Posts by Len

Scrapping Brit cap on nurses, doctors means more room for IT folk

My partner is a doctor and once you become a senior doctor it pays quite well. It does cost a lot on other levels such as time (very few doctors have 9-5 roles) and emotional/stress toll.

And that is for a senior doctor. Her horror stories of being a junior doctor (most people don't become a senior doctor until their mid to late thirties) make you wonder why anyone would consider it. 20 hour shifts, trying to catch 15 min. of sleep on a chair in a corner, lack of concentration due to no time to eat, falling asleep on a patients back while listening to their heart etc. And that was before the Jeremy Hunt pay cuts for junior doctors.

I fully understand why people are not that keen to become doctors.

Judging from the people around me that have left the UK in the last two years, they are simply not interested in qualifying to stay. What's the point in qualifying to stay if you don't want to stay?

They have just decided to move on to better places to live and/or work. If, like them, you were making a good salary in London you are likely to earn an even better salary in Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, Barcelona, Stockholm etc. while the cost of living will be similar or lower.

Particularly among my friends who work in advertising there has been a serious exodus. Almost all my advertising friends have left London, headhunted by agencies in Amsterdam and Berlin.

Tech firms, come to Blighty! Everything is brill! Brexit schmexit, Galileo schmalileo

Re: Its the Will of the People!!

History is just Media Studies for posh people. I am not suggesting that history is not a useful science but I don't think it prepares people for the skills of the job market (apart from jobs in academia or teaching).

The only reason people who read history tend to still do well is because many of them come from a background where they don't need skills, daddy can get them a job in his bank whatever their degree.

Re: Its the Will of the People!!

I am not sure it's just about money. In a country where people rather study media studies or history instead of engineering or computer science, where people rather want become journalist than engineer I don't think paying more will help alleviate a skills shortage.

Our future is India!

Who knows, post Brexit the UK could become a valuable destination for companies wanting to near shore their call centres. No goods need to cross a border, just a few data cables. Call centre jobs are digital jobs too. Sunny uplands await, the UK could become the India of Europe!

Security execs must prep for post-Brexit cyber challenges – report

I don't think, when push comes to shove, security will be used as a bargaining chip.

That doesn't mean, however, that pan-European security cooperation can be solved by David Davis just having a couple of pints with some unfortunate representative of the EU27. Even if there was an limitless supply of goodwill between the two parties it would still require agreements on underlying legal frameworks, safeguard mechanisms, arbitration mechanisms that all need to be put down on paper, debated, approved and signed by various people before any sharing can take place. As I described above, I don't think there is that much trust among the EU27 at the moment that the UK can be relied upon to stick to agreements.

I have little doubt, whatever happens, that if DGSI picks up some noise about an imminent terror attack on British soil they will pick up the phone to MI5 to let them know. I do expect the UK Border Force to have a problem from April 2019 as I doubt all the necessary elements to receive security data from EU databases will be in place by then.

That cc-ing other countries is very apt. There is currently an investigation taking place into abuse by British Authorities of data held in the Schengen Information System. There have been a number of incidents where the UK has unlawfully shared this data with the US and foreign private companies. ("UK unlawfully copying data from EU police system" - https://euobserver.com/justice/141919

Violations such as the above but also the €2billion fine for UK customs fraud ("UK faces €2bn fine over Chinese imports scam, say EU investigators" - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/uk-faces-2bn-fine-over-chinese-imports-scam-say-eu-anti-fraud-investigators) are not a great backdrop if you want to convince the other 27 countries that you can be trusted with data on their citizens or with collecting their VAT or duties.

I would expect the EU27 to err on the side of caution when it comes to trusting British authorities with sensitive or important information. If they couldn't trust the UK when it was still a member, I don't have high hopes for the amount of trust once the UK is demoted to third country status.

The problem is that some data can only be shared when sufficient legal frameworks are in place. Don't expect data from an EU database containing data on EU citizens to be shared with a country that doesn't adhere to minimum data protection standards approved by the EU.

Fortunately the UK will keep GDPR so some of that should be covered. Access to SIS II (the Schengen Information System) is less certain as that requires very clear agreements before that data is shared. For instance, Denmark is an EU member state with a higher status than the UK will be post-Brexit and even they are not allowed real-time access (useful for controlling borders for instance*) because they have opted out of the justice cooperation package that would ensure this data is treated correctly.

* SIS II contains, among other things, details of people under requests for extradition; missing persons; requests by a judicial authority or suspects of crime and data on lost or stolen firearms, identity documents, motor vehicles and banknotes. Quite useful information if someone rocks up at your border travelling on a Swedish passport and claiming to be Per Johansson from Jönköping and here for a city-break.

Transition is not agreed yet

"Current arrangements will continue until the end of the transition, and a new security treaty will need to be effective on January 1, 2021."

I hate to put even more pressure on but at this stage the transition phase from March 2019 to December 2020 is not certain yet. One of the requirements for a transition phase to be granted is approval on a solution for the Irish border and that is not exactly going swimmingly at the moment.

The hope is that the government wouldn't be that stupid to screw that up and so transition will happen. Unfortunately there are people in Westminster (even in cabinet!), who seem to favour no deal at all or tell us to expect a "meltdown" but that that will be fine. I would say that there is currently perhaps a 70% chance that there actually will be a transition phase.

Stern Vint Cerf blasts techies for lackluster worldwide IPv6 adoption

Belgium

Why is Belgium not listed? They should be over 50% https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html#tab=per-country-ipv6-adoption&tab=per-country-ipv6-adoption

Who had ICANN suing a German registrar over GDPR and Whois? Congrats, it's happening

Re: I hope ICANN loses completely.

I just wonder how long ICANN still exists in its current form. It will probably be replaced by something else (sitting under the UN and based in Geneva?) or slowly rendered irrelevant because the stopgaps to circumvent its issues keep chipping away at ICANN's authority until the collection of stopgaps is better organised than ICANN itself.

Quite smart to do it in Germany

Considering Germany has probably some of the strictest privacy laws in the EU (apparently a lot of criticism of the GDPR in Germany is that it doesn't go far enough) it is quite clever to start this case in Germany. If ICANN's position holds up in a German court it will likely hold up in any EU court and perhaps even the CJEU.

Beardy Branson: Wacky hyperloop tube maglev cheaper than railways

I doubt Hyperloop will ever reach the levels of success that maglev has reached over the decades.

GDPR for everyone, cries Microsoft: We'll extend Europe's privacy rights worldwide

The Brussels Effect

A prime example of the Brussels Effect in action. Good on Microsoft for seeing this as a differentiator, who would have thunk it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect

You've been Zucked: Facebook boss refuses to face-off with Brit MPs

Re: So when are the politicians actually going to act?

To be honest, I have very little time for Zuckerberg or Facebook while I would welcome any move from the House of Commons to be less of a rubber stamp parliament and have more teeth.

Still, I feel that the right person to summon is the highest official of Facebook in the UK, not an American, living in the US, who runs an American company.

Why would he have to appear in front of some foreign parliament? There will be more than a hundred parliaments across the world, should he appear at each and every one of them if they so wish? Should the Cambodian parliament be able to summon some Brit who lives in the UK and runs a UK company if they so wish?

I think it should be at his discretion whether he wants to appear. It will be interesting to see what he does with a similar request from the European Parliament: https://www.politico.eu/article/tajani-floats-closed-door-hearing-with-facebooks-zuckerberg/

UK's Rural Payments Agency is 'failing on multiple levels' – report

Re: Guardian 2.0

I don’t see any suggestion that these problems are Brexit related. As you say, they long preceded even the invention of the word Brexit.

What I do see is suggestions that it doesn’t bode well for when Brexit happens that they can’t even get a system to work in quiet and predictable times, let alone during a condensed period of major upheaval.

Re: Battle Bus Update

As far as I'm aware that promise was time-limited to 2020. The EU's Multiannual Financial Framework ends in 2020 and many farmers will have planned to receive the same amount of EU subsidies until then.

To appease the farming community during the Brexit fallout the government made a promise to meet EU subsidies until that date. That was before there was talk of a potential transition phase which may now run to the end of the MFF and may see a continuation of EU subsidies until 2020.

The height and type of farming subsidies post 2020 are being discussed with Gove suggesting (discussed elsewhere here) to change what types of subsidies will still be available. I think that will all be moot anyway as I think it's fairly unlikely the current (nominal) government manages to muddle on for another twelve months.

Re: Adjusting maps

I expect the challenge to be organisational rather than technical. The underlying land data should be available using Ordnance Survey and Land Registry data, accurate to a few centimetres.

The challenge will be to find a balance between being able to easily claim one’s land and preventing fraud/land theft. If you don’t have a good record of who owns which hectare, how do you contact all possible people where a dispute may arise? It may require a quite labour intensive process in a department that most likely has only see staff cuts in the last decade.

Re: What's the problem?

That further shift to country-side stewardship means that the only people to still receive subsidies are the rich landowners that can afford not to use their land for production, not the people who actually produce food so we are not entirely dependent on imported food. Expect James Dyson, the Queen, Khalid Abdullah al Saud and Paul Dacre to keep their subsidies. You don't think the government would be allowed to end the subsidies to their bosses, do you?

UK farmers receive about €3 billion a year in EU subsidies, there is no way the country can afford such an amount in the next decade so the total will have to come down. Most farmers are not going to be happy.

The good news is that it may finally mean an end to The Archers...

It's Galileo Groundhog Day! You can keep asking the same question, but it won't change the answer

Re: Aerospace Valley

"Couldn't she just infect the locals to ensure her skills are in high demand?" Some chap from Edinburgh got sentenced to life two weeks ago for infecting five people and attempting to infect another five with this specific virus. I don't see her infect an entire cohort's worth, let alone overcome her moral objections to it.

"As mentioned earlier UK companies own considerable IP in this field so the EU just cannot help themselves to British developed technologies without entering into a patent war."

True, to some extent. It will depend on what is in the contracts as to who owns the IP. Often it's the party paying for the work. Although I don't think that is really what is happening here. CGI UK, one of the key companies we are talking about here, is actually owned by a Canadian company and that Canadian company is apparently at the moment negotiating the sale of the technology to French company Thales so they could take over the specific work on the Galileo contract. If they want to sell it there is very little the UK Gov can do about it.

The chap who gave evidence to the Brexit Select Committee, Colin Paynter, is the MD of Portsmouth based Airbus Defence and Space. He has already confirmed that the Galileo related work is moving to either their German or French labs. Again, Airbus is a private business and if they decide they want to move work internally to make sure they can win Galileo contracts there is little stopping them.

https://www.ft.com/content/8294b680-4d48-11e8-8a8e-22951a2d8493

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/09/airbus-space-contract-will-move-from-uk-to-continent-because-of-brexit

Re: Aerospace Valley

I do spend quite some time there already (that's why I can recommend Toulouse first hand). Unfortunately a permanent move is not on the cards until my partner wants to quit her job as an NHS doctor. The specific disease she is specialised in has a considerable cohort in London but is not very common in France Sud Ouest so it would require extensive retraining.

Re: ???

Q1 - The special encryption keys needed to access the high accuracy features (to guide missiles for instance) are only available to EU members.

Some of the development may still be done by UK companies, just like Norwegian or Swiss companies can do at the moment. Don't count on keeping the most lucrative or strategic work, though.

Q2 - It is a matter of security and financial agreements. The EU has paid for Galileo (and contracted the building out to ESA) and who pays decides. If the UK leaves the EU it no longer gets to decide matters. The special strategic/military features are only available to EU members as the EU owns the system and can decide who it trusts.

Q3 - See Q1, other countries can use most features of it, some non-EU countries may even help develop it. The special features are only available to EU members, though.

I am sure Britain could build the bestest navigation system in the world. It would be called the Postoffice Imperial Satellite System and would have at least one furlong 2D accuracy and 3 rod elevation accuracy. Eat that with your fancy centimetres!

It would be exclusively produced by Dyson (but manufactered in Asia) but he will ask a decent price, honest. Oh, and the noise of the receiver would make any conversation impossible but at least it would look really good, like a Star Wars prop. Don't forget to stock up on the proprietary batteries, available exclusively from your local Post Office upon showing your birth certificate.

Aerospace Valley

It depends, if you work in the British aerospace sector Brexit might mean an all expenses paid move to Aerospace Valley near Toulouse. Better weather, better housing, better food, better schools, better quality of life. I know what I would choose...

Incredible Euro space agency data leak... just as planned: 1.7bn stars in our galaxy mapped

Re: Exciting

The science podcast I mentioned earlier speculated that there would be a whole bunch of skeleton papers that were already written that just needed this data to be slotted in to prove or disprove the hypothesis. That means we could expect the first papers based on this data to be out in weeks.

Public access

I was listening to a very excited science podcast last night where they were marvelling at the fact that all this data was made public to everyone and straight away. Usually the team that harvests this data first mines it to get the most juicy bits out and write a bunch of papers on it. Only then is it made wider available.

With the Gaia data everyone from school class to astronomy research institute gets access to all the data straight away.

UK.gov expected to quit controversial harvesting of schoolchildren's nationality data

The right to education (or NHS healthcare) is not based on nationality but on residency.

A British Citizen resident in Argentina does not have the right to NHS treatment free at the point of care because they are not paying taxes in the UK. A non-British citizen living in the UK has the right the NHS treatment free of charge, provided they are a UK resident and thus pay taxes in the UK. * Why would education be any different? Except, of course, that people are less likely to require emergency education while on holiday.

The whole issue could be solved by schools requiring proof of residency when enrolling a child (something I assume already happens in situations where catchment areas are involved).

* (There is an additional scenario for non-resident EU citizens visiting other EU countries. They are not resident and so don't pay taxes in the that country but thanks to EU agreements a Spanish tourist that needs medical attention after having visited Madame Tussaud's can access NHS healthcare if they have an EHIC card. Or a British tourist falling ill in Lourdes can access French free healthcare if they have an EHIC card. The local healthcare system then sends a bill to the visitor's healthcare system).

Gmail is secure. Netflix is secure. Together they're a phishing threat

Re: TL;DR but what is it with ****ing developers

The American Express (I know, I know, I didn't choose to use the world's least supported CC, the company did) account page yesterday asked for my mobile number. They ask for country code and had the expected county code starting with a + already filled in. It then refused the accept the + as it only allows numbers. It also doesn't allow enough digits for a UK phone number and I couldn't progress without giving a number so now they have an incomplete phone number of me on file.

Somehow I feel that only Americans have a good chance of leaving their mobile number on that system, the rest of the world will just have to be lucky I guess.

(Don't get me started about the space in my surname, that I have letters in my postcode and it is longer than five characters, etc. etc.)

Details of 600,000 foreign visitors to UK go up in smoke thanks to shonky border database

Re: Blairs joke..

"Not really, it's a question of convenience."

We're not talking about having to ID to buy a beer of course. That is indeed a very simple situation.

What we are talking about is someone being stopped in the street because they hang around a risky area and at a time very few people would hang around there. Or being found sleeping in triple bunk beds in a three bedroom house that 35 people call home. Or just being involved in a traffic accident. Or having an unfortunate skin colour. Or just walking into a random funnel on the street.

Re: Blairs joke..

The problem with ID Cards is that they can only really work if they are compulsory. Otherwise 'I left mine at home' is a great way to escape any check. Furthermore, it must apply universally, either everyone needs to be able to identify or nobody.

That is why it was so hilarious to have one of the Cabinet airheads (Davis?) proclaim some time ago that after Brexit only non-British EU Citizens would have to carry some form of ID. At a spot check anyone could just claim to have British Citizenship and they wouldn't have had to show any ID so it could never work.

Re: Problems

Agreed, generally you should use a single passport for an entire journey to prevent getting into trouble. You can get into serious issues in some countries (like the US for instance) if you travel in on passport A but travel out on passport B as they might consider you to have never left the country.

There are complexities with it, though. For instance, the US requires people who hold an American passport in addition to another to use their American passport to come in. This is what got Boris Johnson to be denied entry to the US a couple of years ago as he tried to enter on a British passport which clearly stated that he was born in New York. The border official asked him if he had denounced his American Citizenship, which he hadn't, and Johson was sent back to the UK on the first available flight.

Re: Why anyway ?

You will notice that France has been scanning passports on leaving the country for a non-Schengen country for as long as I can remember. It takes two seconds and they won't ask you questions or anything but you bet they have recorded that you've left France at that border crossing at that particular time using that particular travel document.

Before the UK introduced exit checks on the Eurostar it was always astonishing that the French checked you coming in and out but that the British only checked you when coming in.

A friend of mine worked in Turkey for years, during the height of the IS issue in Syria, as a liaison for European countries to stop their jihadies joining IS. Most countries have a list of people they 'keep an eye on' and if someone on such a list left a European country for a flight to Turkey they would be flagged up in advance. Not, however, if they were British jihadies as the UK didn't scan their exits, much to his chagrin. They would usually not be detected until they were found loitering around the Turkish/Syrian border. If they were detected...

Re: Why anyway ?

Minor nitpick, Freedom of Movement has nothing to do with border control. The people at the border don't care about your FoM status, it's not their job, will never be their job and it couldn't even be their job.

Freedom of Movement is not about the right to pass a border, it is about the right to live, work and own property in another country. There are countries in Europe that have no border controls but also no Freedom of Movement (Liechtenstein for instance). There are countries in Europe with Freedom of movement and border control (Ireland and the UK for instance).

The people at the border check for someone's eligibility to enter the country, not their eligibility to work there. They couldn't because it is impossible for someone at a border booth to tell if someone is coming to the country to work or for a ten day vacation. If they have a valid visa or are from a country with a visa waiver they can come in. Some people might overstay their visa or work on a tourist visa but there is no way to positively predict that when someone arrives at the border.

Ultimately immigration is not a border issue, it is something that is dealt with behind the border, when applying for a National Insurance Number for instance. Or requiring employers to make sure their staff are eligible to work in the country. To a limited degree it is also dealt with before the border, when someone from a 'risky' country applies for a visa for a holiday but doesn't have the funds to pay for a three week trek through the country, can't show proof of hotel bookings or return flights etc.

Don't expect the UK Government to understand this though, they wouldn't be where they are now if they knew what they were doing. Theresa May has been Home Secretary for six years and still doesn't understand the difference between immigration and border control.

Re: Blairs joke..

I am not massively against ID Cards, if implemented well with the necessary safeguards etc. but I don't think that's a priority.

I would rather start with just having one identifier that people use to pay taxes, receive benefits, prove eligibility for NHS treatment, apply for a parking permit, pay council tax, open a bank account etc. etc. It would eliminate a lot of fraud and make a lot of interactions with public services so much easier and less prone to mistakes. It should be done well of course, not like the Americans where your social security number should be kept secret otherwise you can get scammed. The identifier should be like an email address (fairly public), not like a password (to be kept secret). It is not rocket science, countries all around us have implemented this pretty well. This identifier could end up on a physical ID Card but one could still decide implement the identifier without ever creating a physical card.

Not that that has any relevance to border controls. There is no point having ID cards if the people at the border don't scan them when you leave the country. The problem is the UK's shoddy approach to border control, not the lack of ways to identify oneself.

Re: Why anyway ?

Switzerland and France are both in Schengen, the UK is not.

Even if the UK wanted to be in Schengen (which I don't see it applying for any time soon) it wouldn't be allowed to join until it sorts out its border control. The UK has a poor reputation for border control (this article demonstrates that perfectly) and the other Schengen members would balk at the thought of the UK becoming a backdoor into Schengen. The key to Schengen is very strict border controls at the outer border (this is what an external Schengen border looks like: https://www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/EU-border-photo.jpg) and adding a sieve like the UK to it won't be welcomed.

There are 10 types of people in the world, but there is only one Melvyn

Melvyn Bragg in his fiery lair on the roof of the Tate

There was a comedy drama podcast some time ago where the protagonist was someone wishing to join the intellectual elite (or at the very least able to understand the Times Crossword) and their journey through life from a young age to achieve this.

The big reveal and climax of the show is that it is all just theatre, there are no solutions to the Times Crossword (people just use them as a kind of shibboleth and pretend to solve them) most versions of high art are not understood by anyone and the evil genius behind the whole charade is Melvyn Bragg who, as some kind of end boss, resides in a fiery lair on the roof of the Tate.

I wish I could remember who it was by...

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, off you go: Snout of UK space forcibly removed from EU satellite trough

Re: Train has not left the station

I think the UK Government will try and stay in the ESA and UK companies may still be able to be involved in some parts of Galileo. Galileo is, however, an EU project that the ESA is paid by the EU to implement so I would expect the strategic parts of development, control and maintenance to be reserved for EU members.

Similarly one should expect the switching of the various capabilities, deciding who gets access to what etc. to be done at EU level, not at ESA level. The key decisions (is third country X a reliable enough partner of the EU to give them XYZ?) will likely have to be taken by the Council and Parliament.

As I understand it the structure is not as straightforward as you'd think at first. The EU has funded Galileo and then appointed the European Space Agency as one of the main 'contractors' (probably not the best word but it comes close). The ESA is not strictly an EU organisation but ever closely aligned, with ESA and EU coordinating their activities through a Joint Secretariat.

This means that the relationship is not as simple as it could be. Not all EU members are members of ESA and not all ESA members or associates are in the EU (Norway and Canada for instance).

The UK might stay in ESA post-Brexit to try and keep some lucrative deals for its industry but outside of the EU those deals will not be as good as those for EU members. Particularly not for Galileo as that is purely an EU project, managed and paid for by the EU. They will want the core to be operated by and available to EU members only.

In the long run it may mean that people working in aerospace in Britain need to start considering relocating to Aerospace Valley in Toulouse (if they can get a work permit). Not a bad move, great city, better weather, better food, better housing and better overall quality of life.

F-35B Block 4 software upgrades will cost Britain £345m

No, it's Lockhead Creative Suite.

"Your subscription to the F-35B is about to expire, do you wish to renew?"

Here is how Google handles Right To Be Forgotten requests

Re: Why does RTBF for a search engine even exist?

Search engines and newspapers (and many other online media) do not operate on the same legal grounds. Of course anyone could sue a newspaper for mentioning their name in a certain context. Some people do and they often win it, too (particularly in the UK with its infamously poor press). That said, newspapers etc. do also have an extensive legal protection where they are allowed to print information about someone, as long as it is true.

Search engines, on the other hand, are not publishers. They are privately owned databases of information where the operators decides what data they make available and how. Google famously uses secret algorithms to decide what parts of that database they show. The SEO industry's raison D'être is that they try to second guess that algorithm.

The interesting part is that a search engine doesn't only store data about where a certain store is located or what the name of someone's pet hamster is, it also stores information about actual people. And that is where privacy protection comes in. Normally the rules on storing information about people are quite strict (at least within the EU). One could argue that search engines are actually operating under some kind of derogation by storing information about people without their consent, without having to prove they are reliable custodians of the information, without required procedures on disclosure on what they store etc.

The RTBF provides people with at least a very basic tool to prevent easily available damaging personal information wrecking their lives. And no, it doesn't really protect the bad guys. If you are 'important' enough to potentially have a Wikipedia page about you then RTBF is not going to help you.

To be fair (and I am not known for cutting Google much slack), this is just a way for Google to handle the requests. If the complainant is unhappy with how Google has handled it there is still the regular legal process as a backstop. I think it's great if things like this can be handled satisfactory for both parties without burdening the already struggling legal system.

UK.gov told: Draw up code of practice for cops bulk-slurping car plates

No problem with ANPR, within limits

I have no issue with ANPR, provided it is used within specific limits.

For instance, if someone (police? DVLA?) kept a record of license plates that are potentially suspect (recently lapsed insurance, taken off the road, owned by someone wanted by the police, reported stolen etc.) and ANPR fitted police cars or stationary cameras would check every plate they see against that database I would have zero problems with it. It would make roads, and society in general, a safer place.

If ANPR cameras slurp every plate they see, record it against time and place, and store that data in perpetuity I think the damage to privacy is greater than the crime busting benefits of it.

It shouldn't be too difficult to draft policy that would allow one but not the other. Though somehow I don't see our current nominal Government do their best to do so. Particularly as it is not related to Brexit and Westminster doesn't have the bandwidth to engage on things that are not Brexit related.

Man who gave interviews about his crimes asks court to delete Google results

Re: So if I fall prey to NT2 ...

Going after publications is outside of the scope of the RTBF and, more importantly, an entirely different legal field. You stray into censorship and defamation territory, very far removed from the RTBF.

Re: It'll be interesting...

The RTBF does not apply to publishers and couldn't apply to publishers as it would interfere with a lot of their rights. It would be an entirely different area of law that would fall under, and one I don't see happening any time soon. Even the UK, with it strong libel laws, doesn't ban publishers from publishing certain things.

Good luck to him

He can, of course, give it a shot but it may not be all that successful, even if he can get the courts to force Google to play ball.

The general rule of thumb with the Right To Be Forgotten is that it doesn't work if you are someone who could realistically have a Wikipedia entry about them. Even a slight amount of notoriety or celebrity means that RTBF will not help getting people to forget about you as getting your name removed from a search database is not enough. Even more, there is a risk of the Streisand Effect.

The RTBF can work wonders for the average Joe, victims of stalkers or cyber bullies etc. Big men and women, not so much.

April Fool: FCC finally bothers with Puerto Rico as chairman visits

For anyone who wants to know why Puerto Rico is treated like a bastard stepson I can thoroughly recommend this FT podcast. That governor is quite an impressive figure!

https://www.ft.com/content/5a035383-85cd-4d94-80eb-25e96cbf84d8

It's begun: 'First' IPv6 denial-of-service attack puts IT bods on notice

I think it refers to the practice that companies like Facebook are using of not running IPv4 at all. All their systems are IPv6-only with the exception of their edge servers. They simply removed IPv4 networking from all their internal servers, desktops, engineers dev stations etc. That way developers and architects don't have to worry at IPv4, test everything twice, worry about attack vectors using the other protocol etc. They just have to make it work on IPv6 and let the webservers translate it to IPv4 for those users who still have IPv4-only connections.

Knock, knock. Whois there? Get ready for anonymized email addresses after domain privacy shake-up

Brussels effect

Look up the so called 'Brussels effect'. Brussels, followed by Washington (and Beijing nowhere to be seen) are so called 'regulatory magnets'. Due to the size (not just in population but also because of its purchasing power) of the EU market standards that are set at EU level tend to have global impact. In addition to size the quality and the typically relatively tough standards make EU standards attractive to apply globally.

If you are a, let's say Australian, manufacturer you have three choices. You can apply Australian standards which means you can sell your products in Australia but not necessarily anywhere else. If you apply Washington standards you can sell in the US but, due to the American standards typically being a bit lower, not necessarily in the EU. If you apply EU standards you can usually sell just about anywhere. That is why both national regulators and manufacturers all over the world tend to keep an eye on regulation that comes out of Brussels and align or out right copy it.

In this case, selling to a 500 million strong group of richest people in the world means sticking to their rules to be able to sell to them. And which company doesn't want a piece of that market. Strictly speaking the EU has no jurisdiction over ICANN but its market power will speak for it.

Google asked to take down 2.4 MEEELLION URLs under EU law

Re: This protection is good, but...

The thing is that the Right To Be Forgotten is not there to protect people against themselves, although it could be helpful. It is first and foremost there to protect people against others.

I worked in the privacy and security policy space when the foundations for this were laid and a lot of groups we kept regularly bumped into surrounding this topic were anti cyberbullying organisations, children's rights organisations etc. In that time I have met a few victims of cyberbullying whose careers were effectively over before they could begin because any potential employer nowadays does a quick Google search on candidates. If that unearths all sorts of shit that your bullies posted about you (or in your name) when you were 16 that will still be there when you're 22 and going for that job interview. Either you try to get Google to remove it or you have to change your name.