I have put fingers to keyboard once again, therefore, resulting in the following missive to the noble Lords who came up with the idea.

Dear Lord Howard of Rising (CON) and Lord Clement Jones (LD)

I am alarmed by your proposed Amendment 120a to the Digital Economy Bill and would like to explain why I think you should abandon it.

I have followed closely the passage of the Bill through Parliament and have written to both my MP and the members of the Lords Science and Technology Committee to express my views on the proposals to tackle copyright infringement in particular.

I am proud of the way opposition members of the House of Lords, such as yourself, have tried to hold the Government to account on issues such as disconnection without trial; defences and access to justice for those accused; excessive Ministerial powers to change copyright law through secondary legislation; and protection for public Internet-access providers such as libraries, universities and private businesses.

I feel I must protest anew the inclusion of measures such as Clause 11 and Amendment 120a that give the Government the ability to censor the Internet.

There are two problems with such proposals:

1) They will not have the desired effect on copyright infringement.

If you seek independent expert advice you will discover that dedicated infringers can use technologies such as anonymous proxies, virtual private networks and onion-routing to get around any blocking mechanism employed by ISPs. These tools are widespread in other countries that censor the Internet, such as China, Iran and Australia.

2) State censorship is wrong in principle.

In the wake of the expenses scandal I need hardly remind you that sometimes people publish information the state would rather they didn’t. The proposed measures would give the Government the ability to force ISPs to block any content it doesn’t like. This would be an unprecedented attack on individual liberty, press freedom and freedom of expression.

I implore you to abandon Amendment 120a and to vote down Clause 11.

If you’ve read this far you’re obviously as concerned as I am about Amendment 120a. Please write to Conservative Lord Howard of Rising and Lib Dem Lord Clement Jones and tell them in your own words what you think about their proposals.

Mobile ANPR cameras are also used by some police forces. These are deployed in popular locations such as shopping centres for so-called “lockdown” operations, where every vehicle entering the area is checked against records as police fish for reasons to impound cars and fine drivers. One such operation in November 2008, which was filmed for television (relevant segment starts at 21m30s), saw 369 vehicles stopped, 84 tickets issued, 51 cars seized and 12 people arrested at Bluewater shopping centre in Kent – in a single day.

It’s no longer a case of “follow that car” but “follow every car.”

ACPO defend their wholesale surveillance system by pointing to a few high-profile cases where ANPR evidence has formed part of a prosecution. They’re less keen to highlight the cases of mistaken identity, inaccurate record-keeping and official ineptitude that have left innocent people standing on the kerbside holding a ticket as an officer drives away in their vehicle. Even if these drivers manage to prove the database wrong they can end up paying hundreds of pounds in fees to get their car back – if it hasn’t been crushed.

The Information Commissioner’s Office is currently “working with” ACPO to determine whether the national ANPR network is “appropriate and proportionate” – which means nobody bothered to ask those questions before the system was commissioned. Supporters of ANPR technology claim vehicle license-plate data is exempt from the Data Protection Act because it’s not “personal information” (it’s about the vehicle not the driver). However the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) sells access to the names and addresses of registered vehicle-keepers for £2.50p a time, making this distinction academic. Further, in common with the National Identity Register, National DNA Database and all the other tentacles of the database state, once this information is collected there’s nothing to stop it falling into the hands of other public or private organisations, either by accident, commercial arrangement or official decree. Wouldn’t you like to know where your partner really drives off to while you’re at work? I bet there’s a good number of private investigators who would.

Who stands up for the public interest in the rush to implement new technologies like ANPR for official convenience? I don’t recall there being a public or Parliamentary debate on giving the police these game-changing surveillance powers. Has anyone considered the down-side of collecting all this data?

Somehow I doubt it.

Now Ross Anderson and Steven Murdoch, computer security researchers at the University of Cambridge, have published a paper [PDF] analysing 3D-Secure. Announcing the work on his blog, Prof. Anderson said,

From the engineering point of view, [3D-secure] does just about everything wrong, and it’s becoming a fat target for phishing. So why did it succeed in the marketplace? Quite simply, it has strong incentives for adoption. Merchants who use it push liability for fraud back to banks, who in turn push it on to cardholders. … This is yet another case where security economics trumps security engineering, but in a predatory way that leaves cardholders less secure.

The paper concludes by recommending technical measures that would improve security for card-holders. It also calls for regulation to protect consumers from being forced to accept liability for online fraud.

I hope that the academic rigour of Anderson and Murdoch’s work, backed by the formidable reputation of the University of Cambridge Security Research Laboratory, will help to focus mainstream attention on Visa and Mastercard’s selfish treatment of their customers.

The Digital Economy Bill will affect you:

• If your home Internet-connection contract is in your name.
• If your business offers Internet access to the public (wifi hotspots or terminals.)
• If you depend on copyright for your income (software writers, publishers, authors, bloggers, photographers, musicians, film-makers, artists, DJs, newspapers, radio stations etc.)

Come to the unconference and find out more about the legislation and how it will impact your home life, your business and your community. Stick around for the workshops and learn how you can make sure your opinions on these issues heard in Westminster.

Tickets are available separately for any of the following parts of the event. You can come to one of the workshops even if you can’t make it to the unconference.

13:30 – 17:30:	Digital Economy Bill Unconference
17:30 – 19:00:	Talk to your MP: Workshop 1 *
19:00 – 20:30:	Talk to your MP: Workshop 2 *

* Workshop places are limited, so booking is essential.

There will be breaks between sessions and time to socialise before, during and after the event.

Reserve your free tickets now. See you there!

For those who can’t get to Sheffield, workshops are also taking place in London, Manchester and Edinburgh, though these events will not be preceded by unconferences.

My Mum is a librarian. In conversation with her earlier today it occurred to me that this effect might not be limited to wifi. It probably impacts all publicly-accessible web kiosks such as in Internet cafes, university halls of residence, hotels and… libraries. The thing about libraries, though, is that they provide Internet access to those who can’t otherwise get it. This access is relied upon by the elderly, the poor, the young, students, asylum-seekers, visiting foreigners, job seekers and ordinary folk from out-of-town.

I haven’t heard that there will be an exemption for libraries and in any case rights-holders won’t be able to tell that a particular IP address is on a library network.

Libraries see enough people coming through their doors to guarantee that at some point one of them will infringe on someone’s copyright and get spotted doing it.

Libraries are funded by local government and budgets are always tight. Even though they know the service they provide is vital and worth defending they won’t relish the decision between £250,000 fines and expensive litigation to do so.

The irony is that the Government has put libraries at the forefront of its campaign to push services online in order to improve efficiency and reach more people.

My Mum says that libraries are increasingly reliant on their provision of Internet access to attract visitors, and that if they were no longer able to provide such access, it’d be difficult to put together a case for their continued existence.