BT and Phorm have recently concluded their latest trial of the vile WebWise deep packet inspection system, in which they propose to ride roughshod over privacy and copyright concerns to make money targeting adverts at ISP subscribers.  Interestingly this trial was proposed to involve 10,000 customers, and take  two weeks.  In fact, BT refuse to reveal how many participants there were, took two and a half months over the trial, and in their press release say:

RNS Number : 0686K Phorm Inc 15 December 2008

The UK Consumer advocacy group Which? has filed a complaint with the Solicitors Regulatory Authority about the activities of UK legal firm Davenport Lyons, who have been sending threatening letters to individuals accused of illegally downloading movies and games.

This is welcome news, as in many cases individuals appear to be wrongly accused, and the overall strategy appears to be to obtain a users ID from the ISP (based upon logged IP addresses) and to pitch the demand at a level below that which would justify paying for legal advice and above that which would just be ignored by the recipient.  In most cases this is around £500.  The internet is full of postings from outraged internet users, many claiming innocence.  Furthermore, it's clear from online news reports that whatever method Davenport Lyons' technical advisers are using to identify downloaders is rather suspect - not least because most domestic broadbad users have dynamic IP addresses. One example is that of an elederly couple accused by Davenport Lyons of downloading a hardcore gay porn movie.  It seems likely that in many cases, the accusation arises from unsecured wireless networks.

After the Home Secretary announced that the Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP) was not going to be included in the Queen's Speech, but that it was to be the subject of a public consultation, the Home Office has replied to the Open Rights Group's August 2008 FOI request  for information about the proposed scheme for spying into all our communications. 

Well, unsurprisingly, they have clammed up almost entirely.  The pdf response is here; the ORG article is here; one of the documents supplied is here.  Of course, any political moves with any kind of claim to be associated with national security can probably claim to be exempt from the FOI act.  It's to be hoped that the ORG will continue chasing the information in the run upto the publict consultation exercise our increasingly authoritarian Home Secretary will actually emark on in the New Year.

The IWF, those self-appointed and unregulated guardians of our morality have backed down over listing the Wikipedia page on the Scorpions album Virgin Killer.  You can read their statement here, and how ungracious and unapolgetic they are too.

I imagine they are a bit upset that their surreptitious filtering activities got thrust suddenly into the public view (including a major item on Channel 4 news).   From the notes appended to the statment:

 Here's a demo film from 1968 showing one of the first computer mice...I love the peculiar combined keyboard/mouse pad that resembles an airline meal tray.

[video:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1MPJZ6M52dI&feature=related 425x344] 

So, who watches the Internet Watch Foundation watchmen?  Wikipedia entry "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?".

A ZDnet article says "Wind up the Internet Watch Foundation"...

Very sad news- Oliver Postgate, the man responsible for many remarkably excellent childrens' TV shows has died.  There's a concise biography at wikipedia.

My particular favorite show was Noggin the Nog, but I expect many of us of a certain age will feel nostalgic over one or more of his TV shows.  He'll be missed.

The Open Rights Group has a well written article on the IWF fracas on banning the Scorpions LP sleeve image.  However, despite a report on the ORG site saying that the IWF is reconsidering it's listing of that Wikipedia URL, the Guardian reports that the IWF are thinking of extending its attempt to stop us seeing this ancient LP sleeve image via amazon.com.  Hitherto, some commentators had reckoned the IWF wouldn't go after websites with serious legal muscle, such as Amazon.

Interesting things:

• While we know the IWF membership, it's not any kind of body accountable to us or the Government.
• This issue has highlighted the existence of the IWF, which I guess many internet users didn't know if before.
• The list of banned URLs doesn't seem readily available.
  
• URLs containing dodgy material are submitted by members of the public.
• Apparently the decision to list a URL for banning is made by four indivuduals whose job it is to sift through submitted URLs.
• The criterion is "potentially" illegal, as defined by some training these four received from the police.
  
• ISPs blocking the wikipedia page via the IWF list inapprpriately serve up a 404 notice - from Wikipedia: "The 404 or Not Found error message is an HTTP standard response code indicating that the client was able to communicate with the server but either the server could not find what was requested, or it was configured not to fulfill the request and did not reveal the reason why. 404 errors should not be confused with "server not found" or similar errors, in which a connection to the destination server could not be made at all."

The IWF seem entirely unrepentant, and the spread of the LP sleeve image has probably spread round the internet as a consequence.  Try this Google Image search.  But don't click the link if you're likely to be upset!

The Sunday Times reports that our authoritarian Home Secretary's plans to prevent leaks from the companies working on implemented the expensive and unnecessary ID card scheme has itself been leaked.

What's particularly draconian is that it seems the desire is to implement a system whereby workers at these companies may have their homes searched without needing  a search warrant.

The Y chromosome in Drosophila is a strange thing, and it has several unique features.  While, just as in humans, male flies are XY and females XX, flies differ in the the Y chomosome doesn't determine "maleness".  Rather the sex of the fly is determined by the ratio of X chromosomes to the number of sets of autosomes (the X:A ratio).  If the X:A ratio is 1, then the fly is female, if it is 0.5, the fly is male.  So an X0 fly (i.e. one with a single X chromosome with no Y chromosome) develops as a male.  [This can be quite useful in the laboratory] What then is the Y chromosome for?  It is required for male fertility but not viability.  This means that XY flies are fertile males, XX fies are fertile females, XXY flies are fertile females and X0 flies are sterile males.

One might expect then that whatever genes are located on the Y chromosome are related mainly to fertility, or are genetically redundant.  In fact there are very few known genes on the Drosophila melanogaster Y chromosome - 12, in fact, and many if not all are related to fertility in males.  12 genes is really not many for a chromosome, and it turns out that the Y chromosome is pretty much composed of genetically inert heterochromatin and largely comprises simple sequence repetitive DNA.  

The nannys at the Internet Watch Foundation, the people who generate lists of websites it doesn't think we should see, have decided that customers of Virgin Media, Be/O2/Telefonica, EasyNet/UK Online, PlusNet, Demon and Opal should be unable to view the Wikipedia page about the 1976 album Virgin Killer by German metal band The Scorpions (if you've been blocked, you won't be able to see that link).  OK, it's tasteless (and I never particularly cared for the Scorpions' music), but should it have been blocked?

The blacklisting of this Wikipedia page has had consequences on the ability of those UK webusers to edit Wikipedia articles.

Hot on the heels of the good news that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that DNA fingerprint records of individuals that were not convicted may not be retained in police (or other) databases, comes less welcome news of the developing Surveillance State.

The Independent reports that the Government is to push through legislation to permit a variety of public bodies to share and exchange sensitive data they hold on us.

I got another email from the moderators over at the BT beta broadband forums.  This was in response to a post I made in which I referred to another posting which mentioned BT-Webwise- here is my posting (I removed a name, indicated by ***, and I think the post is obviously a little tongue-in-cheek):

Whoops, now you've done it, ****, you've mentioned it in your sig. Well, your post has lasted 15 minutes so far!
R 

Once again, I find myself interested in a paper about the analysis of a fossil! This time the point of interest is origin of the tetrapod limb digits. The origins of the proximal elements of the tetrapod limb are well understood, and can be seen as homologues of elements of the fins of sarcopterygian (lobe-finned fish). The origins of the digits may have been fin rays, or possibly evolutionary novelties. The latter explanation was supported by developmental genetic studies and analysis of fossils (including the subject of this paper, the transitional fish/tetrapod Panderichthys). In this paper, CT scanning was used to generate 3D images of Panderichthys limbs, demonstrating the presence of distal radials, and correcting a mistaken reconstruction.
The figure below shows the skeletal structure of the limb, coloured to show homologies to the elements of the tetrapod limb. 

 

I've been re-reading this book, which I bought and first read when it was published 21 years ago.  It is rather unfortunately out of print now, but is available online.  L. Ron Hubbard was a pulp fiction writer who, after a less than distinguished wartime career in the US Navy, reinvented himself though Dianetics, later used as the basis for the pretty bizarre Scientology cult. [Note: Scientologists react to criticism fairly aggressively.  Critical websites may be attacked by litigation or other means.  For example, note the warnings at the Wikipedia page, and this article at The Register and entries about Scientology at Wikileaks]

New Humanist magazine (they of the humanist trading card fame) - have an advent calendar in which every day in the run up to the annual midwinter festival of conspicuous consumption one of:

a stellar selection of comedians and scientists speaks about explains which scientist or philosopher they would like to celebrate each year as a rational substitute for Jesus, as well as what scientific Winterval gift they'd most like to receive.

Today I received this email from a moderator on the BT Broadband forums:

Your recent posts titled: "Re: Internet Radio Bandwidth usage?" and "Re: How do I delete my account?" have been removed as they contravene with the Forum Guidelines.

I have installed the AntiPhorm plugin.  This conducts two checks - firstly to identify if you are using BT-Webwise (by checking cookies), and secondly to check if you are using BT or one of the other ISPs who have publicly stated they are planning to implement the Phorm system.  If either of these two conditions are met, you will see a warning banner beneath the web page header.  You can carry on browsing the site.

If you see the warning banner, please take the time to visit the link for more information about Phorm, and its intrusive (and probably illegal) deep packet inspection by which your internet habits will be monitored in order to sendyou targeted advertising. The Phorm system is branded BT-Webwise when implemented via British Telecom.  Some points:

• BT-Webwise intercepts your internet communications - likely to be illegal under RIPA
• The system is "opt-out" rather than "opt-in", so you will be enrolledif you don't respond to the invitation to join.  This disregards legal requirements
• Even when opted out, your internet browsing will be passed through Phorm's profiling equipment
• Email read through web applications is likely to be profiled
• The system disregards website copyright

Here's a further update on the BT Total Censorship and the general BT-Webwise situation - for more background, see part 1,  part 2, part 3 and follow this thread at the nodpi.org forum. 

 

For much of my professional career as a Drosophila geneticist I've worked with polytene chromosomes, and it's always interesting to see papers with interesting tidbits of information about their structure and function. Polytene chromosomes are those rather strange structures formed from high levels of chromosome endoreduplication (see this blog article for a detailed description). Polytene chromosomes are widespread in flies, and in Drosophila are mostly studied in the larval salivary glands where they are easy to work with: Calvin Bridges used salivary gland polytene chromosomes to construct his polytene chromosome map. In this paper, Tom Hartl and colleagues show Condensin complexes (which have a function in chromosome condensation and anaphase chromosome segregation; and in vitro can induce and trap DNA supercoiling) can cause polytene chromosome disassembly and antagonise transvection.  Their data link processes of chromosome condensation and DNA supecoiling with higher order interphase nuclear structure that impacts on gene expression.

Unlike salivary gland polytene chromosomes, those of ovarian nurse cells break down during the development of the nurse cells, at about mid-oogenesis.  In this paper, two mutant alleles of a predicted component of the condensin II complex, Cap-H2 are studied.  In flies mutant for Cap-H2, the nurse cell polytene chromosomes don't disassemble.