doc_holliday's comments

I would imaging they are simplifying slightly, by using the term app. They wouldn't know for completely offline apps.

They probably mean for instance the Gov would know when you use Instagram, Facebook etc on your phone.

As the iOS or Android app will be sending requests to Instagram, Facebook etc IP and the Gov will log this.

Slightly related question, does anyone know if these laws are backdated. I.e a year's worth of data retention is that available to the list of access from now? As in have ISP already been collecting?

Has the data collection started? Is it about to start?

Yes, the lack of outrage is worrying to say the least.

What I find very disturbing is the response I've got from some people in regards to signing the petition against the legislation.

"I don't want to sign that, I will probably end up on some watchlist".

This is incredible, to admit this you are basically admitting that we no longer live in a free democracy. If you cannot sign a petition regarding basic civil liberties without ending up on a watchlist then you do not live in a free democracy. Upon me telling them this, I am usually then greeted with a shrug.

Here is the response from the Government to the petition posted:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199

"The Government is clear that, at a time of heightened security threat, it is essential our law enforcement, security and intelligence services have the powers they need to keep people safe.

The Investigatory Powers Act transforms the law relating to the use and oversight of Investigatory powers. It strengthens safeguards and introduces world-leading oversight arrangements.

The Act does three key things. First, it brings together powers already available to law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies to obtain communications and data about communications. It makes these powers – and the safeguards that apply to them – clear and understandable.

Second, it radically overhauls the way these powers are authorised and overseen. It introduces a ‘double-lock’ for the most intrusive powers, including interception and all of the bulk capabilities, so warrants require the approval of a Judicial Commissioner. And it creates a powerful new Investigatory Powers Commissioner to oversee how these powers are used.

Third, it ensures powers are fit for the digital age. The Act makes a single new provision for the retention of internet connection records in order for law enforcement to identify the communications service to which a device has connected. This will restore capabilities that have been lost as a result of changes in the way people communicate.

Public scrutiny

The Bill was subject to unprecedented scrutiny prior to and during its passage. The Bill responded to three independent reports: by David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation; by the Royal United Services Institute’s Independent Surveillance Review Panel; and by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. All three of those authoritative independent reports agreed a new law was needed.

The Government responded to the recommendations of those reports in the form of a draft Bill, published in November 2015. That draft Bill was submitted for pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. The Intelligence and Security Committee and the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee conducted parallel scrutiny. Between them, those Committees received over 1,500 pages of written submissions and heard oral evidence from the Government, industry, civil liberties groups and many others. The recommendations made by those Committees informed changes to the Bill and the publication of further supporting material.

A revised Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 1 March, and completed its passage on 16 November, meeting the timetable for legislation set by Parliament during the passage of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014. Over 1,700 amendments to the Bill were tabled and debated during this time.

The Government has adopted an open and consultative approach throughout the passage of this legislation, tabling or accepting a significant number of amendments in both Houses of Parliament in order to improve transparency and strengthen privacy protections. These included enhanced protections for trade unions and journalistic and legally privileged material, and the introduction of a threshold to ensure internet connection records cannot be used to investigate minor crimes.

Privacy and Oversight

The Government has placed privacy at the heart of the Investigatory Powers Act. The Act makes clear the extent to which investigatory powers may be used and the strict safeguards that apply in order to maintain privacy.

A new overarching ‘privacy clause’ was added to make absolutely clear that the protection of privacy is at the heart of this legislation. This privacy clause ensures that in each and every case a public authority must consider whether less intrusive means could be used, and must have regard to human rights and the particular sensitivity of certain information. The powers can only be exercised when it is necessary and proportionate to do so, and the Act includes tough sanctions – including the creation of new criminal offences – for those misusing the powers. The safeguards in this Act reflect the UK’s international reputation for protecting human rights. The unprecedented transparency and the new safeguards – including the ‘double lock’ for the most sensitive powers – set an international benchmark for how the law can protect both privacy and security.

Home Office"

Again in their response, I have no idea what they really said. It's not clear other than some vague line on terrorism and safety. It's all a mixture of half speak and jargon.

Having attempted to read the legislation passed, I actually have no idea in a lot of ways what this bill does and what this bill doesn't cover. (The main thread of what it covers seems terrible).

I consider myself a quite intelligent and logical person, but I get lost halfway through reading it. It seems full of contradictions and half vague statements that could or couldn't cover something.

Are these bills purposefully confusing by design? It seems like you can interpret it in a lot of ways. Why is it not clear, concise and understandable?

From my interpretation they are logging the IP address and ports data transfered from.

So theoretically if you transfer data from insert bad orgs IP address here from within another innocent website you'd be logged for that.

Having been using the Django REST Framework for my latest project, I can too confirm that the REST Framework is Django's killer app.

The level of productivity in writing API backend you can get off it is insane.

I agree, finding a problem that is actually a problem (even if you aren't "passionate" about it) can work.

But I think that is the main point, seeing something that is an oppurtunity.

I was more reffering to people who "play startup" for startups sake, because it is cool or the done thing.

If there is oppurtunity and solution you don't need to be passionate generally.

Yes, I think startup for the sake of startup can lead to all manner of bad ideas. It's the reason why you have a lot of companies solving things that aren't actually problems.

Are there many examples of startups for the sake of startups that succeeded?

"inflation at current exchange rates is forecasted to go to ~3%"

I don't understand how they are calculating it to only be around 3%.

We are already noticing things to be running at around 10% in imports, and sometimes more across various things.

We import a lot in the UK; energy, food, goods.

I personally think it will be way above 3% possibly reaching double figures.

"We might hit a +10% on food price (and gaz) in a near future. It might get harsh[er] for big families and low income jobs, it's fine for people with good salaries."

However, those people with good salaries whilst seeing inflation running at 10% will likely not see a wage increase to match. And they may also have just bought a house...

At the same time as 10% inflation, the BoE may eventually have to raise interest rates to try curb capital flight from Sterling and make it attractive again.

Higher interest rates & stagnant wages lead to people not being able to keep up with mortgage payments (which have just increased and so has everything else but their wage).

This leads to defaults on mortgages at the same time as house prices are falling because people cannot service such large mortgages at 10% interest.

That will hurt a lot of people with good salaries in the short term.

"(~20% cut to GBPUSD, 1% inflation...)"

IMO we are about to hit much more than 1% inflation with the devaluation of our currency.

Think how much petrol has gone up, food is about to go up, imports are going up etc.

We will have much more than 1% inflation annually next year I think, and I don't think wages will keep up. That is if things go ahead as they currently are.

On the flipside this makes Devs in the UK much cheaper, and if we have the combination of inflation and stagnant wages then the housing market will collapse, which will eventually make UK more competitive.

That is all fine and well during a property bull cycle (which admittedly we've had for the last decade plus in the UK).

But equally property really ties you down if you are dependent on paying a mortgage. If you live somewhere with not huge demand for rental, then you cannot leave your job.

Mortgages and property prevent many people from taking time off, I could tell you of loads of people I know who cannot take time off because they need their monthly wage for mortgage.

It'd be really interesting to see the economic comparisons of both against each other.

I.e the cost per kg of payload shipping from America to Europe in 17th Century vs the cost per kg of payload shipping from Mars to the Earth in 21st Century.

I suspect the Mars in current day is much greater, but ships and crew back then were not cheap.

Oh, you'll meet loads of great people and it is an experience getting out of your comfort zone and leaving behind old friends in the city you grew up in.

I was just meaning in regards to differing opinions to liberal metropolitanism it will be very similar to London. Best of luck in your endeavour!

"My business is called The Echo Chamber Club — we curate articles that counter a traditional metropolitan viewpoint and send them to our hundreds of subscribers. It makes sense that I remove myself from London to understand new points of view and communicate them with my subscribers."

With regards to "liberal metropolitan" viewpoints, Berlin won't challenge you anymore than London did. It's just another global city where inside your group of people you are likely to meet (given what you work in) they will more than likely be liberal and metroplitan.

Lots of people need to access files on a server via Emacs or Vim. Having to deal with tabs there can be very frustrating.

It's possible that if FPGAs continue to improve as they are and catch up with ASICs in terms of density and price then reconfigurable HW may become a possibility.

At the moment, most of those task would be done on ASIC, so yes we might see those tasks done on FPGA.

There wouldn't be advantage in performance generally, only in that you could have true HW updates.

It is something I've been thinking about in that you could theoretically have a processor optimized for the game. So you could download HW on the fly (pre built) and flash your machines FPGA.

Unlikely for many years (if ever), compiling HDL down to an image to flash FPGA with takes hours. Routing wires etc is very difficult process and is very compute intensive.

JIT for FPGA is quite possibly mathematically impossible.

It's excellent to see FPGAs being increasingly utilised.

As moore's law no longer holds true for CPU, there is increasing interest turning to FPGAs. You can create a truly bespoke Processor for any task.

Of course this is trade of between development time / cost vs processing needs of task.

I suspect FPGAs demand to only increse over the coming years. Intel's integration of FPGA into their line of processors is a promising step and sign of where things may be heading.