If I may make so bold as to post the first on-topic message: I've signed. I think I can persuade a few others to at least think about it.

My capacity to do anything practical to help is fairly limited, alas, although back in my lawyering days I saw a lot of the beta version of this crap go through and was suitably unimpressed. There are probably still some of my politely worded flames in the 'consultation process' files relating to the subsidiary legislation on RIPA.

Speaking of RIPA, I'm researching another SF novel -- near-future, set in Edinburgh about ten years hence, with a high-tech crime theme (for values of "high tech crime" that are still science fictional) -- and as part of my research I've been talking to lawyers and an acquaintance who's the IT manager for a large British police force. (I've still got to go talk to the press officer at Lothian and Borders, but there you go ...)

I asked him: given what mobile bandwidth costs are down to, how long is it going to be until we see constables on the beat streaming live video to servers sealed under rules of evidence back at the shop?

His response was: "we could do it next week, if it wasn't for RIPA."

It turns out that RIPA(2002) was so cunningly drafted that they've shot themselves in the foot as far as adoption of new broadband wireless technologies go; it'd qualify as installing covert surveillance or something, and they'll have to amend the law before they can do that.

So maybe a chunk of New Labour's legislative agenda is really legislative churn, defining a whole taxonomy of new precise offenses to replace old broad ones, and accidentally introducing a shedload of new loopholes that need to be fixed before their shiny new system can be made to work as intended.

I'm not sure what I'm more worried about -- the control-freak tendencies of the current government, or the possibility that by indulging in them they may actually be creating new loopholes and free-fire zones for smart high-tech criminals to exploit.

(Must follow up a possible intro to someone who works for the Procurator-Fiscal's office -- the Scottish equivalent of the Director of Public Prosecutions -- and see if they've got any thoughts on this. Purely for the fictional work in progress, you understand, not with any idea about feeding policy crumbs towards ORG :)

They're somewhat more stuffed by current DPA than by RIPA with the cameras-on-constables idea.

And, ah, without going anywhere that might be construed as violation of the confidences of former clients, there are some very interesting loopholes indeed...

I asked him: given what mobile bandwidth costs are down to, how long is it going to be until we see constables on the beat streaming live video to servers sealed under rules of evidence back at the shop?

His response was: "we could do it next week, if it wasn't for RIPA."

Bova and Ellison's 1970 "Brillo" is probably apropos of this. Even if they change the legislation, the main restrictions are going to be sociological.

Edited by author 09-24-2005 12:49 PM
'Open Rights Group' is definitely covering allot of ground with one name. : )

As from an American perspective we have the 'Patriot Act' or ‘Craziness Act’ that will need to be disassembled along with many other bureaucratic agencies soon. Some of this 'we might need it forever' garbage needs to end. Like it’s some sort of pampered comfort zone. The only comfort zone is to be educated of your rights.

Another good way to stay away from contracted codecs is to use these codecs and steer clear of Microsoft and Realplayer ones: These work well on other OSs than just Windows or Apple.

MPEG-4: http://www.mpegif.org/
Theora: http://www.theora.org/
DivX: http://www.divx.com/
Xvid: http://www.xvid.org/

Mainly our country needs to get rid of the libdvdcss library codec limitation law. Basically only the United States cannot watch most industry standard DVDs on their Linux or Open Source System. This libdvdcss file is a semi-hassle download but you need to have special copyrighting protection on the device you play the movie with that Open Source doesn’t seem to support well. Didn’t say anything about Americans though. ; )
This is probably why Sun is trying to implement an open source codec format because they are a major player in the Open Source market with their Solaris, Spark and Java that like to run JDS. Java Desktop System.

Funny the Google ads are stating those creepy 'security cameras.' They have been using them in Chicago and our crime has gotten down to pre 60's through 90's extreme levels.

Story ideas for your new book:
* A scary thought is being able to vote for your candidate of choice without having to leave your computer. The scariest thing is why in that situation would we would still want someone else to write laws for us?