Category: Uncategorized

Yep, it’s been a long time in the making but we are finally off tomorrow morning to begin our two month around the world ramble which will see us eventually relocating to Budapest for a while.

Credit-crisis? Global warming? Yes these are all concerns but sometimes you just have to say what the hell and run for the sun. I am still planning to do some assignments and try and pick up some interesting blog material along the way – there are some very cool geothermal projects happening in New Zealand and Fiji that I would like to check out. But mostly it’s a chance to just to escape the gloom and doom with some hard-core mooching.

The flight/travel itinerary goes something like this:

Nov 16 – London to Hong Kong 

Nov 21 Hong Kong to Darwin (Aus)

Nov 26 Darwin to Alice Springs

Nov 30 Alice Springs to Cairns

Drive Cairns to Byron Bay

Train Byron Bay to Sydney

17 Dec Sydney to Christchurch (NZ)

Drive Christchurch to Auckland

31 Dec Auckland to Nadi (Fiji)

11 Jan Nadi to Honolulu (Hawaii)

14 Jan Honolulu to London (back on 15 jan)

18 Jan London to Budapest

Facebook is probably the best place to catch-up with where we are but I will be updating this blog with anything journalism or blog related I get around to over the next 8 weeks or so.

Going to be back in London for two or three days when we are back but then we are off to live in Budapest for 6 months or longer – depending on how it all works out and whether this freelance thing is really possible from anywhere.

That was the warning from security guru and BT chief security office Bruce Schneier who said that in five years or so, people won’t have to worry about ID cards anymore.

Not because libertarians will triumph and prevent the technology from being developed, but because ID checks will happen in the background without us even realising.

“I know there are debates on ID cards everywhere but in a lot of ways,they are only very temporary. They are only a temporary solution till biometrics takes over,” he said, speaking at the RSA Conference Europe on Tuesday.

“When you walk into the airport they will know who you are. You won’t have to show an ID – why bother? They can process you quicker,” he said.

I am not quite convinced about Schneier’s time-frame as look at how long its taken to get a plastic card with a photo on it approved so how long are we really looking at for sophisticated biometrics technology and the databases in the background to make it all work.

Still while biometrics for high-level uses in airports and law-enforcement might be a longer way off – more low-level uses by commercial organisations might be rolled out a lot sooner.

Just finished this piece for Heise UK on mySociety the organisation behind site’s such as Theyworkforyou which provides tools for tracking what your MP is up to:

A group of free and open source enthusiasts are challenging the UK government to use the internet to its full potential

About a quarter of one percent. That’s the extent to which Tom Steinberg, director and co-founder of mySociety.org thinks the UK government has managed to embrace the potential of the Internet to re-shape democracy as we currently understand it.

For the full article go to Heise UK