Posts by Steve Browne 209 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Apr 2007
They are parked up around Saturn waiting for clearance to land from the DHS. Apparently, their passenger data is incorrect and has not been properly filed, they now have to wait another 6 years for the correct data to be resent from their home planet.
They had another difficulty over the lack of fingerprints, but it seems that a finger print waiver program has been negotiated, provided their home planet implemented an IP protection regime and singed a non disclosure agreement.
When will they ever learn ....
The entertainment industry has promoted every new technology dating back over centuries. The entertainment may have been considered pornographic, but they grasped it, embraced it, exploited it and prospered from it.
Now, we have technology that enables people to copy CDs, DVDs or even make their own. What, no record company, musicians capable of making their OWN CDs and releasing their own music, oh dear, that means they will be retaining copyright too, we must obliterate this.
So, pick on a few miscreants, make a big fuss over it, selectively choose a few things with fancy names and blind a minister with science and see if we can put a stop to the internet.
Good luck, in a free society you are entitled to be wrong, but prohibition has never worked, anywhere, ever.
Microsoft still prosper, despite their software being copied all over the place.
A recent study found that the real destroyer of music profitability wasn't file sharers but supermarkets, yes, your friendly neighbourhood Tesco selling CDs at a price closer to their production cost. File sharing amounted to nothing significant in comparison.
Well, Mr Music Man, why not look to where the problems are before trying to solve them. P2P is not the problem.
Why not do something radical, republish your catalogues at a reasonable price with CD quality downloads and rake it in. The vast majority of people wish to be honest, why not try it out, if you charge 10p/track I suspect you would clean up. No need for DRM or Sony (TM) Root Kits, no need to brand everyone a criminal or spy on everyone, then just sit back and wait for your bank accounts to fill up.
The world and business works better with less regulation. Blaming everyone else because of your own greed is getting to wear a bit thin.
Good luck to the French.
HM Gov would be far better off studying and learning from them how the french manage their relationship with the EU. Maybe we would get somewhere. We actually have more in common with our french cousins than we may like to admit, just that hey are more likely to take action that sit around and wingeing about it.
The guy was given an opportunity to appear in front of a judge to present his case, he declined, then, like everyone else, was coerced into appearing to explain himself by way of an arrest warrant. Now, he will have his opportunity to explain to the judge and I am sure will be dealt with appropriately.
The EU has been a great institution, yes there is corruption which really needs to be dealt with, but it has done great things for Britain. It exposed the beef scandal of BSE and forced HM Gov to come clean, no one else could have done this. It has imposed a standard of behaviour on governments, by way of ECHR. It really does try to protect consumers and stands up to the US. Keeping the peace in Europe for 60 years has to be the greatest triumph.
We will legislate ...
So fuckin what. The entire internet is made solely for file sharing, that is what HTTP does. Just that some people dislike having their files shared, quite why this involves the police is a mystery to me. Forensic examination indeed, just another example of the bully boy tactics of which they are so fond. Wonder what extra powers of surveillance they will need now ?
The internet is sold on access speeds. Whether they are achievable or not for technical reasons, physics plays its part on how far down a wire the signal can travel. However, when an ISP actively decides to limit speed, surely this is at the very least a breach of contract, and at worst a criminal offence of theft.
This kind of behaviour shows scant regard for consumer protection regulations and is all about over selling their network capacity, taking money for a service they cannot provide.
It would appear that more regulation of ISPs is required as they show absolutely no signs of regulating themselves.
or Same shit different company
I remember working at IBM in 1984, and mentioned to the drones there that they were living in a fantasy land where they really believed that people were going to continue paying ever higher prices for the same product. Guess what, they didn't and IBM almost went to the wall.
Now it would seem that Microsoft, once time IBM partner, is getting into the same boat, if it hasnt already. As are PC World.
Do they really think people are interested in computer software ? Because they are gravely mistaken if they do.
Hey Nick, you got it right, though I didnt think I would ever support someone like you, but you finally noticed that the world WANTS you to take your army back home, your currency is worthless, and wake up to China owning a lot of it too. One day, the Chinese government will liquidate its dollar holdings, then you will get to understand what worthless really means.
We have had relations with Muslims for decades, nay, centuries, half of Europe was Muslim only 100 years ago, the Ottoman empire, and your own government is promoting the interests of a Muslim state, Turkey, in suggesting the EU should welcome it as a member. Though, we do think GWB should mind his own business and stay out of the political affairs of the EU. We never had any problems at all with Muslims, until your government started to shit on them.
So, apart from a criminal army (Abu Ghraib), a criminal government (implicated in torture, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay) we will be so happy to see the back of you.
Whilst I am sure these are important to someone, I suppose I would find more credibility if it wasnt always used as a ruse to raise taxes.
Quite why the focus is *always* on CO2, produced by every living cell as part of respiration, yet little is mentioned about CH4, mustnt upset the farmers again, no taxes to be gained there. Selectivity in the data presented effectively discounts most of the discussion for me, as I see it as someone with something to gain from omissions.
So, I quite agree a balanced discussion would be most welcome, with figures that do not originate from the treasury, failed american politicians (with a reputation for exaggeration, did he still invent the internet ?) or other vested interests.
.. why the Nuffield report on bioethics described the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" as fallacious. Giving anything to a gang of criminals, backed up with national networks and rights to demand certain things, such as encryption keys, is a very dangerous thing to do.
Some may laugh at the civil liberties groups, but they are fast becoming our last hope against the Orwellian nightmare that Britain is becoming. Please, when you get an opportunity, vote out your NuLabour MP and lets hope the replacements will start to undo the serious damage being done to OUR society.
Who was it that said "The living have no right to forgive" remember people died for the freedom we have today. Bliar has already gone, Bush is on his way, the damage remains.
I was ordered from my home and the landlord ordered to assign the tenancy of the flat to my (now ex) wife. I was given 3 days to get out. In that time I had to find somewhere to live, grab what I could and go. The local authority suggested the night shelter. I lost the rest of my possessions when the decree became absolute. I ended up living in a single room, too small to turn around in, in a place so bad even the asylum seekers left.
So, please, when you start criticising the homeless, there but for a county court judge, a decree nisi and a vicious and vindictive woman with a teenage daughter go you ! Had it been the reverse, the local authority would have been obliged to house her. Got a live in girl friend, dangerous. (And it doesn't matter if you own the home either, you still have to go).
Anyway, I think it is disgraceful that a "christian" country should perpetrate such a law on its citizens. Giving food to someone who is hungry should never be a crime.
Don't you just think a little leeway could have been granted when a person's life is at stake ?
Perhaps they would have murdered him anyway, but maybe there was the possibility of a mistake and perhaps waiting a little longer to satisfy their bloodlust would have been in order.
In any event, I fail to see how you demonstrate it is wrong to kill people by killing people.
I last heard that school were short of cash to pay for essential repairs, teachers, books things that are actually useful to them. Yet here is a school in a deprived area with loads of cash to buy fingerprint machines, computers to manage them and train people how to use the scanners to stop the little oiks from spending their dinner money on essentials (beer, vodka, fags) and scrounging a free school meal.
Perhaps we need a change in the education system, not the NuLabour way, but perhaps start issuing vouchers so schools are paid direct, by the parents to educate and take care of the precious bundles of fun. Perhaps then we shall really find out what people want, do they want the intrusion of finger printing, do they want the take it or leave it attitude, or will some schools open their gates and find parents queuing outside, voucher in hand, because they offer a decent education instead of a few technological gimmicks to manage something they have managed for over 50 years quite easily.
It would also serve as a reminder as to who is the boss. Far too many in public office have forgotten whom they are their to serve. From doctors refusing to treat smokers (did you take an oath to treat people ?), stealing organs from dead people (though, technically their next of kin) and generally abusing the trust placed in them. Police, who spend their entire existence devoted to gaining more draconian powers, though never quite learning how to deal with people. Councils who could care less about the electorate, just that they can demand as much as they feel like with impunity. And now schools, who think it is OK to tell parents to take their progeny elsewhere or surrender their fingerprints.
Now, back to the point, would they be as glib if there were somewhere else to go ?
It is with sincere regret that see Stalin walking the corridors of power in this country now, this once proud nation being dumbed down and oppressed like never before. The time is coming when it is enough, though I think it is here already. I shall wait for my job application to Switzerland to come through, bit ironic that, to be free, I shall have to learn German after all.
A computer exists somewhere from which some material is downloaded. Now, what if the person operating the computer is unaware that files are being shared by some other program. A trojan for instance, might come into this category. What if she didnt notice the dialogue box asking if she wanted all her files to be shared, or, what if the person installing the software wished to be malicious and left her computer open to file sharing.
So much as I would deplore illegal activity, I rather think there is more to be learnt when the evidence is presented in court. I think there is more to be examined than IP address and a file list. Just having a file named help.mp3 does not mean it is a Beatles recording of a similar name. Also, so far as I know, MediaSentry are not a law enforcement organisation, so are not permitted to break the law, unlawfully downloading copyrighted material for example, to demonstrate that some one else is breaking the law.
I think this could be interesting to watch. Especially if the RIAA are not the copyright holders, I thought the record producers owned the copyright, so from where does the RIAA get its standing to sue in the first place, based on the illegal activities of another organisation.
Tie me up in knots, cover me on chocolate and throw me to the lesbians.
have definitely got something to fear now !
I think it is cool that amnesia is now illegal in the aftermath of Bliar's Britain.
I really LOVE the bit about making things intelligible for the plod, fancy that. They cant even understand what they write themselves, they just want to look good in the press. Now that DNA evidence has been show to be inconclusive and that finger print evidence has been similarly outed, they are just looking for a technology they may be able to use if they get someone clever enough to show them how. (I am presuming that anyone using encryption has some idea of what they are doing).
Wonder what they will do when faced with a full schematic of a processor. What happens with several people working on different parts of a project, and you cant call anyone else to explain the but they were working on, because you might expose the fact that you have a S49 notice.
Do you really think that someone with the IT skills to deal (even cope) with encryption and key management is working for the plod handing out parking tickets for twenty whatever thousand a year ?
So, more likely, they wont have a clue as to whether they are looking at a new, freshly installed and unformatted disk or the nefarious secrets of yet another ne'er do well. I mean, they can't even catch people when they know where they are !
Still, Truecrypt works fine, I tried it out on a spare disk, on a spare machine, which doubles as a test bed for whatever else I might get interested in. It is such a faff remembering the pass phrase, then again, I have nothing to fear because I hid everything !
Oh, BTW, at a recent file count (from a virus scan), I had close to 2,500,000 files on my PC. I havent a clue as to where they originated, they appear out of the ether every few Tuesdays.
Don't you just want to hark back to the days when ignorance was bliss ?
It is official, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is now determined to be a fallacious statement. I like the other point too, that the home office have no worthwhile evidence of DNA helping to solve crimes. Just some inconsistent statistics and a few tales of nasty men being caught doing things.
Perhaps it would be interesting to see what the Nuffield Council would make of identity cards.
or the one after that.
Having had Tony Bliar's introduction to Stalinism foisted upon us, and yet more pressure to be applied from our allies in the US, do you really think that the government or its agencies can be trusted with such detailed personal knowledge of you ?
All police data held should have a use by date, and it should be deleted from their records once this date has passed. Everything.
One item that seems to have escaped is the recent phenomena of politicians attempting to control lives by way of important topics.
So, Osama bin Laden arranges for a large plane to fly into a tall building or two, therefore everyone has to have their photograph and fingerprints taken when visiting the US. Thing is, they know who it was, so why do they need my fingerprints or picture?
Paedophiles exist, have existed for many years, doubtless they existed when the bible/torah/koran were being written. These books contain some fairly graphic violence, sex and lost of unsavoury practises, perhaps they ought to be banned too.
Blaming the internet is like blaming the tooth fairy. Just plain ridiculous. One way or another badly behaved kids will be just that, badly behaved. Censoring my enjoyment of cum hungry grannies (Oh Adam, do you really go there too) will not change that, they will still be badly behaved.
The point being that censoring internet content to avoid kids showing their home made videos of themselves committing criminal offences is not going to stop the criminal offences. The offences will still take place, just that fewer people will get to know about it.
Then there is the BBC (amongst others) who are actively seeking out "user generated content" to enthrall us with, while they spend the license money in the pub.
There were ills in society long before the internet was invented. Censorship is not the way to go, in fact, all censorship should be removed, now.
If parents have a problem, let me just point out they are YOUR kids and they are not MY responsibility. If you cant look after your kids 24/7, that is not MY problem either, it is still YOURS.
If governments have a problem over parents and their offspring, then just withdraw child benefit, child tax credit etc, until their children behave. Perhaps they might spend what is left on worthwhile things, like food instead of camera phones and computers.
How about ..... Ban football, get rid of football related violence. Or will some people miss out on their Saturday afternoon sport. I could care less about our national sport, but it does attract a violent following. Therefore, banning all football will have a wondrously fortifying societal impact and all the Saturday afternoon thugs will take up something else, basket weaving I expect. They would have been able to take up knitting in the 60s, but trusting thugs with sharp objects does not seem such a good idea.
Oh well, cum hungry grannies is off line tonight, I shall just ave an early night instead.
In this article though, it doesn't quite say what Microsoft are alleged to have done, other than state its position vis a vis the GPL 3. If they are not using any GPL 3 code, then they have no need for a license to use it. If Microsoft choose to issue bits of paper to some people, then fine, keep on doing whatever makes you happy.
Whatever license applies only applies to the software product that has been licensed. If a derivative work is created then the original license applies to that too, at least to the originally licensed product and possibly to new code if it constitutes a derivative work.
So far as I am aware, a derivative work is well defined in the copyright act, any lawyers about who could clarify this, so if there are no changes in the product being distributed, then no change to licensing is required. Any additional product may be distributed with it as the licensee sees fit.
Therefore, I can create proprietary software using open source tools, without violating any license as a result of the tools being licensed under whichever license you prefer. Just because my product uses an open source library does not make it a derivative work and so the GPL (V?) does not attach itself to my product.
The internet, by definition, routes around problems, the whole thing has been designed to be attack resilient. Knock out one chunk of the network, it routes around it automatically. So, why is it that only 1 company is affected.
Do these people think we are all as stupid as they are ?
I was brilliant at chemistry when I was at school. I was top for the 3 years leading up to O level. I did no revision, didn't have a notebook, always got 10/10 for homework, completed the O level exam in about 30 minutes and knew the entire syllabus.
My first job, laboratory assistant in an edible oil plant. My first salary £470/year.
A girl who was the same age is myself earned twice as much for assembling cardboard boxes.
Sort of shows the rewards given for qualified people. OK a few O levels may not be very much, but it was a lot more than the cardboard box assemblers.
I exited chemistry as there was no viable future in it and moved into electrical engineering, eventually ending up in programming.
The CBI are always bleating on about the education system. It is CBI members who have hired people with "useless" degrees, it is CBI members that do not wish to pay adequate salaries or reward efforts.
The CBI has little to complain about really, after all, it is they who offer careers, and if the career is not rewarded as well as those careers with a "useless" degree, they can hardly blame people for not wanting to pursue them.
So Mr CBI, pay people proper salaries and you will find they begin to get interested in what your members may have to offer. Continue with your stinginess and they wont. Simple, cause and effect, most science people understand this principle.
Just a mention that this technique does work.
I had an insurance company that was dragging its heels over settling a claim. They continually lied about where the payment was, cheque in the post, sent to your broker, awaiting signature, awaiting production, file is in another office, file is in another building ..... sound familiar ?
Anyway, after some weeks of this, I told him I didn't care if my file was on the dark side of the moon. A settlement figure had been agreed and they had not met the claim. As a consequence, I now believed them to be trading insolvently, which is a criminal offence under the companies act. Therefore, if payment was not received within 3 working days that I would go to the High Court with my solicitor to swear out a winding up order.
My cheque arrived on the appointed day and they were on the phone to find out that it had arrived.
This technique works.
Look, I am an adult, well over 21 twice over and I am absolutely fed up with being told all I can look at must be suitable for a 6 year old.
This is a load of bollocks and is just another government attempting to exercise unwanted control on its inmates.
Wouldn't it be nice if. all these civil servants went and did the job they are supposed to do and stopped seeking out ways to control their populations.
Censorship is a much more invidious crime than anything else. There is NOTHING more useful to a politician than a muzzled press. Think about it, it isn't really internet sites that will be the target, once they have a policy directed against publishing, the next target is an anomaly that ought to be corrected.
Protecting children, my arse, protecting government now you are talking.
... an OS that works !
I know we have Linux, I like Linux, I used it for years, fantastic.
But, most people have Windows which is riddled with problems that M$ cannot or will not address.
The simple inclusion of a su command, so you don't have to log out and log in as administrator to install software, wouldn't be a bad start. Then we can set ourselves up properly, knowing that NOTHING is going to install itself without us KNOWING what is going on.
How about read only directories, this will prevent all those useless dlls appearing in system or system32 that are not needed any more, also makes deleting things easier if something has to install into its own directory. Then stop install processes from updating anything other than its own installation directory.
Get rid of the registry entirely. This has got to have been the worst thing ever done in Windows 95. I thought it a big mistake then and I have seen absolutely nothing to change my mind. Interesting that .NET doesn't use it.
Make IE an application again.
Display more information in the process list, so that processes are identifiable.
Provide a proper "End now" function that cancels the address space, never mind telling something to shut down, just close it, no dialog boxes, no messages, just deleted from memory. When I want to shut down my computer, I mean exactly that, shut down. I don't care if Symantec anti virus doesnt want to go away, it is my machine and it is going to stop, either by itself or with the off switch (the little black on on the back of the case, or the white one on the wall).
Provide monitors for important services, such as what is sending on the network and where, or what is accessing the disk.
Add in a facility to make files private. They can be used by the application that created them and nothing else, without explicit permission.
Reduce the number of executable file types. We have exe, com, pif, bat and probably quite a few more.
It isn't anti malware we need, it is a properly constructed OS.
But, I live a couple of miles from the exchange and had previous 'tests' stating I could get 2Mb on my line, so I wanted an up to 2Mb service, which was not offered with a static IP address. As the static IP address was more important to me, and in the knowledge that I could get 2MB, I signed up for the service with UK Online.
The router claims to be connected at around 5Mbps, with an upload connection at 768Kbps and from guesstimating, I am getting downloads in the 4.5Mb region.
I would much prefer to pay for the 4Mb service level, but otherwise I have no complaint. The service is faster than I expected, so, I am quite content with what I have received.
The laws of physics are modified in the exchange to work slower to enable BT to keep up with technology. I mean, the Post Office only had one telephone with one of those new fangled transistors in it when I worked for them (we parted in 1976) and transistors had been around for some time then.
Considering they were talking about neighbourhood wireless networks in the 70s shows the level of progress they make.
Ionica tried this, but missed out completely on what they could have done had they used a bit of imagination. They had a microwave link to their customers houses and could easily have wiped BT out of the ISP market then. It would have been so easy for them to multiplex a 64K (or faster) channel on top of the phone signal. I believe they would have made a serious killing. They didnt seem to understand what they had, no foresight and down the pan they went. Shame.
A company called IBM runs a one stop shop, but got a little too big for its boots around the mid 80s, and they have suffered for it ever since. They ended up playing second fiddle to a company from Seattle. Bet they wish Gary had been home when they called !
Robert Heller does a wonderful description of it in "The Fate of IBM".
The real problem they face, if M$ are their target, is that Windows looks nice. Whatever M$ may do elsewhere they put a lot of work into their user interface and it shows. Everything comes second to good looks. If M$ paid as much attention to the functional parts of their systems, then it is Oracle that will be having problems.
So, Oracle are going to try to create a one stop shop for themselves. This is an area where they have no experience, and without significant enhancement of the user interface, an area in which they will fail. Just taking a distribution at random, OK, RH probably isn't a random choice, still leaves them dependent on an OS supplier. If this damages RH in the process, this will be another classic case of shooting oneself in the foot. RH are not the problem, they are part of the solution !
Thin clients will not succeed either. When a functional PC costs as little as £299, inc VAT, who cares about the cost. When a laptop can be had for nothing, sign up with Orange for £15/month broadband, get a free laptop, who cares about cost.
There is one and only one problem that is faced by M$ competitors and that is the GUI, plain and simple. Once you have the good looks of Windows, the superior internals of Linux et al will have a serious chance of success. Until then, it is merely bickering in the playground.
I already know my council (Bedford Borough) makes unauthorised disclosures of personal information. I do my very best to make sure they have as little as possible, so that I can live my life in peace. I wont trust them with direct debits or credit card numbers.
The information commissioner needs to get a grip and actually start prosecuting these organisations and barring them from processing personal data for, say, 6 months to start. Better still, put the chief executive and leader of the council in jail for 6 months as well. Force automatic compensation, but make it personal on the officers and councilors.
In my case, he (the information commissioner) just told them to update their files ! What a waste of paper he is.
We need real data protection with real penalties that actually make these people terrified of anything getting out. They wont talk so glibly of their security procedures again !
I used to do this every Monday morning at 08:30 in a telephone exchange by tripping the mains circuit breaker. The engine always started a straight 8 Lister diesel and was left running the building right through to 13:00 or so. This covered the morning peak for telephone traffic.
A telephone exchange, as a piece of electronics, runs on a float power supply, with at least 2 rectifiers to charge a battery, which works as a UPS. Telephone exchanges do not fail very often because power supply is integrated into the design of the exchange. The power supply represents a single point of failure, having integrated redundancy and UPS ensures that problems do not happen. Should power really fail, customers with non urgent classes of service will be prevented from originating calls to preserve power.
Dual integrated power supplies with in built fall back facilities, that work.
Now that all the IT braggarts are exposed for what they are, incompetent buffoons, they have confused knowing a bit about software and knowing a few buzzwords with actually understanding what they are talking about.
Perhaps actually looking into a bit of electrical engineering and being ever so humble might well be the order of the day.
And the comment about disaster recovery, I worked for an FM company here and we tested out our DR plans every year. No one was allowed help from their colleagues, they had to follow the documentation and correct it if any errors were found. The trial simulated a real disaster and the guides were to enable anyone with a modicum of IT knowledge to recover the systems under test. Users were involved too, they were shipped in to test fully functional systems and sign everything off.
In fact, when relocating mainframes, I used to implement the DR process at the client site and use that for the system transfer. I moved 3 mainframes using this technique and every one went without fuss or problem. Why was this, because the DR system had been properly tested, was proven to work in annual trials and was relatively easy to implement.
I haven't named the company, as it may cause embarrassment to their competitors.
... Some sense !
Perhaps this is the beginning of the end for software patents, someone had to realise that spending all their profits on lawyers was not a good way to proceed and that it was merely stymying development of new (and exciting) products. OK, they are not exciting.
I am a bit surprised, though, to find IBM leading the way. They are to be congratulated for this and I do hope others follow suit.
"I'll wait for your whining when your lower back-ends start freezing next winter."
Mine froze last winter due to unemployment. The way things are, it might well do so again this year.
But, your comment just exemplifies my comment, that the western governments are more concerned about oil than human life.
Still, you have my sympathies, anyone who can watch a young girl being beheaded for the sake of their personal comfort deserves to remain anonymous.
I feel sorry for you.
When will someone stand up to these arabs.
It seems that oil is worth more than human life. It also shows how much western governments really care about human life too, when they refuse to do anything detrimental to relations with Saudi Arabia.
Saddam wasnt murdered because of his treatment of Kurds or anyone else, he was murdered because he posed a threat to oil supply.
I am horrified and dismayed at the lack of support for this girl.
I always think of it as a positive thing when companies like Verizon start moaning about having their markets opened. I wonder why CEOs are always whinging about something, looking for some reason to blame their failings on. (we would have made more if it hadnt been for oil prices, global warming, the discovery of quasars etc).
Regardless of what I think/thought of Margaret Thatcher, she did liven things up a bit. She led the way in deregulation and letting people decide what services they wanted, rather than having big companies deciding what they were going to make available.
This is the way to go, let the dinosaurs die out, if they cant compete, leave them to rot away, and remove their ability to stifle innovation. I mean they are making money out of copper cable laid 30 to 50 years ago. Isn't it paid for yet ?
Time to upgrade girls, and if you wont do it, get out of the way so someone else can !
For americans to grow up.
Now, sad as it may seem, but it is precisely this sort of behaviour, on the part of the authorities which produces the bad feeling against them, that CAN last a lifetime. Supreme court indeed, for an icon on a web site. Perhaps they ought to remind THEMSELVES about the bit that says "The law does not bother with trifles" and leave the kids alone.
Socialism is about spending other people's money, bit like the labour party.
New labour are different, they want to spend other people's money, then chastise them for having nothing left to save for their pension, which reduces the inheritance tax they can collect when they finally kick it.
Why is the abbreviation for inheritance tax IHT ?
.... The license fee.
They do not have to do anything to get their money. It is just extorted by a bunch of thugs threatening little old ladies (amongst others), exceeding their legal powers (demanding entry to homes to perform an illegal search) and inundating people with mail. Guilt is assumed if you do not have a TV license. I dont have a TV license, I dont have a TV. I dont really care about the BBC, they could cease to exist now and I would not notice their passing.
If the BBC had to actually EARN its money, perhaps they would take a bit more care of it, instead of letting inept management negotiate contracts that they know little about. Outsourcing companies do little more than cover their costs with the headline contract figure. For them to make a return to their shareholders they look for additional work. With IT, there is generally always something extra to be had, which are called (by the BBC and government) cost overruns. They arent, they are legitimate charges for additional work.
The solution to the BBC malaise, sell them off. Turn them into a public company and get them and their stormtroopers off everybody's backs. Perhaps some fiscal prudence would ensue, or perhaps they will disappear altogether.
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