Posts by Bluenose

One sided proposal - again

I find this article to be a little one sided in its approach.

Companies in the US only repatriate profits when they get a tax holiday so therefore they can hold money offshore (resulting to boosts in their share price) until the cows come home or more importantly the govt grants the tax holiday. Therefore there is no deferral of tax whatsoever.

Companies already get the best of both worlds. Reduced taxation because they are not living persons but able to buy political influence through giving money to political campaigns, parties and lobbyists. At the same time they receive tax relief to enable their survival for example for holding patents (UK); asset purchases; goods consumption and investment in woodlands to name but a few. These are all tax reliefs that ordinary (i.e. those without a fortune in cash behind them) people can take advantage of.

The alleged benefits of allowing the tax holiday for repatriation of profits is that it leads to increased consumption and investment. Again this is not true. Look at where the money ends up. The rich invest where they can get the best returns, currently China, India, Asia in general and now even Africa. Therefore investment in the UK, US or other stagnant western economy is likely to be fairly low by comparison.

The money goes to shareholders, the majority of whom are big banks and pension funds. Therefore there is unlikely to be a significant rise in consumption as banks will use the cash to invest in areas of bigger returns or increase their capital holding (currently the big banking issue). Pension funds need the cash to cover their existing liabilities and not to increase pension payments. And all of these need the money to pay big bonuses to the people who made the investment in the first place.

If we are to stop taxing companies then we should stop providing them with tax relief. Let the owners pay the full cost of buying new assets or reap their rewards from actually doing something with their patents. In a capitalist economy a company should not expect state support if they are not paying taxes.

As for the shareholders in companies, they of course will need to pay higher taxes for the additional services that their businesses require from the state; policing, education of their workforce, etc. Of course all of this can be simplified by taxing the company so that these costs are removed from the profit thus enabling keeping personal taxation simpler.

Many of the comments here reinforce stereotypes

And what makes it worse is that the stereotypes are being applied to both genders.

Our "brain wiring" is just as much a product of what we do regularly and as our nature. Those women who work in security develop the appropriate wiring in order to do their job. This is true of DIY or any other work, the reason practice makes perfect is because it naturally reinforces the brain's processing of specific tasks.

On the other side is the fact that many women see IT security (and probably IT in general) as the domain of spotty geeky glasses wearing male teenagers who rarely raise their heads above battlements of pizza boxes and fizzy drink tins. We who work in the industry know that such an image is unrealistic in the main and that most of us work in brightly illuminated rooms in buildings where it is as easy to get a nice salad as pizza.

The reason why women are not in IT is because we who are allow the media to continue to portray as the "Plague" of the "Girl Who.." books or the hacker in Die Hard 4.0. And to make it worse we accept such negative stereotyping. Perhaps if we pushed a modern and realistic image of our industry then we would get a better set of potential candidates from both genders.

Only three infrastructure providers in the UK

The single biggest issue which the EU competition bods and UK govt fail to realise is that the three primary infrastructure providers for public telecommunications are BT together with Virgin and KC. Of these three only BT actually has a network that is capable of being used by all the piggyback providers such as TalkTalk, O2 and Plusnet. Therefore the reality is that if you are going to use state funds to build,extend or upgrade a telecomms network then BT is the company you have to go to.

It is entirely feasible for others to have a go, for example Virgin could extend their networks into new areas or even in to areas where they have the main channel but have never connected the actual houses (and there are a few places like this). KC could look to push out from Kingston Upon Hull and in to the Eastern parts of the UK, but in both cases why bother? Having to open their network infrastructure up in the same way as BT is not in their competitive interest.

Unlike AC I don't believe that there are others out there who want to give it a go. Outsourcing the expensive part of a network (the wires and cabinets) to someone else at a state controlled price is much easier than actually going out and building a new network in a city never mind the whole country. It is therefore time for the EU to face reality, unless national governments can be persuaded to break up existing national telecom infrastructures in to multiple companies (unlikely due to the massive increase in costs that would result from more interconnection charges and traffic routing costs) then we all have to accept that when it comes to a national telecommunications infrastructure the best we can do is negotiate good terms for access with our monopoly providers.

The simple solution

Don't use Google! If you are concerned about their not paying tax then don't use their websites, encourage your family, friends and neighbours to do the same and get them to encourage others to take the same approach. By not using Google you impact on their business and thus their profits.

Of course no one will do the above as it actually means thinking about what your internet usage and maybe finding a UK search engine that can offer similar functions and services as Google but it is the only way to impact on them. It was the reason Starbucks decided to "donate" some tax, they saw a major loss of business on the horizon and acted to try and circumvent it.

Waste is an issue

If publishers want to be allowed to deteriorate a book to force a new purchase then I am fine with that subject to their picking up the following costs:

Disposal of the electronic and paper books that are no longer usable

Disposal of the memory that contains electronic books when the device no longer works or is ready to be thrown away (extend the WEEE regulations so they contribute part of the cost)

A contribution to the clearing up of the toxic processes that are involved in producing the means by which electronic books are made readable

Today publishers pay little if anything of the cost of clearing up the waste created by paper books so the merest hint that they could be hit with landfill charges on a number of books published basis may well encourage them to start thinking differently about the future instead of looking at ways to force readers, authors and libraries to remain stuck in the present.

Moved back to BT

After 2.5 years of crap service from TalkTalk with collapse in speed to less than a 1mb in the evening, problems downloading even Flash player updates and constant router resets, I finally bit the bullet and went back to BT.

Transfer back was smooth from a service perspective but there were problems with some of the administrative bits. Performance is constant over the day at around 3.7mbps - 3.8mbps even in the evening.

I live in a village near to a small town that has fibre to the cabinet but its not for me as their exchange does not include our village. Our exchange is about 1.5 - 2 miles away and we only get copper. But the fact that I can now steam video in the evening as well as download stuff at a reasonable speed and within reasonable time frames means that after many years of complaint, I actually have to say that I am happy with BT.

Ofcom on the other hand seem only interested in making cash for the government and trying to manipulate data to support the Fun House's claims that the UK will have fastest broadband in Europe. It would be better if they focussed on introducing incentives for BT to provide fibre across a wider range of locations which can then be used by all providers.

And in the red corner

It's interesting that in this report and so many other discussions on this topic there is not a single reference as to what the providers of the data think about the proposals. Of course Viviane Reding will be out there saying that the proposal is focused on our protection yet that rings a little hollow when one sees how much data some people are willing to put on line.

Perhaps this might go easier between the EU, national govts and business if they actually went and spoke to real people to see where the actual issues around personal data usage lie and work to deliver a model in line with those views.

Try Peter F Hamilton

Like most good SF writers he uses current knowledge and possible future directions for the basis of his technology and he has covered a good few of the suggestions here including:

Crystal memory stores to aid the brain's natural memory storage

In build communications tech in the brain

Virtual reality interfaces activated by closing the eyes and seeing "ghost" images which provide functionality.

His books are OK but sometimes the ending of the stories leave a bit to be desired. But his approach to the science is pretty good and I do have an old memory that suggests I read an article about tests looking at how technology can be used to enhance/improve memory capture in the brain.

And the first prosecution is......

The CIA for the release in to the wild of Stuxnet. The claimant being Iraq.

I think this could be a good laugh since the US are at least as much a threat to the rest of the world as they think everyone else is to them.

Nice article but misses the point of Leveson.

This article is not as strong as its author may wish. Claiming that DPA is a statutory regulation of the press is like claiming that the criminalisation of Burglary is a for of press regulation. Neither laws are designed to control or prohibit the right of the press to publish stories that involve information criminally obtained or which contain personal or even sensitive personal information.

The issue of the Leveson inquiry relates to the interpretation of the need to underpin the body that investigates press abuses with a statute. This is a key component of the Leveson report and to my mind politicians and sections of the media are twisting this to present a view that this is a means to allow Parliament to constrain or control the actions of the British free press. The reality is that Leveson is right any body set up to regulate the press must be both independent and have real teeth in dealing with those it regulates (past evidence shows that voluntary regulation not only in the press does not work remember all that voluntary regulation around estate agents?).

What is missing from today's world is the statutory compliance with the rules and regulations of the existing regulatory board (which is made up of newspaper editors), an independent regulatory body (not made up of newspaper editors) and the binding of all the press to the rules of that regulatory body. This does not need to include control of the media just the establishment of a body that does not consist of people who believe that they know (purely on the basis of what will sell a newspaper) what is in the public interest.

Interesting theory

But I am not sure that I can support your assumptions. The EU is an attempt to provide an open market between countries and you are correct that the objective in the long term is to allow a company to sell goods and or services to consumers or businesses in all EU countries without having to actually have a presence in that country. However that model will only work with companies that do not need to have an in country presence (i.e. those that can allow software downloads or send paperwork or goods from country A to country B). The EU model also has a drawback since it envisages a uniform tax framework across all member states otherwise countries will skew the concept of a single market. We see the attempt to for a single tax framework coming to the fore quite frequently in Eu dominated questions (Daily Mail headlines about forcing UK to apply VAT on housing like the rest of Europe).

The second fallacy in your argument is to assume that a lack of corporate taxation will result in benefits for all. This is not true. A company should in theory return the maximum amount of profits to its shareholders. However, in today's world most companies seemed to be geared up to return large returns to its management board at the expense of both shareholders and employees. One only has to look at the Banks where shareholder value has been all but destroyed but the members of the management board continue to receive high levels of return for minimal responsibility. This is true also for other companies.

If Apple is keen to reward its investors, especially those who have been shareholders since the 1990s, then why has it only just paid a dividend? This despite having sat on a mountain of cash for many years. Steve Jobs always said his shareholders should focus on the share price as that was their reward, the money was effectively his or at least the board of directors.

Many US companies currently keep large sums of cash offshore rather than repatriate the money back in to the US where it would be taxed. This money is a real dead weight since it is delivering little value to any of the stakeholders involved in a business. Surely if companies are happy to pay tax in their country of operation they should be happy to repatriate and pay the US govt the tax due. On the other hand if they are interested only in tax avoidance then this would explain why they are currently asking the US govt for a tax holiday so that they can use this money. Problem is the US govt has done this before and had to sit on its hands when companies handed this tax free money to management boards and shareholders rather than creating the jobs or making the investments that they had promised would happen.

The one fact I think that everyone needs to take on board is that the likes of Starbucks, Google, e-bay and others are now claiming that they pay huge sums in employment taxes and VAT. The reality is that the majority of employment taxes are actually paid by their employees and other than financial institutions companies pay no VAT since they reclaim it from the VAT paid by the customers which companies collect on behalf of the Government. The person paying the VAT has no option to pay even where it is becoming unaffordable (for example on energy and heating supplies).

Companies being people should pay their taxes and that payment should take place to the extent reasonably possible where the transaction takes place. Both Google and e-Bay employ people in the UK as do Starbucks. They should be paying the relevant taxes on their income just like people because at the end of the day, if they are people who can contribute huge sums of money to political campaigns then they should be treated exactly like ordinary people.

Universal Provision is still subject to discussion

I am fed up of people saying how Britain will have the fastest broadband or that 90% of the population will have access to 2mbps without actually telling us what our actual (as opposed to forecast or maybe with a good following wind) download speeds will be.

I synch with my local exchange at 5.6mbps and get a download speed after 6 pm of around 1.1mbps on a good day and less most days. What I really want from someone (govt or supplier) is a download speed that is is at least 75% of my synch speed on average over the whole day and not in the 10 mins when I am the only person awake and online.

The theoretical speed of the line is of no benefit if contention rations are huge and the actual available backhaul is the size of a small drinking straw.

One subject multiple stories

Having started to read up on this committee and its findings yesterday I probably have a better view than those who have simply read this particular one.

The Committee has actually said that the current strategy of having the world's fastest broadband does not achieve what is needed for the UK see this story first

(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/31/lords_communications_committee_broadband_report/)

As for their current proposal, they are right that using the internet to deliver content is the way forward, ultimately all content (phone calls, video calls, radio and television) will be delivered by this medium. Whether we use a fixed line connection or have wireless connectivity wherever we go is really a matter of choice, the actual medium for delivery will be the given. Freeing up radio spectrum improves the chances of providing high speed internet access to all since it removes a major barrier to achieving it today (lack of spectrum at the right wave lengths). If Arquiva (today's broadcast TV monopolist) had any sense they would already be undertaking the necessary work to allow for their tv towers to be used to provide a high speed wireless broadband backbone network that can be used to support the 4G networks of next year.

As for issues of tv licenses, new models are needed to ensure that people pay for content. If we don't start to think about that now, then like the internet radio stations, tv companies will potentially price the product out of the broadcasters ability to pay (internet radio pays on a per stream basis with each individual user equal to 1 stream). The people who produce the content deserve a real return on their efforts in the same way as people who work in other industries.

I think that this Committee has done something that the last two Governments have failed to do, they have identified a clear vision of the digital future, they have proposed some but not all the actions that may need to be taken to get their and like Paddy Boyle they are attempting to make sure that everyone gets included and not just those who live in the brand new house with a piece of glass fibre linking it to the fibre equipped exchange next door.

As for me I am off to look at business opportunities that will make me rich whilst I live in my little village that as a result of this report may yet get a decent broadband speed which does not vary by up to 60% depending on the time of day.

Think people are over complicating this..

Under English law relating to electronic publishing the act of publishing occurs at the computer screen as that is where the browser interprets, processes and publishes the data for the reader to view it. This is why the viewing of pornographic material on a computer screen by an individual makes them liable under the the Obscene Publications Act since they are responsible for publishing the material.

The case in question in the article is as a result of a claim by the defendant that they were not liable as the material was stored by them in Austria but published in the UK and therefore they could not be liable for any copyright breach in the UK as they had not published it. The opinion challenges that view.

The opinion does not say that every router on the network publishes the material. What it is saying (in my view) is that a party who makes available material even where that information is stored on a server in another country (Country A) is still part of the publishing process as a content provider and that where their actions result in an offence in the country where the final publication occurs (Country B), then whilst their actions in Country A may be legal, they are still a joint party to the offence in Country B. Therefore the English courts will have jurisdiction in the trial.

If you think this is harsh, bear in mind that London has become the libel capital of the world because of the fact that the act of publishing material happens on the screen in England and therefore constitutes publication of the subject of the libel claim.

To compare electronic and paper publishing is a nonesense since they are two separate activities which follow different processes and result in different outcomes (one is a tangible unchangeable document) the other is a transient page that can be modified or deleted at any time to stop people reading it.

Data passing through a router cannot be viewed as "publishing" for the simple reason that it is not available to the public or even a private audience since by its nature the data is transient, may not be the complete dataset and is not processed for viewing by the router.

Rock and hard place come to mind

I certainly have no desire to see the internet managed by any nation but nor do I want it to fall in to the hands of a bureaucratic non-entity like ITU. I don't trust the US any more than I would trust Russia or China or most other countries come to that.

Perhaps we could transfer it Switzerland or Costa Rica with the latter being my preference since they have no standing army and keep their heads below the parapet whereas the latter may well introduce laws based on local referendums.

Catch up tv is only 9.2%..

is this because apart from the BBC iPlayer and a very poor showing from Demand5 no other catch up tv channels exist apart from on computers which are pretty difficult to easily set up on TVs.

I have a Sony TV which I use to watch iPlayer and the occasional movie from Sony. What I would really like is a facility that lets me watch catch up TV from all broadcasters and lets me search for material on line (rather than the walled garden approach that exists today) to that I can watch what I want and not what others want me to watch.

Of course to achieve that delightful scenario I would also need me current ISP or any ISP to upgrade my local exchange so that I can get download speeds in excess of 3mbps (off-peak) and 1mbps (peak) on a regular basis but hey if all the money has gone to Yourview then I suppose I'll have to wait until it turns a profit which won't happen 'cos like me 70% of the UK does not have a decent broadband connection and at current deployment rates probably never will

Liquid cooled??

Do Homeland security and other airport security organisations know about this? I am amazed that anyone managed to get anything liquid cooled on a plane when you remember that you cannot even take a tube of antiseptic cream on.

The problem is not really theft

As Anonymous says, there are plenty of other ways to get access to a company's IP if they are manufacturing products so preventing people from stealing and selling it simply hits the thief, the recipients will still get the information elsewhere.

The real problem is that despite some changes to Chinese law and that in other countries (e.g. Russia) getting local courts to actually enforce and then having local authorities implement court judgements to reclaim/prevent the use of, your IP is still pretty poor. It is this weak application of the law or even the fact that the law does not allow you to protect your IP effectively that really causes the problems.

Of course money is more important than protecting IP for many companies (and I see that approach regularly in my work) so moving manufacturing to low cost countries is still justifiable even if it does mean giving up your actual IP because as everyone knows, thinking up new profitable ideas is easy.

And then there is the real story that never gets discussed.

The world evolves and businesses grow and decline because things change. Kodak is on the verge of death because of all those patents relating to photography that have now lost all their value. Meanwhile patent trolls sit on the sidelines waiting for the best moment to make a quick buck from the company who reinvented the invention independently and then actually went to market with it to try and use it to provide value or utility to the public/business. And of course we have the patenting of blindingly obvious and standard processes which abounds in the US.

I have no problem with individuals making money from their own creativity nor corporations who invest billions in ideas and research (and funnily enough that even extends to Hollywood and EMI). My objection is when they use those rights to prevent others from coming to market with better goods or try to make excessive profits because they have no competitors (lets be clear here, Apple does not licence its iPad, iPod or iPhone technology to anyone) that way leads to monopoly power which is wrong and does harm economies.

I also object to people who have not actually sought to exploit a license for their own benefit. Why should they be able to receive compensation for not doing anything (let's be clear someone who invents and is then unable to find a buyer but has taken steps in the right direction does not deserve to be disenfranchised).

The issue with IP today is not that it needs to be made available to the public or that creators need to give it up their rights. The real problem is that people should stop using it to prevent competition or seek excessive profits. Does Hollywood really incur an extra £4 per blue-ray (would love to see what is worth the additional £4 on some of my blu-ray disks). I would also like to see the prevention of patents being granted for commonsense ideas or approaches (like using the finger to push to one side as opposed to swiping the finger, to unlock my phone). Protect creativity but not commonsense.