At the Beeb - UK broadband 'notspots' revealed - another fine, scientific study accurately reported.

Around three million homes in the UK have broadband speeds of less than two megabits per second (2Mbps) according to research commissioned by the BBC.

The government has promised to provide all homes in the UK with speeds of at least 2Mbps by 2012.

The research revealed that so-called notspots are not limited to rural communities with many in suburban areas, and even streets in major towns.

There are some maps too, showing graphically where is hot and where is not. Let's pick one and zoom in to casa Linfoot.

There it is. A large blue blob squarely superimposed on my entire neighbourhood. Checking the legend and... Blue means slow, apparently - a notspot no less.

10Mbps not fast enough, then?

The problem seems to be that virtually every survey of broadband speed looks only at ADSL and a lot of people get broadband through other technologies, such as cable.

I don't think the situation is quite as dire as we are being led to believe.

Category: T'Internet
Technorati: Broadband notspot
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I signed an e-Petition over at Number10.gov.uk last year calling on the Prime Minster to stop ISPs from breaching customers privacy via advertising technologies.

We petition the Prime Minister to investigate the Phorm technology and if found to breach UK or European privacy laws then ban all ISP's from adopting it's use. Additionally the privacy laws should be reviewed to cover any future technologies such as Phorm

The UK's three largest ISP's, Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk are all in talks with a view to introducing the Phorm technology. This would result in the browsing habits of the majority of the UK population being sold to a third party for advertising purposes. The opt out system for this technology is vague and unproven, even when opting out your every move on the Internet might be recorded. Surely this must be a breach of privacy laws, if not then the privacy laws need to be changed to cover such invasive technology.

Reasonably clear, I think.

Well, the government's response has just been published.

They not only pass the buck to the Information Commissioner's Office, they do so using an ICO document which is itself well over a year old - nearly as old as the petition itself.

How is this advancing the debate?

We are witnessing the birth of a new style of government - a combination of apathy, procrastination, abdication of responsibility, spin and impenetrable bureaucracy.

All we need now is a name for it...

Category: Phorm
Technorati: #fail Phorm e-Petition
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Someone has me on their go ahead and spam list and has sent me a message about their new motion picture although I have no recollection of opting in to receive this stuff.

No matter. I'll just click this here unsubscribe link.



Category: Spam miscellany
Technorati: Spam
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Dear owner of chris-linfoot.net,

I noticeded [sic] that your domain "chris-linfoot.net" expires in a few weeks, which means that it is going to be publicly available soon. I'd like to buy this domain name before it expires.

I assume that you are not interested in keeping it for yourself.

I can buy this domain for $60 plus any renewal related expenses. What do you think?

What do I think?

Decorum precludes publication of the response I would like to give, so let's just go with no thanks.

Category: Blogs and blogging
Technorati: Domain
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Security Certificate expiration in Lotus Domino on May 18th 2009

This note contains links (URLs [1]) to technical support documents (technotes [1]) related to an issue affecting IBM Lotus Domino customers. You are receiving this notification because you are a customer who has called us for technical support in the past. If you do not wish to receive notifications like this one on other topics in the future, please reply to this email and change the Subject field to: unsubscribe <e-mail address>, e.g. unsubscribe user@company.domain. This is a special mailing separate from regular Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) mailings to urgently provide information about this expiration situation.

What is happening
The certificate for some Java applets in Lotus Domino 6.5.x, Domino 7.0.x, Domino 8.0.x, and Domino 8.5 have an expiration date of May 18, 2009 [2]. Starting May 19th, Web users will see a dialog with a message similar to one of the following when loading a Web page that contains a Java applet from the Domino server:

"The digital signature was generated with a trusted certificate but has expired or is not yet valid."
"The security certificate has expired or is not yet valid."

This issue can occur even if IBM is set up as a trusted publisher in the browser.

What does this mean
Please be assured that this message does not mean security has been compromised [3]. It simply reflects the expiration of the signature originally provided in the security certificate used with certain Domino applets. You can find an explanation in the following technote [4]:

Title: "Security certificate expiration messages generated from Domino applets (May 18, 2009)"
URL [5]: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&uid=swg21381298

Action needed to resolve
To resolve the situation, you have three options: (1) Instruct users to "Always Trust" content from IBM, (2) if using Domino 7.x, upgrade to Domino 7.0.4, or (3) download and apply fixes. IBM recommends that you replace the affected Jar files (option 3) as described in the following download document for any supported release of Domino:

Title: "Download re-signed Java applets for Lotus Domino (May 18, 2009)"
URL [5]: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&uid=swg24022981

Alternatively, an interim fix will be posted to Fix Central for the latest Modification and Fix Pack levels by May 8th. These include Domino 6.5.6 FP3, 7.0.3 FP1, 7.0.4, 8.0.2 FP1, and 8.5.0. If you're not running one of these releases, access the download document above, which provides fixes for all supported release levels.

(Thanks, Bart)

---

1. Thanks for clarifying that. I wasn't sure.
2. Ooopsy
3. That will reassure the folks on the service desk who have to deal with the hundreds of calls from concerned users
4. Did you mean technical support document?
5. Did you mean link?

---

Category: Domino
Technorati: IBM Lotus Domino
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Or perhaps, in the Internet era, the cliché should be rewritten the Amazon voucher's in the email.

Several years ago, I seem to recall in his book The Road Ahead, Bill Gates predicted that in future advertisers would select targets and pay them directly to look at ads. In one sense this is happening, given the targeted nature of advertising on Google for example, but this type of targeted advertising does not yet pay the advertisee directly. Perhaps it never will.

Bill's prediction may not have been wholly inaccurate however as a new breed of market researcher has emerged willing to pay directly for the opinions of certain closed groups, so called Expert Networks. This is not advertising of course but it may in some cases be preparatory to it or to the launch of some new product or service.

In this context, and perhaps not surprisingly, the people at LinkedIn have recently noticed that they have a large database of people matched with disciplines and skills which could be used for just this type of purpose and they have launched the LinkedIn Research Network.



Category: #fail
Technorati: LinkedIn+Research+Network Incentive+Logic Vanson+Bourne QNA #fail
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Remember this?

In those rare and all too brief lulls in the otherwise incessant media coverage of the inexplicable evaporation of global capital, at least one other story has actually had some press.

I refer, of course, to the British government plan to eavesdrop on all of our communication.

The Directive enforcing this new duty on ISPs to retain data about their customers' use of their services came into effect on 6 April.



Category: T'Internet
Technorati: communication interception
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It's been upgraded from Ami Pro.

Category: Notes 8.5
Technorati: IBM Lotus Notes+8.5
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(Thanks, Carl)

Category: Notes
Technorati: Notes
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Most readers of this blog will long have been familiar with the conundrum that is IPv6.

IPv6, the new Internet protocol, solves a number of issues with the existing IPv4 protocol of which the most significant is the imminent exhaustion of the IPv4 address pool. Widespread adoption of IPv6 has so far been the only potential solution to this problem but uptake, while increasing steadily, is still years away from critical mass. In the absence of any other option the only alternative thus far has been increased use of network address translation with IPv4 and this is not without its issues.

Microsoft recognised this issue some time ago and has today announced an alternative solution to bridge the gap between IPv4 and IPv6 - OpenIPv6^TM



Category: IPv6
Technorati: IPv4 IPv6
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British readers please help out by signing this Number10.gov.uk petition.

Thanks.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Category: Misc
Technorati: LDV
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Word to the wise. Don't let SWMBO use your Last.fm account. There might be embarrassing consequences...



Category: Last.fm
Technorati: Last.fm
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Who modified my view format?

Whoever did it may as well own up right now.

I can wait all night if necessary. It's your own time you're wasting, you know.

(Thanks, Michael)

Category: Notes
Technorati: Notes
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