Month: January 2012

WATCH OUT ROAD USERS OF NEW ZEALAND

Posted on by Matt Taylor 5 Comments

Because I can get my full licence.

Approved

I posted a while ago about changes to the graduated driver licensing system in New Zealand. The changes weren’t advertised well. I ended up having to apply for an exemption for my full licence. The exemption form (PDF) contains stupid questions and you have to pay $27 for them to read your application.

Here’s what to write to get an exemption

Please provide details of the requirements you wish to be exempted from and why you wish to be exempt from them
The new age of 17 and six months to get a full licence (w/ approved course)
I understand that the exemption will apply from the [date I will have had my restricted licence for a year]

What have you done to mitigate the risks to road safety?
As of [x] I will have help my restricted licence for 12 months.
I have completed an approved course (cert attached)
I have not committed any traffic offending (including speeding or breaching licence conditions)

Question 5: What events have been occurred to make the legislated requirements unnecessary or inappropriate in your case?
Change of the age to get a full licence was not well publicized. If I had booked my licence test before the age changed, the new age wouldn’t have applied to me.

Image credit: Hobvias Sudoneighm

Posted in Law, Life, New Zealand

THAT’S A RECORDING DEVICE!

Posted on by Matt Taylor Leave a comment

Spilt tea

Someone has finally released the teapot tapes, the recording of John Key and John Banks talking at a Newmarket café, inadvertently recorded by cameraman Bradley Ambrose. This should have happened before the election.

Stuff are probably referring to the partial phone number John Key gives out when they say the authenticity of the tape is confirmed by information in the tape.

Here’s Steven Price on why it’s okay to link to.

Apparently police want to talk to six people who were in the café during the talk, because, you know, they probably recorded the conversation as well! (Or they can provide better details than the camera footage the police have?)

Mirrors: YouTube, SoundCloud and here.

Highlights:
(first four based on XboomcrashbangX’s comment on YouTube)

2:40 National Party are working with someone they would rather not. They are careful not to mention who.

4:08 A lot of Winston Peters’ constituents/supporters will have died.

6:10 John Key purposely doesn’t text John Banks so that it appears they are not working too closely, so they can say that they haven’t been in contact.

6:52 Don Brash is a strange fellow.

7:22 Is that yours? That’s a recording device!

7:40 What’s that? Someone’s recording device. Let’s take it with us.

10:30 It’s right here and it’s still going. [something about turning it on/off.] Take the batteries out.

Image credit: Lee Jordan

Posted in Free Speech, Law, New Zealand

Congratulations Internets

Posted on by Matt Taylor Leave a comment

But your work is not over.

Wikipedia SOPA PIPA Blackout Protest

On January 18 the users and companies of the internet rallied together to protest against SOPA and PIPA, bills that would censor the internet. Check out the numbers. It worked. Here‘s part of a huge list, with even bigger names on it of the sites that participated in the blackout. Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, BoingBoing and Wired are among them. Here’s the page Wikipedia displayed. The Wikipedia page about SOPA and PIPA was accessed more than 162 million times during the 24 hours the site was blacked out. More than eight million people looked up their elected representatives’ contact information via Wikipedia’s tool, crashing the Senate’s website. At one point, 1% of all tweets on Twitter included the #wikipediablackout hashtag.

SOPA? PIPA?

Is it over?

It is likely the bills will be back in one form or another:

What’s the best way for me to help? (for U.S. citizens)

The most effective action you can take is to call your representatives [phone calls have the most impact] in both houses of Congress, and tell them you oppose SOPA, PIPA, and the thinking behind them.[9]

What’s the best way for me to help? (for non-U.S. citizens)

Contact your country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar government agency. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and any similar legislation. SOPA and PIPA will affect websites outside of the United States, and even sites inside the United States (like Wikipedia) that also affect non-American readers — like you. Calling your own government will also let them know you don’t want them to create their own bad anti-Internet legislation.

For New Zealanders, that’s the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Their contact details are here.

Megaupload

Megaupload’s website was taken down a day after the protest (without trial), with related people being arrested in New Zealand, and property confiscated. Are we okay with helping enforce US copyright law which, as SOPA and PIPA shows is heavily influenced by the entertainment industry? Is this what extradition should be used for?

It appears, at first glance, that Megaupload was removing infringing material on request. Although it seems their take down procedure was molded around the way they store files–only storing one copy of it if it is uploaded more than once, but giving out a unique URL for the file.

Megaupload has many similarities to other websites, which makes this concerning. It was definitely used for legitimate and legal purposes by legitimate users.

Tech Liberty asks do we need to obey laws from other countries while on the internet, if so, what countries?

Even if I have a web host in one country, what if they provide services via another country? The internet is so connected, how do we know whose laws apply?

Image credit: LoveNMoreLove/Wikipedia

Posted in Free Speech, Law, New Zealand, Technology, Worldwide

Follow Up: Personal Information In Emails, Library Edition

Posted on by Matt Taylor Leave a comment

Deleting messages

I posted a while ago about a security issue with TelstraClear’s webmail. Mainly that someone could access an email account through the referring URL gathered through visitor analytics tools available for most websites.

This made me think about the personal information that I have in my email account.

The library here in Christchurch includes users’ addresses in the header of all emails that they send out automatically (reminders about due books, holds, etc). I gather libraries around the country do this.

This always struck me as strange, because there’s no need to include this information.

An address isn’t the most private information in the world, but if someone broke into my email account, it’s something I wouldn’t like them to have.

So I asked the library about it. Here’s their response:

“Thank you for your recent query as to why postal address details are included in Christchurch City Libraries customer email notifications.

SirsiDynix, the integrated library system provider used by Christchurch City Libraries, have responded that identical address information is shown on both notification options [email and snail mail] because the reports draw on the same User Address information. Their opinion is that modifying the script to suit emailed notices would harm the report’s ability to print the needed addresses for mailed notices.

Unfortunately in-house report customisation is not currently a viable option because of time and financial constraints but we would certainly re-evaluate should there be further customer demand. We are not aware of any likely changes to the SirsiDynix system in the near future.”

No dice.

Image credit: Fiona Bradley

Posted in New Zealand, Technology

Follow Up: ASB Tertiary Accounts

Posted on by Matt Taylor 1 Comment

Last month I posted about what I hate about banks. I mentioned ASB was trying to convert me to a tertiary account. Here’s some clarification around that, courtesy of ASB:

  • Tertiary accounts are available to anyone going past normal schooling to study, regardless of whether they are over 18.
  • Headstart (youth) and the Tertiary account have the same fees – both have no transaction fees.ASB's fee table
  • When you turn 19 a Headstart account migrates to a Streamline account that has more fees. The reason for the campaign is to direct students to a Tertiary account if they’re eligible for one.

Damien Leng, Head of Transactions says “We try to outline the full services of the tertiary account so that you know these are available to you when you are 18” and “I think we could be clearer with what is available to under and over 18’s”, which is great.

Posted in New Zealand

PayPal Policy Update Strangeness

Posted on by Matt Taylor Leave a comment

PayPal send out emails about policy updates. Here is one of them:

PayPal Policy Updates

There’s a few strange things going on.

1) I’m not in Singapore but get sent their Singapore address.

2) They link to their site when they could have just said “go to PayPal’s website”. Getting people into the habit of clicking on links asking them to log in, especially ones with weird extensions doesn’t seem good.

3) If you’re going to include a link, at least link to the changes. Why do I have to log in and go to notifications to see them?

4) On the same note, why aren’t the changes just included in the email to begin with?

Here’s one of the changes listed in notifications:

PayPal Policy amendment

It is the whole PayPal User Agreement. What has changed? Who knows.

To their credit, a more recent January change just has the part of the policy that has changed.

Maybe they’re learning.

Posted in Technology, Worldwide