Kiwiblog

The SMH reports:

The Australian Human Rights Commission has threatened legal action against a widely read but controversial US-based website over an article that it says encourages racial hatred against Aborigines.

But online rights group Electronic Frontiers Australia said trying to stamp out the deplorable content would only create the “Streisand” effect, whereby an attempt to censor online content only brings more attention to it.

In a letter to Joseph Evers, the owner of Encyclopedia Dramatica (ED) – a more shocking version of Wikipedia that contains racist and other offensive articles dubbed as “satire” – the Commission said it had received 20 complaints from Aborigines over the “Aboriginal” page on the site. …

On the Australian Communication and Media Authority’s blacklist of “refused classification” websites, which was leaked in March last year, encyclopediadramatica.com was included. This means the entire site will likely be blocked under the government’s forthcoming internet filtering plan.

This is why I don’t like filters.  It is outrageous that the Australian Government will block such a site.

Don’t get me wrong – the site is highly highly offensive to many people. It is a rather puerile site (rather than a smart satire site) that just abuses everybody and everyone in the most insulting way it can. But being offensive is not a reason to be banned or blocked.

I cite again the words of Noam Chomsky, who said there is little virtue in defending popular speech – it is defending unpopular and even offensive speech that is courageous.

When we allow the state to start deciding what parts of the Internet we are allowed to see, that is a bad thing.

The NZ part of the World Internet Project has released their 2009 survey results. Some interesting stats:

• 83% of NZers are Internet users, 6% are ex suers and 11% have never used it.
• 83% of home users are on broadband
• 93% of users use the Internet at home, 68% at work, 24% at school or uni
• 6% of Internet users connect through their mobile phone for more than an hour a week
• Half of all users have been online for less than ten years.
• Around half the households have more than one computer connected to the Internet
• Market share is 52% Xtra, 16% Telstra-Clear, 9% Slingshot, 9% Vodahug,
• 60% satisfied with Internet speeds, 23% are not
• 65% rate the Internet as an important source of information, over TV 55%, newspapers 53%, radio 44% and libraries 45%
• More respondents say they use the Internet to visit religious and spiritual sites than say they visit sexual sites. I think respondents may be fibbing about that one, based on known traffic stats!
• 19% of users read blogs regularly and almost 40% have read a blog sometimes.
• 48% of users belong to a social networking site
• Of social networkers, the most frequently used network is Facebook on 75%, and 18% Bebo.
• 25% of users have made friends online and 56% of them have gone on to meet them
• 45% support government funding of universal Internet access, and 31% oppose.
• Asian NZers have highest user rate, with 97% using the Internet
• 88% of Internet users in main cites are on broadband, and in rural NZ it is 67%

As reported in the media, two ISPs (Watchdog and Maxnet) are now using the Government’s Internet filter, so it is live and operational. It looks like the three big ISPs – Telecom, Telstra-Clear and Vodafone will also start using it later this year.

In this post I want to go over why the filter is a bad thing, but also the steps DIA has gone to, to make it less of a bad thing.

I’m going to do it in reverse order, and start with the steps DIA have taken, to make it “less bad” before I then turn to why it is still “bad”.

1. It is voluntary, not compulsory. However having the filter in the first place means that a future Govt could seek to make it compulsory, if they feel not enough ISPs use it.
2. Its scope is child pornography only, not all objectionable material, or other material such as terrorism related sites (which Australia plans to block)
3. DIA have entrenched the scope, being just child pornography, in both the contracts with ISPs, and the contract with the software licensee. In other words the Government can not unilaterally expand the scope of this filter. This is especially welcome.
4. DIA have put in place an Independent Reference Group, to monitor the scheme and verify that sites blocked are all within scope etc.
5. The filter will not just block a website (as in the UK) but bring up a page telling someone it is being blocked, and allowing them to anonymously “appeal” the blocking, if they feel the page or site should not be blocked.
6. The filter is not one based on keywords, but on actual sites checked regularly for child pornography content. The level of false positives should be very very low.
7. The technical design of the filter is well done (for a filter) and most http requests will not go through the filter.

So I do give credit to DIA for their efforts to mitigate the negatives effects of a filter. However that does not mean, it goes from being a bad thing to a good thing. Here are the key reasons why I think the filter is still a bad thing:

1. It causes the Internet to lie – it breaks the Internet. The filter means that a user’s request to view a particular page gets diverted and they get a false response. Now, this may be done with the best of motives, but it does fundamentally break the Internet.
2. It sets up a principle that rather than prosecute people for illegal material upon the Internet, you block portions of the Internet that may contain illegal material. This is a bad principle.
3. It is almost inevitable that other government agencies will, over time, want to add more material to the filter to be blocked. Now DIA have set it up so they can’t just add it to the DIA’s filter, but once you have one government filter, it is easier to set up a second. An example of this comes from this UK story a few days ago, where some peers in the House of Lords propose that as ISPs there already operate a filter for child abuse sites, they could also easily add onto it sites which breach copyright. One could also imagine some agencies wanting sites that breach suppression orders filtered, and if the Electoral Finance Act had endured, maybe someone would advocate sites that illegally offer an election opinion be blocked. This is a very very slippery slope.
4. The filter is run by a Government Department, not by an outside organisation such as in the UK. I think DIA did it themselves as they had the capability to do so, but again I think it is an unhelpful precedent to have the Government itself running a filter.
5. It may result in a false sense of security about access to child abuse images being blocked. Only websites will be blocked and most images are traded in chat rooms and peer to peer.
6. As a centralised filter (the best filters are those people apply to their individual connection) it may introduce a single point of failure for much of the NZ Internet, as outlined here on Tech Liberty.

InternetNZ has a position paper on the filter, which is a useful resource.

The filter is now operational, with two ISPs. I suggest people talk to their ISPs about whether or not they plan to use the filter or not, and what your views as customers are.

I’ve blogged in the past on ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Readers will gear a lot more of this in the next month, because the next meeting of the ACTA negotiators is in Wellington in April.

There are two major issues around ACTA. The first is that the negotiations are secret, and this has even upset the EU Parliament:

Wary of the lack of openness surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), virtually representatives of the EU parliament have banded together, voting 663 to 13 in favour of passing a resolution that would require the EU Commission (who are the EU’s representative in ACTA negotiations), to share all information about ACTA talks, and to refuse to support any Internet disconnection penalty for online copyright infringement.

The resolution is very specific and blunt about the EU Parliament’s displeasure with the lack of transparency around EU ACTA negotiations, citing concerns over the “lack of a transparent process in the conduct of the ACTA negotiations”.

The second is the concern that ACTA may force countries that ratify it, to legislate for Internet disconnection for people accussed or found to have infringed copyright.

Now, all trade agreements are negotiated privately, but whether an agreement on copyright law should be seen as a trade agreement is a big issue – most IP agreements are not. Many countries would like to be more open about ACTA, but the rules of trade negotiations are that you need unanimous permission to agree to anything – including releasing information. So just one country, such as the US, can block the release of the draft text.

I’ve attended two meetings (in my role with InternetNZ) with officials from MFAT and MED, and have to say I am impressed with their willingness to engage, within the limits of what they can say. They have consistently said their position has been that ACTA should not require NZ to do anything beyond its current law (including the replacement S92A). However they can not tell us what has been proposed by other countries, and the concern is what pressure there may be to get an agreement in the final stages.

What the Government has done is asked for public submissions on “enforcement of intellectual property rights in the digital environment”. If you have concerns about ACTA, you should take a few minutes to make a submission and state what is and is not acceptable to you. Topics include:

• Liability of ISPs for third party infringement
• Safe Harbour provisions for ISPs and associated conditions
• Identifying Infringing Users
• TPMs (Technological Protection Measures)

Now despite the ACTA negotiations being secret, a draft text has been leaked. And, assuming it is accurate, it shows the New Zealand negotiators in a pretty favourable light – opposing some of the more undesirable aspects.

Nathan Torkington covers this in a blog post. His summary:

On the balance this bit isn’t too bad–New Zealand is a good voice for sanity in the negotiations.

I was pleased to see from the leaked draft, that the official position of the NZ negotiators, was very much in line with the informal indications they had given. It is ironic that we can only verify this, because someone leaked a draft.

Now as I said the next round of ACTA, and the round most likely to be discussing the Internet section, is in Wellington from 12 to 16 April. I am hoping the organisers will allow an opportunity for some sort of public forum or dialogue with negotiators, and this request has been made.

InternetNZ has organised a PublicACTA conference on Saturday 10 April, which will allow interested people to debate the issues, form positions, and report them to the main ACTA negotiations the following week.

And in a further announcement, the keynote speaker will be Professor Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa in Ontario. Michael is a real expert in this area, and a great advocate for balance in copyright laws.

I would recommend people attend, just for the chance to hear Michael. And if you wish to stay up to date with what is happening, I recommend this ACTA coalition site.

Labour yesterday announced a formal position on mobile termination rates:

The Government should put consumers first and regulate mobile termination rates to keep call costs down, Labour spokesperson for communications and IT Clare Curran said today.

“High mobile termination rates are a barrier to entry for new players in the market, which leads to less competition and higher prices,” Clare Curran said.

“While Vodafone and Telecom have now offered to lower termination rates by around 80 per cent, it still does not go far enough to reduce the major issues for new entrants.

I think it is a good thing that Labour have learnt from their mistakes, when they did a deal with the two telcos in 2007, rather than accept the advice to regulate.

Slightly amused that their formal policy stance comes just days after Clare had a whack at Matthew Hooton for implying Labour support the Drop the Rate, Mate campaign.

The Drop the Rate, Mate campaign also yesterday released their submission to the Minister, including some research done by Curia of 400 mobile phone users. Key findings were:

• Only 18% of respondents wanted the Government to accept the binding promises of Telecom and Vodafone, while 78% wanted the Government to regulate
• 79% agreed that Telecom and Vodafone are overcharging New Zealanders
• 85% agreed with the proposition that it should cost the same to call someone on a different network, as to call someone on your own network

The full results are here – EXCELTIUM MOBILE PHONE RESULTS MARCH 2010 PUBLIC.

Chris Barton in the Herald is not shy with his opinion of what the Government should do:

So far, you have to say, Joyce has played with an exceedingly straight bat. But it won’t be easy negotiating the quagmire of a split recommendation by Commerce Commissioners on mobile termination rates. Two argue for putting heads in the sand while one voice of reason says enough is enough – Vodafone and Telecom have had more than enough time to sort this out and have, time and again, shown they can’t be trusted.

Joyce will be familiar with the sordid last-minute deal stitched together between new mobile entrant 2degrees and Vodafone last year. While the public isn’t allowed to know about this venality, anyone who cares to can find it online (search under “NZ Cellphone racket”). It shows that Vodafone will move if it has a gun to its head. Joyce will also be familiar with www.droptherate.org.nz and www.fibretothedoor.co.nz – two campaigning websites where the public is helping the minister make up his mind.

Go there at once.

What fed-up consumers want minister, is Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry. For some of us, it’s so bad, we don’t just want Clint to pull out his .44 Magnum and ask whether the punk feels lucky. With Telecom and Vodafone, we want him to pull the trigger.

The challenge for the Minister, is how quickly can a regulated price be established, if he chooses to regulate. The undertakings would take place more quickly. However the likely regulated price would see prices by 2011 drop further, and remain lower.

Absolutely thrilled to just get a press release from the newly formed Pacific Fibre:

Pacific Fibre, an early stage international fibre venture founded by a group including New Zealand businessmen Stephen Tindall, Sam Morgan and Rod Drury, announced its plans today, aiming to break the digital divide between New Zealand, Australia and the rest of the world.

Other founders include Mark Rushworth, former Vodafone Chief Marketing Officer, technology industry veteran John Humphrey, and strategy consultant and entrepreneur Lance Wiggs.

Pacific Fibre is engaging in early discussions with cornerstone investors and customers. The group is looking to secure funding and build a 5.12 Terabits/sec capacity fibre cable to be ready in 2013 connecting Australia, New Zealand and the USA – the initial proposal is a cable which will deliver five times the capacity of the existing Southern Cross system. …

The current proposed cable configuration would be 13,000 km long, and have two fibre pairs with 64 wavelengths (lambdas) each at 40 Gigabits/sec per lambda. The maximum lit capacity initially would be 5.12 Terabits/sec, but would be upgradeable to over 12 Terabits/sec as the emerging 100 Gbit/sec per lambda technology becomes reality. The newer cable and repeater technology that Pacific Fibre proposes to use will be substantially more easily upgradeable than that of existing cables.

Further competition and capacity on the international bandwidth front is much needed. Superb to see such a talented group of people come together to try and make it a reality.

I, for one, would invest in it. And look forward to the benefits another cable would bring.

Paul Brislen from Vodafone has offered me, and I’ve accepted, a guest post on the mobile termination rates issue. I’m happy to run both sides of the argument:

The Commerce Commission has recommended to the Minister of Communications that he should accept the Telecom and Vodafone undertakings rather than regulate the industry any further. Those that want regulation at all costs would have you believe this is a travesty and must be overturned, but really they should be celebrating. This is a big win for those that think termination rates are too high.

So what is a termination rate and why should you care? When you call a Vodafone mobile from a Telecom phone you’re paying Telecom a fee for that call. Vodafone doesn’t get paid for that call by the customer – it gets a cut of the earnings from Telecom directly. This is called a termination rate and it’s got very little to do with the retail price you pay. Think of a newspaper publisher – it earns its money from two sources: the cover price paid by the consumer, and the advertising rates, paid by the advertiser. The two are related but not directly linked. It’s a two sided market and so is telecommunications.

Over the past six years termination rates have fallen by 46% and the Commerce Commission feels they should be even lower. Part of the process is this idea of seeking “undertakings” from the industry – that is: what will you give us, industry players, to avoid regulation. It’s quasi-regulation that gives the industry the ability to offer a solution that will be quicker than regulation and still provide the solution the Commission is looking for.

In this case the Commission asked Telecom, Two Degrees and Vodafone, to submit undertakings to avoid regulation. We did, but the Commission asked for a unified undertaking from all three players to give it a benchmark with which to compare its own regulated solution. We tried, but there was no way the three players were going to agree on one solution – so Telecom and Vodafone put forward a combined best offer. After some wrangling, the Commission has recommend the government accept that offer.

The undertaking reduces the termination rate for voice calls from 15 cents to five cents per minute over five years. It happens in stages – so from October 1 it’s a 35% drop, followed by a further 10% drop on January 1, 2001 and further reductions in the years after that.

The second major part is that TXT message termination rates will drop immediately to zero. That is, aside for some wiggle room to stop TXT message spam, companies will charge customers directly for TXTs and won’t pass anything on to the other telcos.

The Commission’s job was to compare that offer with what it could best hope to obtain under regulation. Any regulation from this point on is at least 12 months away from implementation because of the Commission process, so the Commission has to weigh up these savings from October 1 versus potential savings delivered in 12 months time.

The undertaking is so close to the regulated outcome that any extra savings delivered under regulation clearly aren’t enough to outweigh the delay in delivering them.

So what’s in it for the telcos? Did we simply offer these deals out of the goodness of our hearts? Well, no. No company likes to be regulated and no company wants to be forced into a corner. Vodafone doesn’t like the Commission’s modelling, doesn’t trust its numbers, doesn’t like the outcome. But at the end of the day, the Commission is the regulator and we have to operate in that market and if it comes down to a commercial undertaking that offers a controlled descent or a regulated solution that includes revenue dropping off a cliff on a given day, I know which I’d prefer. We need some certainty around investment strategies otherwise it all becomes too hard.

We’ve offered to reduce rates dramatically. The Commission has recommended the Minister accept them and the customers will benefit sooner from the undertakings than they would from direct regulation. The telcos win because we have a solution in place and can get on and the consumers win because they can open their newspapers without having another story about MTRs rammed down their throats.

The Drop the Rate Mate campaign put together to influence this decision, ran a survey which looked at the public’s perception of the telco sector. One of the interesting outcomes of that research was that when asked whether they would change their political vote for a party that regulated MTR, only 20% of participants said they would. So in answer to my earlier question (why should you care) the answer is you shouldn’t. But finally we can all get on with our lives.

Taken from Geekologie. People may also like this similar link, on trying to use an e-book.

The Herald reports:

Former Telecom head Theresa Gattung has attacked the company for paying its executives much bigger salaries than when she was in charge.

In her book Bird on a Wire, which goes on sale next week, Ms Gattung – who received a leaving payment of $3.9 million in June 2007 on top of a base salary of $1.25m – questions whether the current staff deserve such generous pay.

“Now that I’m long gone I, with the rest of the country, wonder about the propriety of a company making half the annual profits it did a few years ago but paying its executives considerably higher salaries.”

It’s a fair question, but there may also be a fair answer. One reason profits have dropped is because the Government has operationally separated Telecom to stamp out business practices which were anti-competitive. The reason the Government did this is because it got so frustrated with the behaviour of Telecom under Theresa’s regime.

Ms Gattung told the Herald politicians deserved much of the blame for Telecom’s latest woes.

She said she predicted in 2007 that the Labour Government’s decision to give competitors access to Telecom’s exchanges, and to split the company into three divisions, would result in a “train wreck”.

Telecom may be struggling (for a number of reasons), but the sector as a whole is actually doing very well. The train wreck for me was the previous status quo.

In her book, Ms Gattung also reveals that former Labour Party president Mike Williams approached her shortly before she left Telecom to stand for Labour.

She says she was “flabbergasted”.

Now that would have been interesting.

Chris Keall at NBR (sub needed) blogs his power list for the tech sector. Some of his picks are:

• 1 Bill English, Finance and Infrastructure Minister
• 2 Steven Joyce, Comms and IT Minister
• 3 Paul Reynolds, Telecom CEO
• 4 Matt Crockett, Telecom Wholesale CE
• 6 Russell Stanners, Vodafone CEO
• 8 Ralph Chivers, Telecom GM of Govt and industry relations
• 10 Tex Edwards, Founder of 2Degrees
• 11 Rod Drury, Xero CEO
• 12 Allan Freeth, Telstra-Clear CEO
• 13 Mark Ratcliffe, Telecom Chorus CE
• 16 Ross Patterson, Telecommunications Commissioner
• 17 Ernie Newman, TUANZ CEO
• 18 Simon Mackenzie, Vector CEO
• 22 Keith Manch, DIA Deputy Secretary Regulation & Compliance
• 23 Peter Dengate-Thrush, ICANN Chairman
• 25 Matthew and Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, Creative Freedom Foundation founders

Personally I would have the Telco Commissioner much much higher up the list, and I would also have Bruce Parkes the MED Deputy Secretary on there. But an interesting selection.

The Herald reports:

Simon Power introduced this week the bill to amend and replace the S92A copyright law. It is called the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill.

As I blogged at the time, the Government’s Cabinet paper on the new law wasn’t bad, and a big improvement on the existing S92A. There are still provisions I don’t agree with, but the worst aspects were gone.

The draft bill is actually, in my opinion, a slight improvement on the Cabinet paper. The Cabinet paper had a number of potential fish-hooks in it – such as the possibility one could get multiple infringement notices, for alleged infringing that occurred at the same time. InternetNZ detailed to the Minister a number of these fish-hooks, and it is pleasing to see that officials (and presumably the Minister) took account of these in drafting the bill.

Pat Pilcher in the Herald comments:

Under the new bill, offenders will receive three warnings. First a detection notice, which is then followed by a warning notice should the internet subscriber be accused of infringing copyright again.

An enforcement notice is finally issued that could see third time infringers being fined up to $15,000 or have their internet disconnected for up to six months.

Giving credit where credit is due, the Bill does incorporate time frames within which subsequent infringement notices cannot be sent, giving accused infringers time to amend their copyright infringing ways.

As I said previously, this is a quite important thing. Generally there is a gap of three weeks  from the first “strike” until any alleged infringing can count for a second strike and so on.

The new bill also allows accused for copyright infringers who feel they have been unjustly accused to apply to have their case heard by a Copyright Tribunal at no cost.

This is definitely a good thing as the scope for wrongful accusations is potentially massive. Take, for example, the number kiwi broadband users using of Wi-Fi broadband routers.

Yes, that is good that you do not have to pay to defend yourself. Also your identity is protected, unless you are found liable.

ISPs are also going to be burdened with the costs under the new bill. Matching internet subscribers to IP addresses supplied by copyright owners, and keeping track of the three strike process is, at best, going to be a deeply complicated undertaking and likely a costly nightmare as well.

While some of these costs will be met by copyright holders paying to lodge infringement notices, most ISPs will be left with little choice but to pass costs onto their subscribers.

The level of fee which ISPs can charge is likely to be set by regulaton. It is a concern that the fee will probably only cover their variable costs of each notice, and not the very large one off capital costs of reconfiguring their systems to record such info.

While copyright owners can ask for repeat infringers to be disconnected, they must do so through the courts and disconnections will last for up to six months.

This is good in that courts are geared up to hear both sides of any infringement argument and will bring some much needed legal rigour where it was lacking in the previous bill.

I don’t think termination is an appropriate penalty, plus it will largely be ineffective. But having said that, I welcome the fact it can only be done by a court after due process.

Whilst the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill represents a step in the right direction (especially when compared to the original bill), it still incorporates some serious flaws.

Worse still, it could prove ineffectual as most serious infringers are will utilise encrypted virtual private networks to avoid detection by copyright holders.

I think there will be a fairly big drop in copyright infringing downloads (and that is not a bad thing), resulting mainly from people receiving an alleged infringement notice. Overseas cases have indicated over 50% of people stop downloading such material if they receive such a notification.

Those that carry on regardless tend to be very dedicated, and will probably just move to networks which hide their IP addresses.

I hope all parties in the House will support the bill at first reading, as it is a big improvement on the status quo. Once it hits select committee, I will encourage people to make submissions to improve the bill further.

Adam Gifford writes in the Herald:

It’s crunch time for the mobile phone market.

Will the Government step in and create a competitive environment that benefits New Zealand customers and businesses, or will it continue to let giant foreign-owned companies set the rules that allow them to gouge the economy?

I think we can conclude Adam favours regulation.

What has become the commission’s main concern, and quite rightly so, is how on-net pricing has distorted the New Zealand market.

In some countries on-net pricing is illegal. Here it has become the incumbents’ main marketing strategy. When users pay almost nothing to text someone on the same network, and far far more to text to a competing network, is it any wonder that more than 80 per cent of mobile to mobile voice traffic and more than 90 per cent of texts are on-net?

Mazzoleni doesn’t believe the problem will be fixed by letting the two major telcos set the rules.

She says there will continue to be a barrier to competition in both the mobile to mobile and fixed landline to mobile markets as long as mobile termination rates stay too far above the total service long run incremental cost, which is the tool the commission uses to assess price gouging.

The result of this lack of competition is that two-thirds of mobile customers pay some of the highest rates in the OECD.

And as I blogged yesterday we use our mobile phones far less than other countries, as we can’t afford to.

I’m somewhat staggered to see Frog has blogged against the Government’s fibre to the home programme, and hope that his view is not that of the Green Party.

I’m rather dismayed to see a Green blog repeating moronic nonsense such as fibre will only be used for faster porn.

There are many areas of policy I disagree with the Green Party, but generally I have found myself in agreement with much of their Comms/IT policies – they voted against the original S92A on copyright, they promote open source software, they have been against Internet filtering and censorship, and they supported the operational separation of Telecom.I’ve gone out of my way to praise them in the comms/IT areas I agree with them on – which have been many.

But I can’t believe Frog doesn’t see one obvious benefit (putting aside all the others) from fibre connected homes, and that is the massive impact this may have in having people work from home – this means less fuel consumption, less congestion and less greenhouse gas emissions.

There are two things that would enable people to work from home much more, both which fibre will help enable.

The first is being able to access your work files as quickly and easily as if you are in the office. Sure you can do remote access at the moment, but it is often painfully slow, and nothing like actually being in the office.

The second is near instant high quality video conferencing with multiple people. I don’t mean waiting five minutes as you start the program up, and everyone else does the same. I mean you go to your TV set, push three buttons, and hey two seconds later you have a four way video conference.

Once we have fast enough Internet to do the above, I predict that the number of staff who work at least half the week from home will grow exponentially. Obviously not in some areas such as retail, but some companies may end up with just a meeting room and server as their office, and all their staff working from home. In fact I know of a couple of firms already doing this.

I tweeted last night that I felt very sorry for the many Telecom staff, as their XT network suffered another outage. It must be galling to see the company you work for get so damaged by outages that cause so much disruption. It’s probably like working for National in Parliament in 2002, which is why I can empathise!

A friend responded:

sorry David, but this chicken has been waiting to come home to roost for a while…you can’t outsource your maintenance, technology, customer service etc and expect to retain the core that makes a company strong enough not to fall into this sort of morass

And that’s a fair point. I recall one ex Telecom staffer semi-joking to me that I had to understand that Telecom wasn’t an IT company, it was a law firm that had contractors provide telecommunication services

Now Ernie Newman at TUANZ has called for possible Government action:

“Telecom needs to do something drastic to assist the customers it is repeatedly letting down,” said chief executive Ernie Newman in a statement.

“If it doesn’t, then it may be time for the government to step in as a national economic issue. This cannot be allowed to go on”

My first response to the call for Government action is to imagine Steven Joyce in builders shorts and a hard hat on a tall ladder at the top of a mobile phone tower, and he’s whacking something repeatedly with a spanner.

More seriously, I don’t see these outages as critical as if they had occured on the fixed line network, or the DSL network.

Telecom has a near monopoly on the final mile copper loop. If those networks go down, it can affect everyone in NZ, regardless of choice of provider.

But we have two and a half mobile phone networks in NZ, which are not dependent on the same infrastructure, and one can establish a presence on a competitor within a few hours, plus have number portability to keep numbers.

I’m not advocating that XT customers mass migrate – individual customers will make those decisions based on how many more outages there are, and what guarantees and/or compensation they get in future. But the presence of Vodafone and 2 Degrees means that customers do have options, if the frustration gets too much for them. And that knowledge that they may lose current and future customers will be providing the best incentive to Telecom (and its contractors) to get things right.

So I’d rather the Government doesn’t jump in at this stage. I’d have a different view if the outages were in one of the areas where they are a virtual monopoly, but this is not the case with the XT mobile network.

The HoS reports:

Auckland Museum’s head of public relations has written a glowing Wikipedia entry for his under-fire boss during business hours.

Russell Briggs omitted the controversy that has plagued Dr Vanda Vitali’s tenure as director of Auckland Museum.

His entry appears to breach Wikipedia’s guidelines, which state that entries should be unbiased and balanced.

I’m quoted in the article, and said to the reporter that Wikipedia is meant to be a neutral point of view, and it is hard to achieve that if you are writing about your boss!

Having said that, creating a page without criticism for your boss, is not as big a “sin” as editing a page to remove such criticism, and I predicted that one the article appeared, other Wikipedians would edit it, so it is a more balanced article.

And indeed, if you go to her article now, it has been edited several times, and is now much more balanced.

The Herald reports:

Death threats for Libby killer

The teenager who was yesterday unmasked as Liberty Templeman’s murderer has received death threats on the internet.

Tall (1.9m) Hermanus Theodorus Kriel, known as Theo, posted a webpage in July 2008, four months before he killed 15-year-old Liberty.

Within hours of a judge lifting his name suppression yesterday, dozens of angry messages appeared about the boy.

One person wrote: “You are going to find out what HELL is like you sad little selfish disrespectful murdering lying prick.”

Another comment said: “I hope he rots in hell.”

A third person said: “Hope you get a cell with a big smelly gangster who makes you his ass bitch.”

The media like labelling things as death threats, but to my mind, these are not death threats. They are, shall we say, strong expressions of (understandable) anger.

In my mind, you need two elements for something to be a death threat:

1. It should actually make a threat of death. There is a difference between saying I hope you die, and saying I will kill you.
2. It should be communicated to the individual by phone, post or e-mail etc. A rant on a Trade Me forum is not a threat, for example.

Rather pleased to read that Google has donated US2 million to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is not great for current controversial issues (such as climate change or George W Bush) but I find it invaluable in many many other areas. I use it many times a day

Nat Torkington was wearing this t-shirt at Kiwi Foo Camp and I loved it. So close to reality!

You can order them from Despair.

I did a brief interview with Radio New Zealand on the Christchurch name suppression case. I think it highlights the limitations of such orders. Name suppression is in place for a man who only a few days earlier was named in the media as wanted for questioning.

Now as Whale has pointed out with dozens of links, his name is all over the Internet, including the Police’s own website.  The Internet doesn’t allow for collective amnesia very well. If his name was in the news just the day before, it will be simple for people to find it.

In this case the Judge turned down name suppression, but defence counsel is appealing, which means interim suppression must be granted. I have no idea what the defence hopes to achieve.

I am not anti name suppression in all cases. It works very well in most family court cases. It doesn’t work well when the person is well known, and it doesn’t work well when the name was all over the media in the days  before suppression was granted.

Related to this, the Sunday News reveals:

The man at the centre of the investigation into Vanessa Pickering’s death had been questioned about the unsolved murder of a Christchurch prostitute.

The man, who has interim name suppression, was among those quizzed during the Mellory Manning inquiry, Detective Inspector Greg Williams said.

Manning was found dead in the Avon River just over a year ago.

That information is, in my opinion, far more likely to prejudice a jury and risk there not being a fair trial. If it goes to trial over Pickering’s death, and jurors recall he was questioned over another death, that will incraese the chances of a guilty verdict as who wants to let out a potential serial killer (note I am not saying he is – I am saying this is what jurors will fear).

So maybe instead of trying to supress the name, they should have suppressed the information about being questioned during the Manning inquiry. I wonder if this info was already public, and why did the Police release it or confirm it?

The SST also looks at whether the secrecy is putting the public at risk:

New Zealand’s name suppression laws are under fresh scrutiny, with two recent cases revealing the difficulties authorities such as police or schools face if they wish to protect the public from harm.

Last week, the Sunday Star-Times reported that a top Auckland primary school was unable to inform parents that one of its teachers had been accused of sex crimes against boys, as the man had interim name suppression.

Now, court documents show police were hindered by the name suppression granted to a man who was last year convicted of intentionally injecting his wife with HIV-infected blood.

The man was last month sentenced to eight years’ jail for the crime, but the Star-Times has learnt the man also had unprotected sex with a number of other women before his arrest. Police wanted to inform the women of the man’s offending and his HIV status to encourage them to seek HIV tests but were unable to do so because he had name suppression.

Not good.

On a related case, I reported from another blog that the person in the Palmerston North child porn case had his office in the same building as an unnamed early childhood centre. It turns out this is not the case, so any Palmie parents do not need to be concerned about any institution there.

The HoS reports:

A kiwi salesman was stunned to receive a $1100 bill from Telecom for just 10 minutes of internet access from his laptop.

Michael Crake racked up the charges after using a computer fitted with a mobile broadband device while at Sydney airport.

Oh dear. He got clobbered with the outrageous $30 a MB that Telecom and Vodafone extort from users who roam overseas.

The price charged is massively higher than that faced by users from many other countries that roam. It has zero resemblance to actual costs.

But putting that aside, my bigger gripe is that the telcos do not do enough to inform people of this charge.

When you roam overseas it should flash up a huge warning that tells you what the cost will be on that network, and require you to confirm that you understand the price and accept it.

The SST reports:

Controversial blogger Cameron Slater is again under police investigation, this time for identifying on his website a primary school teacher accused of sex crimes against children.

And Slater last night stepped up his name suppression campaign, telling the Sunday Star-Times he was set to post the names, phone numbers and addresses of judges who award name suppression without “good reason”.

Slater is already facing five charges of breaching name suppression orders, after he published on his website the names of several high-profile New Zealanders before the courts, but whose identities were suppressed.

Justice Minister Simon Power said Slater’s threats to expose the personal details of judges on his website were “probably not helpful”.

But Slater said our officers of the court were making “improper” decisions and he wanted to take a stand.

“These judges are the people perpetrating the expansion of the original suppression laws beyond what was envisaged by parliament,” Slater said. “They are trying to rewrite the law by judicial meddling.”

I’ve often joked with Whale that he will beat me in the ratings, even if he has to do it from D Block!

He seems to be well on the way to both aspects

In the Alexa ratings, Gotcha is ranked 124th most visited site by NZers. The previous weeks it was 118th and 112th. Kiwiblog is 122nd, and previously 121st and 117th, so in the weeks ending 17 January and 24 January, Gotcha was ahead of Kiwiblog in the Alexa rankings for New Zealanders.

As for making D Block, I’d say declaring war on Judges will help achieve that goal!

Is anyone else getting this error when trying to access Stats NZ website:

403 – Forbidden: Access is denied.
You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.

Very annoying.

ZDNet reports:

Australian ISP iiNet was today announced as the victor in its long-running defence against a lawsuit by major film and TV studios represented by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT).

The studios first dragged iiNet into the Federal Court back in November 2008, arguing that the ISP infringed copyright by failing to take reasonable steps — including enforcing its own terms and conditions — to prevent customers from copying films and TV shows over its network. …

The studios were trying to make ISPs liable for what their users did, and force them to be unpaid sheriffs and terminate users on the basis of unproven allegations from the studios.

The court ruling is very strong – it says that iiNet did not sanction, approve or countenance copyright infringement – they simply did no more than provide an Internet service to its uers.

The court also said “iiNet is not responsible if an iiNet user chooses to make use of that (BitTorrent) system to bring about copyright infringement.

This is the first ruling of its kind in the world on whether ISPs can or should be liable for what their customers do, and if they have a duty to stop them. Hence it may prove to be a very useful precedent in future.

South Australia goes to the polls on 20 March, and for 25 to 55 days before the election it will (arguably – see comments in previous thread) be illegal to comment on their elections without disclosing your name and postcode.

Even worse, blogs and media sites have to collect names and postcodes from all their commenters or risk being be fined.

Hopefully the law will be repealed or clarified before the election. If it is not though, I am happy to offer Kiwiblog as a temporary forum for discussion of the South Australian election if any Australian sites are worried about the new law. I can set up a general debate every day, or even give some Australian bloggers posting rights.

I have no intention of forcing commenters to give me their name and address/postcode.

As a non resident of Australia, they can not enforce their law on me.

As I said hopefully the law will be repealed. If it is not repealed, I suspect many Australians will ignore it anyway. But if it does result in people feeling they are unable to blog and comment on the state elections, I am happy to help host such discussions here. In fact I am sure many NZ blogs would be happy to adopt an Australian blog for a month. It could be a great trans-tasman initiative!

UPDATE: Heh I wrote this post last night and timed it for 9 am. In the interval, the South Australian Government has backed down and promised to repeal the law, as reported by No Right Turn. Excellent. The Government must have worked out how deeply unpopular it was going to be.

Interestingly the law can not be amended before the election, so the Government has said it will not be enforced and will be retrospectively repealed after the election.