In the latest Orwellian move to restrict the rights of their citizens, the UK government has come to an agreement with the four largest Internet Service Providers to censor explicit contents on the ISP level. The standard – it is for the best of the children – argument has been made to justify the censorship [...]

Categories: The Web

Blackberry has long been praised, and criticised for the security of it’s email and messaging platform.  Most recently the company has faced commercial problems in some middle-eastern countries, most notable Saudi Arabia, where the authorities wanted to be able to get access to personal emails and messages for the purposes of fighting extremism (and some [...]

Categories: Mobiles, Twitter

Yesterday I wrote and article about how Iran apparently wants to create its own in-country Internet. This move is almost unprecedented with only North Korea having done this before. In the article I discussed the situation with Internet access in these two countries and also in China, which has a reasonable open policy for web [...]

Categories: The Web

Those of you who follow me here or somewhere like Twitter might know that I was invited to Microsoft yesterday for meetings.  Apparently my name had been coming up in conversation and several people there wanted to see me.  I thought I’d write up here about my experience at Microsoft’s UK campus and split this into a two-part [...]

Categories: Microsoft

As a new Windows MVP I’ll be having my first meetings next week with Microsoft at their UK head office in Reading. It’s going to be very interesting as it’s my first official visit to the company and, more importantly, a meeting that’s been requested by them rather than me. I’ll be meeting with the [...]

Categories: ask the readers

I have mixed feelings about this, but the BBC is reporting that the police in the UK are seeking co-operation with the Internet’s domain provider, Nominet, to close .uk domains that are associated with crime. This is definitely a welcome move as Nominet currently has no obligation to close down criminal websites, but the Serious and [...]

Categories: The Web

The FBI claims to have cracked a major cyber-crime network and made more than 100 arrests in the US according to the BBC.  The suspected members worked as mules for fraudsters based in Eastern-Europe who sole around $70m from companies and consumers in the US by hacking into their computer systems. The FBI worked with police [...]

Categories: Hacking, Security

The British Government has today launched a national competition to find the next generation of computer security experts according to the BBC.  The competition, which is primarily aimed at teenagers and school-leavers, has prizes that range from bursaries to study at University to full-time employment. Defending all of our interests in cyberspace is a relatively [...]

Categories: Hacking, Misc

The BBC has reported that the British government has spent thousands of pounds developing iPhone apps for everything from Foreign Office travel advice to a jobseeker’s tool. The apps, ranging from between £10,000 and £40,000 each.  One of the most expensive is a DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) app that provided a “masterclass for changing [...]

Categories: iPhone