Teknovis

The EU Commissioner for Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, gave a very interesting speech recently covering her vision of a single telecoms market in the EU. Some of her key points include:

… we need a different and very political discussion about delivering a telecoms single market.

…

I want you to be able to go back to your constituents and say that you were able to end mobile roaming costs.

…

It is my belief that we can deliver such a package – this full, final, package – around Easter 2014. Imagine that.

…

So, if you believe in the single market; if you believe in a strong Europe that makes a practical difference to each citizen’s life – then Believe. In. This.

The full text is available in Speech: The politics of the completing the telecoms single market, and you can watch it being delivered in I will fight with my last breath”: why we need a telecoms single market.

I have believed in a single telecoms market within the EU for a long time Ms. Kroes! Indeed, I do not know why it did not happen a long time ago! It seems ridiculous to me that I am charged different amounts for the same service depending on where I am located within a single market!

It has been a while since I blogged, so I am going to ease back into it…

I read today that one of the local authorities in Ireland is going to provide free electric car charging! See Electric car charging points proposed for Ennis Town in draft bye-laws.

I think that this is a brilliant initiative!

Tags: Ireland

Great news today – the EU parliament has blocked Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)! For further details see Anti-piracy treaty voted down.

This must be embarrassing for the Irish Government (amongst others)!

It is also a great example of how giving more power to a democratically elected EU parliament is good! This is thanks to the Lisbon Treaty!

There was an interesting story in the news today about a man who was sentenced to a two year jail term for possession of child pornography images. See Father jailed over child pornography for further details.

In particular, the article states:

Defence counsel said the case was unusual as 24 of the 27 images were virtual images – no actual children were used to create the images.

I wonder if all 27 images had been “virtual images”, would he still have received a prison sentence? Indeed, would it even be a crime to posses such images?

I am going to be controversial here, but in my opinion the possession of virtual images definitely should not be a crime.

I must admit that I am also uncomfortable with the idea that the possession (or distribution) of any types of images is a crime. It seems illogical to me to say that if you arrange your 1s and 0s in this order it is a crime, but it is perfectly legal to rearrange them in a different order (to produce a different image).

For the sake of clarity, I believe that it definitely should be illegal to produce such images.

Tags: Ireland, Pornography

Sean Sherlock is the Irish Minister (albeit a pseudo minister) who is responsible for research and innovation. Unfortunately, he is also a bit of an idiot :( He is one of many Irish politicians that has very little understanding of the Internet, yet he still embraces creating legislation relating to the Internet.

He recently gained a lot of publicity for championing a piece of legislation referred to as “Irish SOPA”. Naturally, he decided to pursue this shortly after it was abandoned in the US! At the same time Sean and his government colleagues want Ireland to become a major international centre for IT excellence. Yes, it is a sad reflection of this country that our politicians are so inept :|

This week I came across a site detailing how Sean has violated copyright several times on his own web site! The details are in Sean Sherlock TD violates copyright on his own site…, and it is very interesting reading!

Sean, you are truly an embarrassment to those of us working in research and innovation!

Tags: Ireland

I recently read an article about Irish politicians wanting to censor the Internet – Senators want online abuse images blocked.

They are calling for Minister for Justice Alan Shatter to introduce systems to block access to websites containing child abuse material.

It always amuses me to hear politicians pontificating on subject matter that they do not understand :)

Tags: Censorship, Ireland

The software developed by two Irish companies is currently being used by the Syrian Government to monitor and block communications within the country, according to Syria regime ‘using Irish technology’.

The companies are AdaptiveMobile and Cellusys. I had a quick look at both of their web sites, and neither company appears to be publicising this! This seems strange, given how topical Syria is these days!

Perhaps these two companies are not proud of this particular sale and produce use!

Actually, if I attend Mobile World Congress this year I might visit their stands to discuss this!

Tags: AdaptiveMobile, Cellusys, Mobile World Congress

If you are one of the many hard working private sector employees in Ireland that earns the average industrial wage, and you are facing the prospect of paying substantially higher taxes in 2012, then you may be wondering what is the Irish Government doing with your money.

You might find the answer, or at least part of it, in the following article: Most public servants on under €60,000.

Almost 20,000 public servants earn €20,000 or less per annum; more than a third are paid €40,000 or less and another third get between €40,000 and €60,000.

So two thirds of Irish public servants earn more than 40,000€ per annum. As far as I remember, the average industrial wage in Ireland is approximately 40,000€. So this means that two thirds of public servants earn more than the average industrial wage!

The fact that so many private sector employees are supporting the privileged positions (inflated salaries, guaranteed job security, and defined benefit pensions to mention a few privileges) of their public sector counterparts needs to be considered in the context of a government that is only surviving due to a financial bailout.

Again this highlights one of major problems we have in this country, and it really cries out for reform!

Tags: Ireland

Happy New Year everybody! I hope that it will be a good one for you! I thought that I would start the year with something light-hearted :)

I have not been following the recent Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) arguments, but I know enough about it to know that I am against it :) Anyway, I came across the following humorous comment by Dave Piscitello:

If #SOPA passes, supporters will seek to change Internet’s TCP/IP to Trademark Copyright Patent/Intellectual Property

Enjoy!

I finished reading “The Shadow Factory” by James Bamford today. (Amazon link to book.)

"The Shadow Factory" by James Bamford

It was an interesting read, but I felt that it lost its sense of direction somewhere in the middle :( In the beginning it read very like a novel describing the events leading to the 9/11 attacks. This was very gripping! However, the writing style then became more factual, and it seemed to randomly jump from topic to topic.

It was an interesting time to finish reading this book, because I see that part of its subject matter is in the media: Telecom Immunity Ruling Upheld by U.S. Appeals Court.