a meaningless cliché, or it has real conceptual heft. “Green” (or, even worse, “going green”) falls squarely into the first category. But “sustainable,” which at first conjures up a similarly vague sense of environmental virtue, actually belongs in the second. True, you hear it applied to everything from cars to agriculture to economics. But that’s because the concept of sustainability is at its heart so simple that it legitimately applies to all these areas and more.

Despite its simplicity, however, sustainability is a concept people have a hard time wrapping their minds around. To help, Scientific American Earth 3.0 has consulted with several experts on the topic to find out what kinds of misconceptions they most often encounter. The result is this take on the top 10 myths about sustainability. And after this introduction, it’s clear which myth has to come first....
Myth 1: Nobody knows what sustainability really means.
That’s not even close to being true. By all accounts, the modern sense of the word entered the lexicon in 1987 with the publication of Our Common Future, by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (also known as the Brundtland commission after its chair, Norwegian diplomat Gro Harlem Brundtland). That report defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Or, in the words of countless kindergarten teachers, “Don’t take more than your share.”
Note that the definition says nothing about protecting the environment, even though the words “sustainable” and “sustainability” issue mostly from the mouths of environmentalists. That point leads to the second myth...."

First arrest for twittering?

2009-06-29T15:07:00.001+01:00

From the Washington Post:

"Jean Anleu was so fed up with corruption in his country that he decided to vent on the Internet, sending a 96-character message on the social-networking site Twitter.
That message has now earned him a potential five-year prison sentence and the unfortunate distinction of becoming one of the first people in the world to be arrested for a tweet.

Writing under his Internet alias "jeanfer," Anleu urged depositors to pull their money from Guatemala's rural development bank, whose management has been challenged in a political scandal: "First concrete action should be take cash out of Banrural and bankrupt the bank of the corrupt."
These words illegally undermined public trust in Guatemala's banking system, according to prosecutor Genaro Pacheco."