ACOMSDave

Community Journalist

Where is your cloud storage?

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Cloud Storage

To store or not to Store

Research has shown that over 65% of cloud storage is controlled by these three big giants:

      • Amazon Web Services (AWS)
      • Microsoft
      • Google

And whilst they do protect your data, they also have to allow US intelligence and law-enforcement services to access the data because of US Laws which give them very broad powers.  So where is your clud storage?

Scare Monger

Now I could be called a ‘scare monger’, and as is often quoted @if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about’, but the latest tranches of data protection leaks show that mistakes can and do happen:

  • PSNI Police Details Leak
  • Electoral Commission hacked with all our personal details

The statistics for the US are equally alarming if not worse.

Conflicts of Interest

The European Union is very aware of the possible conflicts of interest between it [EU] and the United States [US}, and don’t forget that the UK is no longer a part of the EU.  Only recently the EU fines Facebook E1.2bn (£1bn) for having inadequate safeguards for data sent from the EU to the US.

We individually must think carefully about where we store our data, because the more knowledgeable we are of where it is stored, with whom, and on what hardware then we can make informed choices about safeguarding our data.  We need to be aware of the possibility of hardware failure, what happens if the US retreats within its borders and turns off the tap to allow us access to our data.

The EU have started thinking about this and are actively investigating setting up its own clud computing farm; but the question is, is this an option for the United Kingdom [UK], would we be able to go it alone, will be allowed access to the EU?

Questions, Questions, Questions

There are so many questions, and no one at present seems to have the answers.

What are your thoughts, comment and let us know

 

 

Comment and Let Us Know

Write a comment and let us have your thoughts

 

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Cloud Storage

The Glass Boat by Alison Ward – a gay book review

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The Glass BoatThe Glass Boat is a fairy story.  No, not the way you think I mean.  It’s the story of people who might exist, of events that could happen.  It is, in short, somewhat magical.

An old wharf building is to be pulled down and the site re-developed.  to the man who wants to do this it is only bricks and mortar, bo the woman to whom he entrusts the design work for his new edifice soon finds out otherwise.  It is a magic place, a place that brings her into contact with people who inhabit the same world as herself but not in the same way as she does.  they do it in a way that makes the wharf their world, using only bits and pieces of her world as and when they need them.  Dealing with the so-called real world is a problem for them, in that it intrudes on what they really want to do.

 

This is a magical book, with a magical story, written in the 1980s.  It entices you in, and you have to decide to continue with the journey or jump off.  Take a leap of faith and stay with the story – hopefully yo will be surprised as I was1

The Glass Boat

 

 

 

 

Information:

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Brilliance Books Ltd (26 Nov. 1983)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 96 pages

 

First published in Gay Star Issue No 16 held by the Linenhall Library

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More Tales of The City by Armistead Maupin – book review

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More Tales of The City

 

 

 

The City referred to is San Francisco, and More Tales of The City does have an awful lot of Bay City chic about it.  The first third is a series of short stories; some sections are very short.  So many characters are introduced that it is difficult to keep track of them all.

But the author shows his art, as in guile, by pulling these zany yarns into a ‘whodunnit’ with ghoulish undertones, that keeps the reader interested for the greater part of the novel.  The sub-plots go off in the near foreground, like a particularly colourful fireworks display.

The ending is over-neat though there are a number of loose ends, possibly deliberate to hand a sequel on.  this is the liveliest book I have read for a very long time, and I’d recommend it even though it is a bit pricey.

(Originally published in Gay Star in Spring 1985)

 

Links:

 

Title More Tales of The City
Author Armistead Maupin
Publisher Black Swan
Amazon Link Armistead Maupin – More Tales Of The City
Pages  
Price £33.98+p&p
Other Formats  
   

 

HMRC achieves Big Brother Status

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HMRC is watchingI was reading an article by Paul Rigney entitled ‘The all seeing eye – an HMRC success story?”, in itself the story does show a success story, in that the HMRC (for a government department) has managed to combine three discreet function into a fully functioning catch all system that enables HMRC to:

  • analyse tax data
  • collate information from credit reference agencies to pinpoint individuals and behaviours that may indicate fraud etc
  • They can extrapolate who is a director of a number of companies, his/her family connections and the companies that a partner is a director of as well as family trusts.

Investigations which may have taken weeks or even months in the past, can now be carried out in a day or less.

The HMRC system is called ‘Connect’, and its use and application will continue to grow with the planned introduction of quarterly returns and other instruments now in the pipeline.

These tools also enable the HMRC to keep a beady eye on online traders using such sites as eBay or HMRC - recovered moneyAutorader, or even Amazon and evaluate whether the trading sales activity qualifies as “business activity” or not for purposes of taxable income.

So why am I writing about what seems to be a perfectly valid use of resources and government money (remember it is our money)?   Well over the last few years I have written about ‘Big Brother’ government, and its abuses.  The latest of which has come to light through a FOI (Freedom of Information) request by one of our national papers, which showed how local government has been misusing the legislation, put in place to cover terrorism, to monitor all weird and wonderful things like, dog pooing in parks, litter louts, parents registration for schools etc – all obvious targets for the terrorism surveillance.

Government has to govern, and indeed we all want to live secure lives free from attack and terror; but what we must not do is give up our right to a free society, one in which we are not observed through discreet surveillance, one in which we can be locked up for disagreeing with government or taking pictures of a demonstration and use of police as examples.  the list of abuse is wide, and we as the voting population need to ensure that our freedoms are just that, our freedoms.  Ensure that you vote properly when you next have an election, it is your and your family’s future.