John Giacobbi2013-05-25T14:30:22-04:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=john-giacobbiCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for John GiacobbiGood old fashioned elbow grease.Last Days of Discotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20736422012-11-04T17:31:19-05:002013-01-04T05:12:01-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/Ceefax too - RIP British Technology.
For those of you who literally thought that Ceefax ended when John Travolta's flairs were replaced by Don Johnson's shoulder-pads, this British, televisual-wonder miraculously survived up to the end of October 2012. For anyone unfamiliar with the pleasures of trying to look-up the football scores via Ceefax on a teak-effect, Grundig television, while waiting for Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks to finish wrestling on World-of-Sport (another long-gone British institution), it is - or rather was - a bit like a cross between Miscosoft DOS and Space Invaders, with bright colours and clunky graphics that loaded so slowly you had time boil-a-kettle between pages ... .. which was actually a cleverly-built-in, British design feature.
As Sir Michael Caine would say - "Now, not a lot of people know that", but Ceefax's design origins date-back to the late 1960s and its original name was 'Beebfax' ... .. created by lab-coated BBC engineers in an ingenious use of license-payers' money, the system was the world's first teletext information service ... it was Sky News before we had Sky News and the internet before we had internet ... .. in fact, in the pre-broadband days of dial-up, it was actually quicker to turn your telly on and type-in 101 for news, than it was to boot-up your PC and then wait interminably for the internet to load. Incredibly, people also used Ceefax to 'watch' sports such as football, tennis and even Grand Prix racing ... .. now that sounds like a fun evening - pass the Blue Nun !!
And it wasn't only Britain's precursor to 'internet-enabled-television' (40 years ahead-of-time) that bit-the-dust. October also saw Carbodies of Coventry fall into administration, as well as Comet (like Rumbelows and other household names before it) and even The Famous - a sort of Are-You-Being-Served 'meanswear' shop in Cheltenham that has been going since 1896 and which still operated one of those Victorian 'vacuum tube' systems, that sent your money off to some unseen cashier's office, via little containers that scuttled along miles of pipe like Derby Day rats. Chr*st - even copies of Hansard aren't being given to MPs anymore, who now have to read-up on Parliamentary debates via the interweb.
For those of us now unable to look-up 'Carbodies' on Ceefax, this is the company that has been making London taxis since they stopped being 'Austins' back in the early 70s. Already part-owned by the Chinese and now possibly never-to-return, the Government should nationalise this once-proud company, preserving a national institution and saving jobs in the process - why pay these skilled men and woman to be on-the-dole, when they could be churning-out iconic Black Cabs for the enjoyment of Londoners and tourists for many years to come ?? As it is, one-in-three new taxis bought in London this year are Mercedes 'Vitos' ... .. if there was ever an example of Britain winning-the-war-and losing-the-peace (World War 2 that is - for those of you not on Cefax), then this is it ... .. Boris - please do something about this travesty while Cameron dithers and before our London taxis go the way of red phone boxes and Routemaster buses.
And while Cameron dithers, Hague slithers - literally ... .. as his Foreign Office have just paid £10,000.oo to have a - thankfully long dead - 20ft snake re-stuffed, so it can be displayed in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Library ... .. I wonder what the newly unemployed of Carbodies will make of that, while the Government refuse state aid. Even the Russians are re-investing in their car industry, in the shape of their iconic, ZIL limousines, that used to ferry Russian dignitaries since the days of Brezhnev in the Soviet era and which are now being brought-in-from-the-cold to replace the ubiquitous Mercedes ... .. seeing as we don't make any British cars any more, maybe Putin can lend one to Call-Me-Dave.
With sadly ironic timing, just as Britain turns-off the information-superhighway of the 1970s from our small screens, our American cousins are introducing more small screens that you can shake-a-stick-at. Yes, Microsoft's Surface takes-on Apple's iPad range and Google's Nexus and Amazon's Kindle and and and - seeing which one shall come-out-on-top this Christmas (sorry - 'Winterval') shall be fascinating ... .. although, if you live in India, £21 for an 'Aakash' tablet has got to be worth-a-punt - even if its processing power is still slower than a Texas Instruments calculator.
In other internet related news, Louise Mensch has been having a spat with the Labour Party over Austin Mitchell's "be a good wife" taunts on Twitter, while Queen Sophia of Spain is suing an internet dating web-site (for married people) that has used her image to promote their 'services' ... .. and Good Luck to her, as everyone should - and in fact does - have the right to control the use of their image on the internet, particularly where exploited for commercial purposes and false-endorsements.
Although the past month hasn't exactly put the Great back into Britain, when it comes to out-doing the technological advances of the Americans, the Chinese and the Russians - and in the words of Corporal Jones - we really do know how to "Stick-It-Up-Em" ... .. forget your Commie limos and your iPod minis, Britain is heading full-steam-ahead into the 21st Century - literally ... .. for the first time in half-a-century, London Underground has secretly been running steam trains on the Tube late-at-night. Well, one steam train actually and for testing ahead of the 150th anniversary of the 'Metropolitan Railway', otherwise known as the Underground. The first-ever 'Tube' train departed from Paddington on the 9th of January 1863 and, to celebrate the anniversary of the event, an 1898 steam locomotive (that was also used to celebrate the centenary back in 1963), will be running from Padders to Farringdon with no less than 5 carriages in-tow and with tickets available for sale to the public ... .. who needs National Express when you can take the Hogwart's Express ?!
And no round-up would be complete without a brief mention of the men and, er, men of the Roundabout Appreciation Society, whose members organise day-trips to places like Milton Keynes and Swindon's famous 'Magic Roundabout' (really), complete with anoraks and Tupperware lunches ... .. perhaps unsurprisingly, this group of die-hards was set-up by a bloke called 'Kevin' - although, hugely surprisingly, this was following the success of a photo-calendar of 'The Roundabouts of Redditch', which sold 100,000 copies !! Their Wikipedia entry says that they are "trying to attract more women members" (Good Luck Fellas) and maybe we can turn their undoubted enthusiasm to good use by asking them to set-up a much needed Ceefax Appreciation Society ... .. Roundabouts AND Ceefax - they'll be beating-the-women-off-with-a-stick !!]]>Now Then Now Then Guys and Gals - Clunk-Click-Every-Tweettag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19986172012-10-21T21:22:46-04:002012-12-21T05:12:01-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/ THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU TWEET ...or press that button, or post that blog, or update your Facebook profile (to 'Sad Bastard'), or put your ugly mug on YouTube.
Let's just call it "A Guide to 21st Century Etiquette" - or, more realistically, a "21st Century Survival Guide"...the latest buffoon not to have thought twice before pressing-the-self-destruct-button was the British ambassador to Chile, who thought he was sending a private message about a Chilean football song that refers to all Argentineans as being homosexualists and surrender-monkeys but, instead, actually tweeted the less-than-diplomatic message to his 10,000 followers, leading to outrage in Latin America and causing the Argentineans to consider invading the Isle of Wight in retaliation.
Often, of course, it is footballers tweeting about their latest nightclub brawl, Page 3 conquest, new Ferrari or calling someone a "choc-ice" and then rapidly issuing an apology the next morning, once their clubs' press-officers have caught-up with them and reminded them about the clause in their contracts that refers to being [sic] "a role model for the youth of today" (which roughly translates to "keep your feet on the pitch and not in your mouth").
Sadly, however, this phenomenon is not limited to latter-day George Bests, with everyone from politicians to 'celebrities' also being prone to regular gaffes...although sometimes a little happiness does result, cue the glee and mirth amongst the pupils of a junior-high-school class in the US, when their teacher definitely pressed the-wrong-button and managed to synchronise her cell phone with the school's iPads, giving her class an extra biology lesson courtesy of the topless photographs of herself that were then shared with the world.
Another good, Plebeian use of Twitter this past week was when a lowly journalist - who happened to be on the same train as the Chancellor of the Exchequer - tweeted that George 'Boxcar' Osborne was engaged in a form of upmarket fare-dodging, the Old Etonian apparently thinking it a 'jolly good wheeze' to ride in First Class, but on a Pleb Class ticket. The ticket inspector was evidently made of sterner stuff, however and - as with his erstwhile colleagues who protect the gates to Downing Street - stood-up to Boxcar George, extracting £189 in fare upgrades in the process. Now, if only the Chancellor could manage similar extractions from the Non-Doms and his chums in The City, then the prospect of balancing the country's books would cease to be a fiction worthy of JK Rowling.
Even Google had a Mission-Control-Moment, with some no-doubt now ex-executive pressing the right button, but at the wrong time and announcing to the World - ahead-of-time - that the See-No-Evil, Hear-No-Evil, Do-No-Evil conglomerate had sliding revenues. Cue a temporary suspension of trading in Google shares and, upon resumption, a drop in value ($18 Billion in 48 hours) that would make even Felix Baumgartner think twice before jumping / investing [Felix - delete as applicable when you regain consciousness].
For the-mother-of-all-mistakes, however, look no further than the Prime Minister joining Twitter, as there's nothing more un-cool than someone trying desperately hard to look cool - and failing. How long before our accident-prone PM gives us all something to chuckle about?! He coulda-shoulda-woulda used his Twitter account to very good effect and boosted his popularity in the process, by Doing-an-Alan-Sugar on the Chief Whip - Andrew 'Thrasher' Mitchell - and tweeting the two word message that the whole country's been waiting for him to send : "YOU'RE FIRED".
No round-up of the past week would be complete without lauding the valiant efforts of two British boffins, who - in typically British, underdog style - have rebuilt 'Flossie', one of the world's few surviving mainframe computers from the early 1960s, in a garden shed. The 5 ton computer - that even starred as a prop in 007's The Man With The Golden Gun - is a bitter-sweet reminder of those halcyon and distant days when Britain led the world in computer design...and jet-liner design, car design, television design and much more (but that's a whole other story - in fact it really is - just see Two Portions of Valves & Chips Please from The Huffington Post archive). Hopefully the British government will step-in and give this piece of technological archaeology a proper home, or at least some lottery funding, but don't hold-your-breath, this lot of seeming incompetents are too busy saving their own skins and offloading their Google and Facebook shares to worry about technological heritage for us mere Plebs.
Talking of Uncle Jimmy, one of his old cars is currently for sale on the classic car market - a 1970s Range Rover with a double-bed, curtains and a sink in the back. Savile by name, SaVILE by nature. Needless to say, the mobile boudoir's price has fallen faster than a Felix Baumgartner sky-dive - although, now that Gary Glitter's on-the-outside again, who knows where it may end-up, and, whatever happens, just remember what your mother told you when you were growing-up - never accept sweets from a stranger and, if someone asks you if you'd "like to see some puppies", the answer is a resounding "NO".]]>Olympic 'Races' of the Wrong Kindtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17176102012-07-30T19:00:00-04:002012-09-29T05:12:39-04:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/
I'm very glad to say that the delightfully pretty Zoe Smith stood-up for herself admirably and responded to her tormentors with both wit and dignity. But - again sadly - her case is just one of thousands and represents an ever-growing trend of vicious abuse by gangs of largely male 'trolls' targeted at individual women in what, in some cases, is almost a form of gratuitous, on-line gang-rape... highlighting this disturbing development - that seems to have no boundaries, with pop stars, actresses, athletes, writers and house-wives all among its many victims - is the case of Anita Sarkeesian in the US... this blogger simply expressed her views about the equally valid issue of misogyny in on-line video games and was immediately faced with a torrent of male abuse, that culminated in one troll creating a 'game' that consisted of pummelling Ms. Sarkeesian's face and giving her virtual black-eyes and bruises etc.
Back in the UK, Nicola Brookes - a single mother with a physically debilitating medical condition - was targeted and brutally attacked by gangs of trolls on Facebook, very bravely she took-on these faceless cowards, winning a landmark victory in the High Court and compelling Facebook to hand-over all of their data on the individuals concerned - who now face what's left of Summer waiting for that-knock-on-the-door from Ms. Brookes' litigators and the Police.
It won't come as any surprise to learn that we've had to deal with such cases ourselves and one particular client, a female BBC news-reader (see any patterns emerging?!) having been subjected to months of appalling abuse, before the alarm was raised and we sent the culprit packing in less than 24 hours. Not everyone is so fortunate, however and not everyone knows who to turn to in such circumstances... in fact they ought to simply be able to turn to Facebook or Twitter or Google or whichever other 'social' media site is the source of their misery - but, as we've seen all-too-often, corporations such as Facebook seem to be far more concerned about the issue-price of their shares than they are about the safety of their members, who are the ones that actually enabled Facebook to engage in their multi-billion-dollar flotation farrago in the first place... maybe one day, when people start deserting the site in droves and it starts to affect their bottom-line, they'll finally deploy some of those billions towards pro-actively and professionally policing their own web-site and protecting their own members against the industrial-scale disregard for Facebooks' grandly titled but poorly enforced 'Statement of Rights and Responsibilities'.
With 37 year-old Marissa Mayer recently named as the CEO of Yahoo (she's pregnant too - so Congrats on both counts), here's hoping that Yahoo will now lead-the-way in taking a tougher stance against this seemingly unbridled misogyny and sexism, that is currently in danger of taking sexual equality and women's rights back to the Dark Ages.
In other internet news, a man who tweeted about blowing-up Robin Hood Airport as a 'joke' has had his conviction overturned on appeal while, in the US, a tweeter who uses a photo of George Clooney as his profile image is being sued for allegedly hacking into the servers of a national newspaper group - oh and the latest video to go viral consists of a Chinese singer performing a Justin Bieber song whilst sitting atop a rather disinterested looking cow, which eventually manages to buck him off (the beast-of-burden clearly having better musical taste than its owner).
On a more positive note, the Olympic Organising Committee decided to change its previous and rather mean-spirited policy by now allowing spectators to post-up images from events and stadiums on-line and, even more amazingly, 120,000 people somehow managed to watch BOTH rehearsals for the Opening Ceremony WITHOUT ruining it for everyone else by posting photos and tweets etc... will we ever see such mass selflessness again - true to the ideals of the original, Olympian Spirit no less - in this digital age? I doubt it, but here's hoping.
On the topic of 'race' issues, it's good to note that some witless Greek athlete was slung-out of the games for tweeting overtly racist remarks. Although, on the subject of race - and as recently mentioned by Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times - I'm not-too-sure what it says about our 'race relations' these days, when the only word said to have caused offence in John Terry's alleged slur of "f*cking black c*nt", is the only word not to consist of an expletive!
Comedian Nathan Caton's relaxed quip that anyone working on a daily basis with Ashley Cole would soon become accustomed to using the expression, perhaps better contextualises the true progress that has been made over the past two decades (particularly as his family hail from the Caribbean). I remember attending a Chelsea versus QPR match back in the 80s with a Nigerian school-friend of mine and the mass taunting of QPR's black players - who were among the vanguard of talented, British players of Caribbean and African origin in England's old First Division - was both vile and terrifying for him...we have indeed come-a-long-way - with or without Twitter and Rio Ferdinand's 'choc-ice' tweets.
With regard to the Opening Ceremony - brilliant though it was with everything from Mr. Bond to Mr. Bean - you can never please all of the people all of the time and, from a purely personal perspective, I just wish that minor British-Achievements such as the telephone, the computer, the television and the jet engine had been celebrated, although I was fabulous to see Sir Tim Berners-Lee honoured as one of those who has put the Great back into Britain.
As a demonstration of British achievements, a fly-past by Concorde would have been nice, although that might have offended the French (whose most notable contribution to the joint-protect seems to have been adding the 'e' onto the end of the word Concord). A Battle of Britain fly-past perhaps? Might offend our German allies.
Okay, well how about a 1960s Vickers 'Super VC-10', resplendent in it's British Overseas Airways Corporation livery and still-to-this-day the record holder for sub-sonic, trans-atlantic journey times ?? ... .. but this might offend Mr. Romney of course (being faster than a Boeing and all)... so that's settled then, a VC-10 it is and with Boris 'Dulux' Johnson at the controls !!]]>Road to Perditiontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13013002012-02-25T14:43:47-05:002012-04-26T05:12:01-04:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/
Joking aside, this week did also see the unveiling of, you-guessed-it (or, then again, maybe you didn't) actual coach tours of the M25 - yes really, with free hot beverages and bobble-hats optional. Among the "amazing sights" (their words, not mine) to be taken-in on this road to perdition are Clacket Lane services, South Mimms services, Heathrow's terminal five (Britain's largest building) and - wait-for-it - the cricket pitch at Bell Common tunnel... although, as you'll be in the tunnel at the time (enjoying the delights of tupperware lunches and chemical toilets), you won't actually be able to see the cricket pitch - however the 'tour' operators will, very thoughtfully, be passing-round photos of it on the coach!
Amazingly, the first such tour is already a sell-out and, when quizzed about who had actually paid Queen's currency to embark on this odyssey, the coach owner said that, in addition to the expected 'anoraks' and, err, 'coach enthusiasts', there was an unexpectedly high proportion of single women... SO, men - maybe this will spark-off a new trend, with dating and 'pick-up' coach trips around London's orbital beltway and chat-up lines like: "have you seen the size of my terminal?"
Then again, why don't we all just chip-in and pay to send the entire Board of RBS on an endless Road-To-Hell as, for them, perdition is far more appropriate than the massive 'bonuses' they keep paying themselves while the bank is still losing billions of taxpayers' money. Oh-yes, and the Brighton & Hove Bus and Coach Company saved the best bit for last - to add to the "excitement" (again, their words), they won't be telling their merry time-travellers whether each trip will be going clockwise or anti-clockwise... hold-me-back. Here's hoping their tyres will be more gripping than their marketing blurb!
Moving-back to our main story via the slip-road of life, Mr. Justice Teare ordered that a High Court writ could be served on an evasive defendant via social media, which follows a previous case in which Mr. Justice Lewinson allowed an injunction to be served through Twatter (sorry - Twitter).
Anyway, this is actually a more important development than might otherwise meet the eye, as this week also saw the publication of a report by the National Centre for Cyberstalking Research at the University of Bedfordshire and which revealed that up to five Million Britons are victims of cyberstalking and on-line harassment each year.
Even more worryingly, their survey revealed that the police are failing to cope with this new wave of cyber-crime - three quarters of all stalking and harassment cases now being internet related - with less than 1,000 sentences handed-down.
With the use of social media in the UK having doubled since 2010, these are alarming developments... moreover, stalkers and trolls are always 'brave' when they think that they can't be caught or identified, so this extension of the-long-arm-of-the-law into cyberspace is actually a welcome development, coupled to which it is also possible to subpoena Facebook and Twitter for the personal details relating to accounts that are being used for stalking and trolling... although, in both cases, these remedies are expensive and beyond the scope of The-Man-on-the-Clapham-Omnibus (or should that be the Brighton & Hove Omnibus?!), so let's also hope that Facebook and Twitter pull-their-socks-up and become more effective at policing themselves - instead of having to rely on organisations like Web Sheriff or government agencies like the FBI to do their job for them.
Talking of Facebook policing themselves, this week also witnessed a 'leak' of a different kind - this time the subject-matter of the leak being an internal Facebook document that provides guidelines for out-sourcing companies that apparently undertake much of the site's complaints reports. Allegedly using third world labour at $1 an hour, these guidelines bizarrely allow images of "deep flesh wounds" and "excessive blood" to be posted, while outlawing mothers breastfeeding!!
Facebook sought to limit the fallout from these revelations (excuse puns), by clarifying that images of mothers breastfeeding their infants could seemingly be posted, so long as there was no nipple visible - SO, in Facebook's parallel universe, someone's chest slashed open with a knife is okay, but a maternal nipple is morally corrupt. In protest at these unfathomable distinctions, groups of 'lactavists' protested outside Facemilk's offices in several cities, doubtless with leaks of their own, but all in a good cause.
No journalistic round-up of the week would be complete without a passing tribute to the estimable war correspondent Marie Colvin and her photo-journalist colleague Remi Ochlik, both of whom died at the hands of the Syrian Army in the battered city of Homs... their noble efforts - and their ultimate sacrifice - serve as a beacon and an inspiration to all who ply-their-trade in the media industry.
SO - there-we-have-it... High Jinx in the High Court and Facebook with milk on their faces... and, for anyone who simply wants to get-away from it all, just pack your picnic, don your duffle coat and head-down to the bus stop at Junction 7 of the M25 for the Magical Mystery Tour of your life ... seeing as it also takes-in Staines, the birthplace of British linoleum and Ali G, I may even join you !! ]]>Web Warstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12390012012-01-28T12:32:35-05:002012-03-29T05:12:01-04:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/"G'Day Possums" (as Dame Edna would say).
Even though I'm in Australia at the moment, events in America and elsewhere have obliged me to put-down my surfboard and pick-up my typewriter, in order to express my bemusement at the PR disaster of Capitol Hill's proposed -- and now suspended -- anti-piracy laws and, moreover, the melodramatic response to these measures by "free love" stalwarts such as Wikipedia and Google, followed in turn by the "trophy" site closure of Megaupload by the Feds and the further retaliations by the hacktastic "Anonymous" group... as the Aussies would say, "Streuth" -- leave the classroom for five minutes and all hell breaks loose!
"Now don't get me wrong ladies and gentlemen -- Puleeze!!" (in the words of Australian, cultural icon Sir Les Patterson -- usually accompanied by extreme drooling, nicotine stained fingers and the outline of a worryingly python-like "proboscis" within his left trouser-leg), if the United States government sees fit to introduce hanging for mass uploaders, who am I to complain -- it'll just make Web Sheriff's job all-the-easier... but something causes me to stir as I drink my pint of Fosters on Bondi beach and contemplate the way in which the presentation of this legislation perpetuates the "us-and-them" mentality that has almost (correction -- definitely) been the undoing of the music and movie industries in the 20 years or so since the advent of the internet.
Whilst much of the current protest against SOPA (or the Stop Online Piracy Act -- and it's related PIPA or, Protect IP Act, consists of bleating-on-principle -- often misguidedly so, with Google's black "armband" being melodrama writ large and with Wiki's equally theatrical blackout nevertheless resulting in over 160, 000,000 page impressions in a day -- the allegedly unrelated closure of Megaupload and other file-locker sites is a prime example of the folly of some of those who purport to govern the creative industries. Megaupload is (sorry -- was, as the site has now been seized by the FBI) one of the most compliant "file-locker" sites on the Internet/planet... on-the-face-of-it their take-down policy was exemplary and very largely toe'd-the-line of existing laws -- in particular the so-called "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA as it is widely known -- that require a site owner or host to remove infringing content within a reasonable time of being notified of the illegal nature of the content-in-question by the rights owner or rights agent concerned. So far, so good. But, instead of encouraging more sites to offer speedy compliance procedures like Megaupload's, the U.S. government has seen fit to tap-dance past the numerous and notorious sites that do not immediately comply -- and who prefer to engage in a cat-and-dog fight over every last takedown notice -- and pull-down a site that was a model of co-operation, incarcerating Mr. Kim Dotcom (yes, really) and his alleged co-conspirators in the process! A similar story has previously unfurled in relation to the "torrent" website IsoHunt -- another model of compliance in an otherwise largely hostile environment and that is currently being sued for millions of dollars, whilst other (non-compliant) sites go-about-their-trade largely unmolested... which is a bit like the headmaster canning a prefect instead of the real culprit, as a way of intimidating the rest of the school into not peeping through matron's curtains at bedtime!!
Barack, Lamar et al -- it's time to end the show-boating and time to start consulting and creating a momentum of consensus (although I see that Obama is already deftly distancing himself from something that might be less-than-popular... in an election year - -what a coincidence!!)... as we have discovered both to our cost and to our benefit, it is vital to treat music and movie "consumers" as fans and not as criminals -- and this philosophy is something that we practice day-in-and-day-out, 365 days of the year, working with fans to include them in the pre-release, online marketing and promotion of records and films, harnessing their enthusiasm and replacing out-dated "anti-piracy"/ let's-beat-you-with-a-big-stick measures, with viral marketing initiatives that any artist's or movie's fanbase can actively and enjoyably participate in. Why use a stick to beat your own consumers when an open and inclusive dialogue is what is required?! In the early days of the internet, the record business -- then still run by dinosaurs from the 1970s -- was guilty of clinging onto out-dated technologies in the form of physical sound carriers (that they still hoped to sell to fans / their consumers for $19.99 a pop), when what the world wanted was cheap, legally accessible mp3 files... as a result of this failure to embrace the future and offer music fans what they actually wanted, Internet piracy understandably filled-the-void and flourished and, in the process, the whole "us-and-them" disconnect came to be set-in-stone. Embarrassingly for anyone whose career has been in the Music Business, it took an American computer company -- called Apple!! -- to reinvent not just itself, but the entire Record Industry with the advent of both the iPod and iTunes... a decade later and the Music Biz has finally caught-up, although it's still largely in the thrall of iTunes which, if you think about it, is pretty crazy -- it's a bit like a record label, let's say The Beatles' own label, called, err, Apple (which came first by-the-way!!) deciding that it wants to be in the computer business and then becoming as all-powerful Microsoft and IBM combined.
History, however, appears to have taught the politicians very little... SOPA does actually contain some sensible and potentially effective provisions (bring-on the smelling salts) and targeted, importantly, at entities that actually make money out of piracy... and yet they need to go-back-to-the-classroom when it comes to public consultation and presentation, as the same old "us-and-them" perception lingers around it like a bad smell -- putting the public right off its flatulent launch from the get-go.
Also, don't shed too much of a tear for Mr. Dotcom and his sidekicks... as Megaupload's larger-than-life, in every sense, boss was hauled out of the panic-room in his luxury compound by the New Zealand Police (or was it really the Navy Seals ?!), one underlying truth sealed-his-fate -- the fact that, whilst Megaupload and similar sites could of course be used for legal purposes, the overwhelming majority of the content on their sites was (as everyone knows) illegally distributed, copyright material... connecting-the-dots, the indictments against Megaupload claim that, when issued with take down notices, the file-locker company simply removed the links to the copyright files, but NOT the files themselves, which they kept on their servers and which shall doubtless keep highly-paid attorneys entertained as they debate the legal fineries in the proceedings to extradite Dr. Evil (sorry -- Mr. Dotcom) to Guantanamo (sorry -- the United States), where a firing-squad shall no doubt await his arrival.
These "Web Wars" threaten to rage-on for some considerable time yet -- particularly when Congress tries to reintroduce SOPA by the back door on a Friday evening when no one is looking -- and, as such and for those of you who like the smell of Napalm in the mornings, we'll continue to send you dispatches from the front-line... meanwhile and as they say here in Oz, it's nearly "beer-o-clock," so I better be going -- "No worries.".]]>Snow White & The Seven Cyber-Scamstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11552332011-12-17T08:49:11-05:002012-02-16T05:12:01-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/
So, with echos of those Public Information Films of the 60s and 70s - "Now Wash Your Hands" / "Clunk Click Every Trip" (R.I.P. Sir Jimmy) - here are a few tips from the posse at Web Sheriff as to the do's-and-don'ts of on-line shopping this Crimble.
NEVER give personal info in response to unsolicited e-mails. This is the biggest 'no-no' of them all...and, if you receive an e-mail asking you to register or 're-register' your contact or credit card details, never (and we mean NEVER) oblige or even respond. No matter how official and plausible looking the e-mail may be, it will be bogus and is simply a trick to try and get you to disclose information that will lead to identity theft or on-line fraud - a scam known as 'phishing'. If you need to provide your details to a bank or a store, then YOU contact them directly through their official web-site and, that way, you'll be sure that your information is secure.
ONLY order from web-sites that publish their addresses. This is also vitally important...never order from a web shop that doesn't publish its postal address and the identity of the company or owner. These days, consumer protection laws make this a legal requirement and you should ideally have a contact telephone number as well. That way, if your goods don't arrive or if they are damaged or sub-standard, you know who you are dealing with and your consumer rights can be enforced.
ALWAYS check the e-mail address that shopping offers come from. Crooks can lure you in with authentic looking e-mails so, no matter how plausible or official an email looks (it may even have well-known, corporate logos embedded into it), remember to double-check the e-mail address that it comes from...sadly, you'll all-too-often find upon closer inspection that, though similar, the e-mail address is subtly different from the one it should be. Again, be sure to never reply to these and report them as Spam for good measure.
BE SURE to use well-known sites if you want to buy by auction. If you fancy yourself as a cyber-bidder, then play-safe and shop via established sites such as eBay or iOffer and, whichever auction site you choose, read the small print and make sure that they have a proper complaints procedure and full contact details. Similarly, if you want to buy via an on-line market-place, then sites such as Amazon publish their complaints procedures, so you'll have some degree of comeback against the many, semi-anonymous sellers offering goods there. Also remember to buy from UK based sellers where possible - as it's a long way to Long Beach if you need to return that defective surf board you've just bought.
BE SMART about payment methods. Paypal tends to be a much safer way of effecting payments without having to give-out your debit card or credit card details to complete strangers and, even if you're dealing with an established retailer, paying by credit card actually affords you with greater protection than paying by charge card or debit card, as the credit card companies are legally obliged to reimburse you if you buy a lemon or are a victim of fraud. Do remember, however, that it will generally end-up costing you more to pay by credit card.
DON'T publish your holiday plans on-line. On a more general level, social networking sites may be great for spreading holiday cheer, but they've also proven to be a gold mine of personal information that crooks piece together for identity theft and house break-ins. So, if you do insist upon posting Facebook messages or Tweets about your holiday plans, then expect more than just Santa coming down your chimney this Christmas!
DO use e-mail scanning software. Remember to include mail scanning software on your cyber-wish-list this year to protect you and your computer from spam, junk mail, viruses and crooks 'phishing' for your data.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS - and remember these tips for a safe Christmas!
So, there-you-have-it, a few prudent, common-sense measures to help you be vigilant about your personal data while shopping on-line...although, come-to-think-of-it, if you add-up the carbon footprint of the ten ton truck that delivers your Xmas shopping, plus the pizza delivery and the off-license drop-off, then maybe we're not being so carbon-friendly after all...but what-the-heck, it's cold outside and Morcombe & Wise are on the telly - and who needs YouTube when such analogue treasures are available on your cathode ray tube?]]>Snow White & the Seven Cyber-Scamstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11543462011-12-16T15:20:12-05:002012-02-15T05:12:01-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/
So, if you don't want your festive cheer to go south quicker than Rick Perry's presidential ambitions -- or Herman Cain's trousers -- then here are a few useful tips from the posse at Web Sheriff as to the Do's and Don'ts of online shopping:
Never give personal info in response to unsolicited emails. This is the biggest No-No of them all... and, if you receive an email asking you to register or "re-register" your contact or credit card details, never (and we mean never) oblige or even respond. No matter how official and plausible looking the email may be, it will be bogus and is simply a trick to try and get you to disclose information that will lead to identity theft or online fraud -- a scam known as "phishing". If you need to provide your details to a bank or a store, then you contact them directly through their official website and, that way, you'll be sure that your information is secure.
Only order from websites that publish their addresses. This is also vitally important... never order from a web store that doesn't publish its postal address and the identity of the corporation or owner. These days, consumer protection laws make this a legal requirement and you should ideally have a contact telephone number as well. That way, if your goods don't arrive or if they are damaged or substandard, you know who you are dealing with and your consumer rights can be enforced.
Always check the email address that shopping offers come from. Crooks can lure you in with authentic looking emails so, no matter how plausible or official an email looks (it may even have well-known corporate logos embedded into it), remember to double-check the email address that it comes from. Sadly, you'll all-too-often find upon closer inspection that, though similar, the email address is subtly different from the one it should be. Again, be sure to never reply to these and report them as Spam for good measure.
Be sure to use well-known sites if you want to buy by auction. If you fancy yourself as a cyber-bidder, then play it safe and shop via established sites such as eBay or iOffer and, whichever auction site you choose, read the small print and make sure that they have a proper complaints procedure and full contact details. Similarly, if you want to buy via an online marketplace, then sites such as Amazon and Craig's List publish their complaints procedures, so you'll have some degree of comeback against the many, semi-anonymous sellers offering goods there.
Be smart about payment methods. Paypal tends to be a much safer way of effecting payments without having to give out your debit card or credit card details to complete strangers and, even if you're dealing with an established retailer, paying by credit card actually affords you with greater protection than paying by charge card or debit card, as the credit card companies are legally obliged to reimburse you if you buy a lemon or are a victim of fraud. Do remember, however, that it will generally end up costing you more to pay by credit card.
Don't publish your vacation plans online. On a more general level, social networking sites may be great for spreading holiday cheer, but they've also proven to be a gold mine of personal information that crooks piece together for identity theft and house break-ins. So, if you do insist upon posting Facebook messages or Tweets about your vacation plans, then expect more than just Santa coming down your chimney this Christmas!
Do use email scanning software. Remember to include mail scanning software on your cyber-wish-list this year to protect you and your computer from spam, junk mail, viruses and crooks phishing for your data.
Happy Holidays -- and remember these tips for a safe Christmas!
So, there-you-have-it, a few prudent, common-sense measures to help you be vigilant about your personal data while shopping online... although, come to think of it, if you add up the carbon footprint of the ten ton truck that delivers your Xmas shopping, plus the pizza delivery and the liquor store drop-off, then maybe we're not being so carbon-friendly after all... but what the heck, it's cold outside and the Presidential Candidates' Debate is on TV -- and who could ask for better holiday entertainment than that?!]]>Index No Eviltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11159682011-11-28T07:44:06-05:002012-01-28T05:12:01-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/"Do No Evil", an interesting moral conundrum arises - especially when, in this case, the defendant's name is Google and they appear to have conveniently forgotten about the "Print No Evil" subtext to their 'mission statement'...or, to speak in the Silicone Valley vernacular and to be more 21st Century about it, "Index No Evil".
I speak, of course, of Sir Oswald Mosley (sorry - Max Mosley) and his impending legal battle against Google, who might be described in certain circles as the 'unevil' - in much the same way as zombies are described as the 'undead'. The former Formula 1 supremo and youngest son of the leader of Britain's wartime fascist movement is taking the unevil to court due to the fact that, despite various, general media injunctions (which Google say they have complied with), certain images of Mosley Jnr enjoying - to quote him from his appearance at the on-going Leveson Inquiry at the Houses of Parliament this week - "my little party" as part of his "slightly unusual sex life" ('slightly' clearly being a subjective choice of words), are apparently still available via Google's search engine. Well, as we say in Blighty, "Good Luck to Him" as, if our daily experiences in Web Sheriff'ing are anything to go by - and they certainly should be - the amount of 'evil' indexed not just on Google, but on all major search engines, is truly astounding.
Now don't get me wrong, after years of seemingly struggling to find a workable system, these days Google are actually excellent when it comes to removing illegal/pirated copyright material from their listings - making mortal enemies of the movie and music Industries by 'facilitating' internet piracy is ultimately not good for business - but, when it comes to removing search engine listings for on-line libels or, worse still and to borrow Paul Dacre's expression, "unimaginable depravity", then apparently it's unevil to list and de facto publish many of the worst evils known to man. Now, there's nothing wrong with low-level pornography for example, so long as it's between consenting adults and isn't easily accessible by children (on which more shortly), but extreme porn in the form of sexual violence against woman, bestiality, incest and the vilest forms of cartoon porn aimed directly at children, are all there within a few clicks of the mouse and readily accessed from any living room (or child's bedroom) in the country. Or how about instructions on how to make a bomb, or how to kill yourself...or how to poison your mother-in-law ?!
Is it evil to deny this 'freedom of speech', or is the greater evil to take this material into our homes by making it so easy to find ?! A simpler and more arbitrary test - but none the worse for it - is this: would this be allowed on television, or on the radio, or in newspapers - or even on the 'top shelf' down at your local newsagents? The answer in (very) many cases is a clear "No". And yet, on the most powerful medium ever known to man, it somehow seems that anything goes - regardless of the consequences.
In short, I'd venture the proposition that anything that is illegal - be it in the civil or criminal sense - should not be indexed...although then you get into the problem of things not being illegal in one country (say America), but being highly illegal in another (say Iran)..ultimately, all Google could do - and in my opinion should do - is apply the laws of the country or countries in which it operates...well, at least if those countries are free democracies - although that takes us into a whole other debate.
Talking of freedom of speech - and in a round-up of other news - a 61-year-old grandfather, who suffers from cancer, was sentenced to 20 years in jail by the Thai authorities for sending a TEXT that was unflattering to the Queen of Thailand! Here's hoping he receives a reprieve and heaven knows what they would have made of the Sex Pistols and their 'subversive' rendition of God Save The Queen - which, in a blemish on this country's generally good record on civil liberties, was even banned by the BBC. Thankfully, the British public saw through this ruse and promptly made the record a number one hit!
In the digital world, Facebook announced that it now only takes 4.74 'hops' to link any two individuals in the world - the previous wisdom being that there were 6 'degrees-of-separation' between any two people on the planet...although, quite how the .74 bit works is a mathematical possibility but a physical impossibility...and no round-up would be complete without lauding Major Ahmed Shouman - the first senior officer to publicly declare against Mubarak, he has now risked life-and-limb to become the first officer to re-join the protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, demanding the resignation of Egypt's military junta.
Last, but far from least, Hacked Off - the campaign group of News of the World hacking victims - organised a private party after a day of hearings and evidence at the Leveson Inquiry, where the-great-and-the-good rubbed shoulders and quaffed champagne at a Soho club...the roll-call included Hugh Grant, Steve Coogan, Alistair Campbell and Tom Watson MP, although quite whether throwing Max Mosley, Kerry Katona and Ulrika Jonsson into the mix turned the big party theme into a 'little party' is anyone's guess - the event was in Soho after all! ]]>Groping for Wordstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11024542011-11-19T10:00:21-05:002012-01-19T05:12:02-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/
And now, with shades of Clarence Thomas, we have a Presidential Candidate not only groping for words, but also being accused of groping his colleagues.
Is this nature or nurture -- are Men-in-High-Office born with sexual overdrive or are they corrupted by the attainment of power?
JFK, Silvio Berlusconi, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, even the avuncular Mao Tse-Tung -- a long line of leaders stretching back to Caligula and doubtless beyond, all of whom had a little bit too much of an-eye-for-the-ladies.
Ironically, 'Tricky Dickey' was the one President that no one could imagine indulging in such antics -- so every cloud has a silver lining after all. Enter-stage-right, the latest incumbent -- Herman Goering (sorry, Cain), former head of the NRA (the 'R' thankfully standing for Restaurant and not Rifle) and the CEO of a pizza company who allegedly liked more than just extra toppings, or should he better be described as an aspirant, as his 4 alleged incidents of wanting to take-away more than just pizza all appear to have failed ?! Moreover, the road to The White House is a long and arduous one and Kim Kardashian has just filed for divorce, so who knows what booby-traps may lie-ahead for the populist contender and his simple -- some would say simplistic -- '999' policies and seemingly obligatory, foreign policy gaffes.
Maybe the reason why so many politicians, corporate executives and Wall Street bankers get into this kind of trouble is that they spend too many nights in hotel rooms with their research assistants (sorry -- research papers), surfing-the-net for forms of 'entertainment' -- or, in Weiner's case, spreading a little happiness with his very own form of on-line entertainment (I use the word 'little' advisedly). Now, there's nothing wrong with low-level pornography of course -- so long as it's not easily accessible by children (of which more later) -- but our travels through cyber-space while Web Sheriff'ing have revealed an alarming trend of sites and portals that don't so much entertain, as utterly corrupt.
One of the most graphic examples of this was in relation to a murder trial at London's famous 'Old Bailey' criminal court, a school teacher -- Jane Longhurst -- met a man on a blind date and, unbeknown to her, he frequented web-sites that were literally dedicated to the strangulation of women for sexual pleasure (principal among which was the disturbingly titled 'HangingBitches.com') with a sad inevitability, Jane's 'date' lived-out his sick fantasies, murdering Longhurst for sexual 'kicks' by strangling her. Although her murderer was sentenced to life 'At-Her-Majesty's-Pleasure', the Police were powerless to take-action against the sites concerned, as they were outside of the jurisdiction. This led to a national newspaper asking if Web Sheriff could take-on these peddlers-of-death and, even though the owner of the sites in question was repellent and completely unrepentant -- and even though his Dutch ISP endeavoured to adopt an absurdly 'sexually liberal' approach to the matter -- we nevertheless closed-down all of the sites concerned within 48 hours, hopefully helping to save many a 'Jane Doe' from a similar fate. The site owner then had the audacity to threaten to sue us for interfering with his 'business' interests -- to which our riposte was that we'd happily meet him in front of a jury anytime.
With eerie parallels, our policing of the internet on behalf of clients for infringements of their movies, TV shows and cartoons etc has shone-a-light onto a hitherto (very) dark-corner of the web -- to wit, cartoon porn / animated pornography sites directed at children and, even more worryingly, easily accessible by kids the length and breadth of the nation within a few short clicks of a mouse. 'Disney' porn on the internet is rife (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs taking-on a dimension never envisaged by founding-father Walt), whilst leading, current shows such as The Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park all have swathes of the internet dedicated to incestuous and graphic 'interpretations' of these family shows ('FamilyGuyPorn.com', 'South-Park-Porn.com' and 'SimpsonFuck.com' hardly being a million-miles-away from the official sites concerned in terms of their names or search engine listings). Why people should do this in the first place is bad enough and, as to why they should get-away with continuing is even worse -- where are the Feds when you (or your children) need them ??
Talking of the Feds and their international cousins over at the CIA -- cue images of Felix Leiter in a Hawaiian shirt -- the US government is shortly due to open a 'virtual' embassy for Iran, which, with overtones of the occupation of the real US embassy and subsequent hostage crisis in Tehran back in '79, Iranian hackers have vowed to virtually 'occupy', this impending battle should be fascinating and is part of a wider cyber-war that also involves attempts to neutralize Iran's nuclear facility in Bushehr, so, without anyone knowing it and while we sleep, World War Three could be fought-and-won on laptops in Washington and Tehran in an all-too-real version of Call of Duty.
Here's hoping that, when the circus stops and the real debating starts, Cain, Romney, Perry, Gingrich and Bachmann et al (seeing as the latest debate was in Vegas -- of all places -- she may have considered herself lucky not to be standing next to the Pizza Man !!) will address issues of genuine concern to the American people, such a jobs, welfare and mishandling of veterans' remains at Dover Air Force Base, and, if Clarence (sorry -- Herman) comes out on top of the republican pile, then the President might be obliged to play his trump card in order to avoid being 'cained' at the polls -- Obama Girl!]]>Around The World In 80 Daystag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10651462011-10-29T11:54:28-04:002011-12-29T05:12:01-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/
Despite Steve Jobs' tragically untimely passing, his vision may still change the way we all live from beyond-the-grave, as Apple press-ahead with their plans for iTV (as distinct from Dickie Davis' beloved ITV) , which shall be the crowning glory of a game-changing range that includes the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Although, for once, Apple aren't having it all-their-own-way, with Google TV planned for next year and with Sean Parker's so far mysterious 'Airtime' service also set to change the way we 'entertain' ourselves at home ... .. and about time too, as proper - interactive - TV-on-Demand has been way-too-long in coming and, yet again and in a repeat of what happened to the music business, it's been left to computer companies to revolutionise the market, whilst the goliaths of the movie and television industries seem to be content to sit-on-their-laurels and have us channel-hopping through endless repeats and mindless, 'unreality' TV shows, while the nation munches its microwave dinners. Instead and for years now, they should have been offering a service that enables us to watch what we actually want - when we want it ... .. which, in my case, would probably consist of endless episodes of The Sweeney and Top Gear - but that's another story.
Talking of Top Gear, I see that the-power-of-the-internet has managed to overturn yet another 'celebrity injunction', this time with Jeremy Clarkson deciding that he wasn't King Canute after all and lifting his own injunction, which had sought to ban rumours that he had allegedly been parking his motor in someone else's bay ... .. or, to put it another way, had his kippers in someone else's grill.
Talking of trivia - and even though it's not strictly 'internet' news - no recap of the past couple of weeks would be complete without a mention of Man City's 6-1 drubbing of Man United ... .. not that I'm a City fan - I'll leave that to Liam Gallagher - but the news of United's worst home defeat since 1955 brought some much welcome cheer to the majority of the nation's football supporters ("Sorry Fergie" - well, not really !!).
Slightly more chillingly - well, far more chillingly actually - it also transpires that one of the Catholic Church's leading 'Child Protection Officers' in the UK is himself a paedophile and has just been sentenced for possessing over 4,000 images of child pornography, some of them of the most depraved nature and, sadly and almost certainly, accessed via the internet. I shall reserve a whole blog for this invidious topic at some point in the future but, for now, "Parents Beware" and be sure to set your families' computers so that the necessary filters are in-place to stop your children getting drawn into this particular vortex. As for the priests concerned - and, worse still, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church - they are supposed to be the Shepherds, protecting their flock and the weak again against the tyranny of evil men... how sad and twisted, therefore, that they should instead assume the mantle of evil - let's hope their true punishment comes when they eventually meet their maker.
In other internet news and echoing the clips of Saddam Hussein's hanging, Gaddafi's grisly end was broadcast to the world via grainy videos of his last moments on YouTube and, in fact, the seeds of the whole Arab Spring were themselves sowed via the internet with a certain symmetry, when news of Mohamed Bouazizi's ultimate sacrifice - he set-fire to himself in protest against the repression and corruption of the then despised and now deposed Tunisian regime - inspired thousands and, in turn, millions to fight for their freedoms and civil liberties. Similarly, news of anti-capitalist demonstrations in the US, soon spread-around-the-world via the internet and spawned a range of similar protests and sit-ins, including our very British, middle-class version outside St. Paul's Cathedral, where thermal imaging showed that 99% of the protesters went home for some Chablis and quiche every evening. There was also the scandal of hit-and-run drivers in China, where it's cheaper to kill someone than to just injure them and where drivers frequently reverse over their victims to ensure that they have, in the vernacular, 'polished-them-off'... footage of one such killing, where a Chinese toddler was run-over by not one but two vans and was then just left in the road to die, spread like wildfire via Sina Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter) and forced the Chinese government to take tough action against the callous motorists concerned - finally some 'people power' in The Land of The People.
I could, of course, go-on, as my Captain's Log of The-Good-The-Bad-and-The-Ugly of the internet is, in effect, never endin... but, as Mr Spock would say, "That wouldn't be logical Captain" and, now that I'm back, I suppose it's time for me to crack-on with some Cyber Sheriffing... Beam Me Up Scotty !!
]]>i-Modiumtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9900812011-10-01T00:00:00-04:002011-11-30T05:12:03-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/If It Pleases M'Laud and Your Face or Mine), a market research company had an 'MBO Moment' this week - Master of the Bleeding Obvious for those not versed in the expression - when their prison survey came to the less-than-startling conclusion that the modern British 'tea-leaf' uses Facetwat and Twitbook to target their obliging victims.
I say "obliging", as they'd be safer leaving their front doors open with a HELP YOURSELF sign outside - certainly a lot less 'interested parties' would actually get to hear about it that way !! Apparently, the majority of offenders who took part in the survey admitted that they used social media to pinpoint houses and cars etc as potential targets ... .. in fact 4-out-of-5 felons reportedly 'fessed-up' to using this method, which - if my maths is correct - puts the survey on-a-par with Cat Whiskers and their long-time claim that 8-out-of-10 catburglars prefer their food.
With one Old Lag quoted in the press no-less as having said that "We're living in the age of the digital criminal and people are taking advantage of social media to access information about would-be victims", the only question that remains to be asked is Why-on-Earth do people still engage in this digital diarrhoea ?! Now, let's get behind the mind-set of these 'Twits', who broadcast to the world-at-large about their latest 98 inch telly or the hi-fi they pilfered from Curries during the riots ... .. okay, let's say some bloke's just bought himself a Lamborghini and wants to show-off to his mates and fancies impressing the ladies while he's at it ... .. so the tweet would go something like this "Guess wot, I've got a new Lambo, form a queue outside # 25 Acacia Avenue if you fancy a shag" ... .. and, by the time our Twat woke-up from his exertions, he may well have a WAG or three to show for his troubles, but his pride-and-joy will already be half-way to Nigeria in a shipping container !!
Compounding this verbal diarrhoea, we then have Google Street View, which directs 'uninvited guests' directly to your door - more often than not your back door - and allows them to 'case-the-joint' from the comfort of their no doubt stolen 3-piece-suite. Google Street View and Google Earth are the biggest invasions of privacy ever known to man and they should never have been allowed to provide close-up views of people's homes - other than a heavily pixelated, birds-eye view perhaps. In fact, if the owners and occupants of every residential property in the country filed privacy complaints with Google Earth - as Web Sheriff has had to do on numerous occasions on behalf of concerned clients - we could bring the whole edifice crashing-down ... .. meanwhile, maybe some of their senior executives would like blow-ups of their homes published on-line for the benefit of our Whiskers friends.
The irony here is that, with so many people publishing personal information on-line who really shouldn't, when you actually need personal information for a valid purpose, it's either not there or is hidden behind some 'privacy service', the likes of which should be outlawed. In fact we had two such cases this very week ... .. in the first, a prolific 'leaker' had been busy uploading stolen, unreleased material by a very major artist on web-sites all-over the net and yet had managed to cover-his-tracks - or so he thought ... .. ultimately, however, some on-line sleuthing coupled with some traditional gum-shoe work brought the villain to justice (so to speak) ... .. and, in a second, similar case, but this time dealing with the fraudulent registration of other people's names as domain names, we're about to issue a US court subpoena in order to finally unearth the identity of the miscreant.
SO, there-you-have-it ... .. digital diarrhoea or a healthy dose of i-Modium (aka 'Put-A-Sock-In-It') ... .. take your choice and just remember that there's plenty more room in that shipping container for the contents of your living room !! ]]>If It Pleases M'Laudtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9791662011-09-25T19:00:00-04:002011-11-25T05:12:02-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/Your Face or Mine), this week the nation's judiciary have been issued with an updated Guide to Judicial Conduct, containing the do's-and-don'ts and netiquette of their on-line lives ... .. in particular, the prescient advice not to post too much personal information - such as the details of the latest S&M parties or massage parlours they've frequented - lest the 'criminal fraternity' decide to take advantage of these juicy titbits from their Lordships or their Highnesses, or whatever title one is supposed to use to address these post-Dickensian relics that somehow still populate our judiciary.
I say "Our", but these Bigwigs - literally in this case - are as connected to the rest of mainstream society as a lavatorial cling-on or one of President Bush's notorious, 'hanging-chads' ... .. being chauffeured between their men's clubs in Piccadilly and their country estates, the only real contact they have with day-to-day, credit-crunch Britain being the London beggars they see through the rear windows of their limousines - oh and the immigrant prostitutes they 'sleep' with of course.
All jesting aside - and many a truth is said in jest - I was once involved in a very important and very urgent injunction to do with protecting the famous Motown trademark and which ended-up in the Court of Appeal. In the High Court, the arguments (sorry - submissions) raged-on for hours, with regular references to the likes of Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, The Jackson 5 and Smokey Robinson and yet, when the Judge came to delivering his Judgement - in a case that was all to do with the value of the Motown legacy let's not forget - he started his summing-up with the words "You must bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that I have never heard of any of these characters" ... .. needless to say, he refused the injunction. This would almost have been funny, if it wasn't so shocking - although I suppose we shouldn't be shocked by anything the judiciary say and do when other judges are alleged not to have heard of Gazza or The Beatles !!!
And it's not just the details of everyday life that our Bigwigs are ignorant of - sometimes they appear to get the law wrong as well. In another High Court case that I was involved with (and in a trial that lasted a full month), the Judge decided that four lads who had formed a pop group together - that went-on to be very famous - were not in partnership together, despite the fact that they had all signed a joint contract with a manager, had all applied for joint trademarks for their group's name and had all been jointly touting their recordings around numerous record labels (ultimately to great success) ... .. unusually, the legal definition of a partnership is very simple (at least on this planet) and is just "Two or more persons carrying on a business in common with a view to profit" ... .. as our American cousins would say, "Go Figure [it out]".
With not dissimilar resonance, another client was in court this very week and has encountered the all-too-frequent dilemma of the costs of the case ending-up being several times the amount in dispute ... .. how can so little have changed since Dickens' startling Bleak House of 1852 ?!
Let's just have Virtual Judges and be done with it !! ... .. then this lot can party-away to their hearts' content, while the rest of the nation can get-on with the job of having a proper judicial system - one that's fair, consistent and, above-all, affordable ... .. to wit, let's get rid of litigators as well and just have a giant, Kubrickesque, HAL type database of laws and precedents, into which litigants-in-person can submit their cases via lie-detectors ... .. Judgements would be delivered electronically and in minutes and the 'legal costs' would consist of the bus fare to court.
So there you have it - Dickens' concerns about the legal system finally addressed, albeit a-hundred-and-fifty years late ... .. and, if my blog doesn't appear next week, I've probably been banged-up for contempt-of-court, in which case please start a campaign to free the 'Huffington One' asap !!]]>Health Warning : The Internet Can Kill Youtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9674782011-09-17T10:28:10-04:002011-11-17T05:12:02-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/
The Court was told that, whilst Duffy's medical condition did not explain or excuse his actions, his modus operandi was to post mocking messages on tribute and In Memoriam web-sites and Facebook pages set-up by the girls' families and friends. In one particularly depraved attack on the memory of a young girl who died by jumping in front of a train, the accused (and now convicted) superimposed the girl's face onto the front of a Thomas The Tank Engine train and posted the ensuing 'video' on YouTube. Fortunately, that video is no longer there - and, if it had been, we would have removed it immediately on point of principal - although the poor parents told the familiar tale of not being able to actually speak with anyone at social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter ... .. anonymous, on-line forms can be filled-in, but that's as far as 99.9% of people will ever get, no matter how serious the problem and it's even taken Web Sheriff years to build-up relations at these faceless monoliths to the point where we're able to pick-up-the phone and speak with people we know within these organisations to fast-track serious issues ... .. how come social media companies are so unsociable - could it be, perhaps, that they were all originally created by Uber-Geeks who (mis)spent their youth in front of computer screens 20 hours a day and who never fully appreciated the importance of human interaction ?!
Bearing-in-mind that - worryingly and sickeningly - internet bullying is becoming more-and-more prevalent, it's a ridiculous state-of-affairs that, with only the already outdated Malicious Communications Act 1988 (An Act to make provision for the punishment of persons who send or deliver malicious communications) at the Judge's disposal, the Court was unable to hand-down a sentence of more than 18 weeks. This is clearly insufficient - especially in the case of 'people' who try to torment others into killing themselves. In a similar vein and scarcely believably, Facebook recently tried to refuse to close-down a death-threat group who wanted to "kill" (their words, not mine) one of our TV celebrity clients ... .. having reminded Facebook of the terms & conditions of membership published on their own web-site and which this 'group' was clearly in breach of, we ended-up having to threaten Court action before common-sense prevailed and they acknowledged that a group called "KILL ###" might not exactly be a sub-section of the Salvation Army (his name is not 'BILL' by the way). As a somewhat happier postscript, we have the details of the twisted individual who set-up this group and The Police shall now be involved (although, to avoid disappointment, we're not talking about the Sting / Andy Summers / Stuart Copeland reunion tour).
On a more uplifting - but equally alarming - note, an Iranian democracy blogger was flogged this week for her writings ... .. when I say "uplifting" I'm not, of course, referring to Somayeh Tohidlou's punishment, but to the fact that her female guards in Tehran's notorious Evin (or should that be 'Evil' ?) prison actually refused to flog her and, when a male guard was eventually found to administer the punishment, he tapped her so gently as to make a mockery of the whole process ... .. maintaining her dignity throughout, Somayeh - who almost single-handedly introduced the concept of social media to Iranian politics in her role as an advisor to Mir Hossein Mousavi during 2009's controversial presidential 'election' campaign - continues to be an inspiration, particularly to women and her Facebook page has been inundated with support.
In certain other countries, however (Libya up to a few weeks ago springs-to-mind), the regimes would not be nearly as 'tolerant' - to stretch that word's true meaning to breaking-point - and political blogging can literally cost you your life. For now at least, I don't think that Call-Me-Dave will have MI5 on my tail but, if I ever did submit to the Cat o' Nine Tails, I'm sure there'd be plenty of internet 'pirates' in line who wouldn't pull-their-punches! ]]>Birds of a Feathertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9577562011-09-11T20:37:51-04:002011-11-11T05:12:02-05:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/
Apparently, the theory goes that, if 'happy' topics are trending, our 'merchant banker' friends should invest in positive stocks - like Butlins or Center Parcs presumably - whilst, if things are a bit gloomy on the tweet-telegraph, then investing in more negative shares (like Co-Op Funerals or News International) would be more appropriate. If this highly sophisticated analysis of market economics is what merchant w*nkers are paid millions in 'bonuses' for, then Heaven Help The Recovery. And have they never heard of 'share-bashing' - the practise of undermining a company's share value through the spreading of false rumours, so that the shares can then be bought on-the-cheap ?! Web Sheriff has had to hunt-down numerous 'bashers' on financial message-board sites over the years and Twitter is, of course, the ideal place to drive a company's share price into the bargain-basement... although don't try this at home folks - as you may end-up eating porridge for 2 - 5 years in colourful clothing.
Talking of dumbing-down, I read in the Sunday papers that, instead of the usual, rigorously academic questions from the days of O-Levels that tested the mathematical aptitude of budding students, this year's GCSE equivalent asked aspirants "How do you spell 500,000 in words?" : precisely what is that 'testing' - the little darlings' numeracy or their literacy (or neither ?) ?! Maybe anyone 'passing' this rather taxing test should dispense with A-Levels altogether and just apply for an internship with a hedge fund, as this would appear to make them perfectly qualified for the job - well, that and names like 'Gervais' or 'Timothy' and brightly coloured waistcoats... as 'bottom marks' are no hindrance to Old Etonians, used as they are to years of 'fagging' (although it's best not to mention this in the presence of Call-Me-Dave and Cleggers, as The-Happy-Couple are alleged to still engage in such practises).
In another interesting development last week, it emerged that the 'Anonymous' hacking group have been attempting to hijack trending topics on Twitter that they disapprove of ... .. which is kind of ironic, bearing-in-mind that they are supposed to stand for freedom-of-speech and freedom-from-censorship ... .. although, when one considers the inane subjects that manage to 'trend' on Twitter, they may well be doing the public a service.
Actually, thinking about it, maybe we should be drowning-our-sorrows at Twitter's hegemony, having successfully reduced the language of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Joyce and Wilde - and every other language for that matter - to 140 character soundbites worthy of, well, a 2011 GCSE scholar. Why don't Twitter just allow people to tweet for as long as they want and let the water find its own level - then participating in it would be a far more rewarding experience (or did their Amstrad server just not have enough capacity when they launched ?) ?? Although, if Maria de Jesus Bravo Pagola and Gilberto Martinez Vera in Mexico had been allowed more than 140 characters, then perhaps War of The Worlds would really have broken out : as it was - and with echoes of Orson Wells' 1938, radio epic of War of The Worlds, that duped tens of thousands of New Yorkers into evacuating the city in fear of invading aliens in flying saucers - they tweeted that Mexico's deadly drug cartels had seized control of all schools in Veracruz, sending thousands of understandably concerned parents into mass hysteria and causing 26 car crashes in the ensuing melee. Unlike Wells, however, who went on to receive an Oscar for his precocious, directorial skills, our pair of banditos are facing 30 years in the slammer for their not-so-jolly-japes ... .. which makes the 4 year stretches received by the Riots-R-Us tweeters in the UK somewhat lenient.
Any-road-up, not wanting to be outdone in the dumbing-down stakes, perhaps for next year's GCSE maths exam they should ask our Little Einsteins whether 500,000 goes into 140 ... .. let's try it eh kids ?! ... .. F-i-v-e H-u-n-d-r-e-d T-h-o-u-s-a-n-d ... .. I think I'm ready for that hedge fund job - now where did I put my red braces and Dapper Dan pomade ?!]]>Two Portions of Valves & Chips Pleasetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9481292011-09-03T19:00:00-04:002011-11-03T05:12:01-04:00John Giacobbihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-giacobbi/
Ever since The War - World War Two that is, for anyone born since 'Naam - consecutive British governments and, just as culpably, 'Merchant Bankers' (to put it kindly), have betrayed the nation's inventors, engineers and even entrepreneurs in spectacular fashion.
Curiously, this rot was inadvertently started by no-less than Churchill himself, when he ordered the destruction of 'Colossus' after The War. Colossus was the then Top Secret, but now famous, code-breaking machine (there were actually 11 of them) built at Bletchley Park by a team of scientists, mathematicians and GPO engineers (General Post Office - for anyone born after the re-taking of Port Stanley), that used thousands of wireless valves to decipher The Nazi's Enigma Code and is credited with shortening The War by up to two years - saving millions of lives in the process. The GPO engineers, incidentally, were from the quaintly titled Dollis Hill Research Station, which sounds like an establishment straight-out of an Ealing Comedy (and from an era when Ealing was famous for something other than riots). When I say "wireless", I'm not referring to something you can log onto whilst sipping a frappuccino at Starbucks but, of course, to big, chunky, old radios made out of wood and Bakelite by long-defunct (British) companies such as His Master's Voice, Bush, Murphy and Pye... there was actually another brand available on the British market in the Post-War-Years, known as 'Blue Spot', although this interloper was none-other than 'Blaupunkt', translated into and masquerading as English in a largely successful effort to deceive the Basil Fawltys of this world, who wouldn't have anything German if it was given to them.
I digress, however, as Churchill's rare lapse of judgment lies in the fact that he was, to all intents and purposes, a product of the Nineteenth Century and The Empire and, when The War was won, he lacked the foresight to envisage the colossal (excuse pun), civilian usage that this 'electronic computing device' would eventually be put to. What excuse did Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair have... or, for that matter, Call-Me-Dave ??! The answer, of course, is none... these sycophants chose, instead, to cosy-up to our Merchant Banker 'friends' in The City and to turn Britain into the gimmick of a '21st Century Service Economy'... which is more-than-ironic, as it was the self-same, myopic bankers - who could only see as far as their next bonus - who let-down our inventors so badly, by denying them the long-term investment that their collective genius was so obviously crying-out for. Instead, therefore, it was left to our American cousins to develop ENIAC after The War (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), that was the progenitor of IBM, microchips ('chips' to those born after the advent of Teletubbies), 'Intel Inside' and, ultimately, the ubiquitous iPods and iPads of today.
With similar resonance, Britain led-the-world in the development of jet-airliners in the 1950s, with the world's first passenger jet - the De Havilland Comet - and ultimately Concorde, which whisked its champagne quaffing cargo across the Atlantic faster than a speeding bullet... another, incredible feat-of-engineering that ended-up being commercially irrelevant, as the behemoth Boeing swallowed-up the world's airline market.
In a further example of our Post-War Decline - and, as Michael Caine would say, "Not a lot of people know this" - the Japanese actually invited engineers from Austin-of-England (as it used to be known) to teach them how to make cars... you guessed it, After-The-War... and Nissan's mainstay for many years was called the 'Datsun Cedric', because the Japanese thought that this made it sound More English and, therefore, more reliable and desirable - how the-worm-has-turned !!... for anyone born after the riots, Austin used to make cars - In England.
Neatly tying these last two, epic failures of British, industrial planning together, I currently have the pleasure - and enormous privilege - of being able to drive the last Armstrong Siddeley ever made (literally)... this automobile - as inscrutable as the Sphinx mascot perched on its bonnet - is not just superbly engineered (it had aircon, power steering, power brakes and automatic transmission - all back in the 50s), but is also sculpted as if a work-of-art and was made by the car division of The Hawker Siddeley Group, whose aviation division made Hurricane Fighters and Lancaster Bombers - during, You Guessed It, The War - and whose efforts also shortened Hitler's hegemony by at least two-years-or-more. This car, the aptly named 'Star Sapphire' ('aptly' as it was named after their jet-engine) epitomises both the excellence of British engineering and - sadly and simultaneously - what happens when British governments and British banks fail to invest in British innovation.
Anyway, on that note I must be off, as I've got a telecon with some showbiz clients in California... anyone got two tins and a piece of string ??!!!]]>