Of Interest.

Here are some interesting stories I got from the Victims of the state blog

Mi5 informants to legally commit crimes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning

here one that’s all bias from the Irish Independent

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/election-2020/millennial-voters-turned-their-backs-on-their-moral-values-and-ira-victims-to-elevate-sinn-fein-to-the-brink-of-power-38963588.html

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/columnists/fergus-finlay/fergus-finlay-voters-want-sinn-fein-to-govern-but-there-are-caveats-982242.html

 

On the National Broadband Plan- Worst Deal Ever…

See the source image

 

Here something the Government announced in the last two weeks which has gone down like a lead balloon.  No wonder with the news that the Government was splurging out over €3 billion euro with its private partner investing only €220 million initially . The deal is so lopsided In the fact that the private contractor gets to own the rural broadband network after 25 years and the state/ public gets to own nothing after the same period. Basically the public has nothing to show for all the money they have  invested. The Government has sought to defend their plan but its not the vote getter they had imagined.

This Government has showed little enthusiasm for the public interest with contracts like the National Maternity Hospital to have the nuns as “sole owners” despite the public paying over €350 million to build it, also the National Children’s Hospital at record overspend at € 1.4 billion and counting upwards .

So why are we basically giving over €3 billion away?

There is loads of projects that need to be done but there is “no money” there to do them or so we are told. Everything seems to cost 3-4 times what they would cost anywhere else. The National Broadband plan is quite pricey and there is cheaper alternatives .

Another point to make is that whose job is it really to roll fibre broadband ? The answer is that its Eircom/Eir’s job to roll out broadband anyway and they have been allowed to bail out on people living in rural area’s and cherry pick by just connecting the towns only.

Its not good practice and eircom/eir shouldn’t have be allowed to “cherry pick” as they have. They (Eircom/Eir )are the national phone company and its the phone network that is being upgraded. Eircom/Eir collect the line rental and should be able to supply broadband services such as video calling, cable tv, music streaming etc … over the new fibre optic rural service to help finance the cost. The present “modus operandi” of Eircom/Eir and people in rural Ireland won’t be connected to a phone service. It shows what a disaster the Eircom privatisation really is.

 

 

Wikileaks & CIA Cyber-warfare

Wikileaks reveals CIA hacking tools in so far as publishing documents which they released on the their website on the seventh of March. Hacking isn’t a new phenomena and all intelligence agencies are likely to have methods to hack modern technology to find material on people who they have under surveillance. It may come as a surprise to some people but pimply faced teenagers are not the only source of malware on your computer, your mobile phone and lately your tv (smart tvs largely sold by samsung). It is quite a wide net when it comes to intelligence gathering and cyber-warfare,  they seem to want to keep tabs on the general population rather than targeted suspects who would be easier to “bug” or wiretap. Also infecting computer systems would allow them to be taken down in the event of hostilities breaking out, power generation and communications are likely targets and present a significance security threats to most nations. It is reputed that all software has bugs in it which can be activated by a certain sequence being sent to the computer which has been infected. Though I am unable to prove it but as they say “bugs in the software flash the message there’s something out there”. Protection of vital computer systems is a essential component of national security in the event of cyber-war. More measure have to be taken to protect people’s privacy, financial details and more industrial applications. Computer systems require through examination with both the software and hardware being scrutinized. Both hardware and software are reputed to come with “back doors” -remote administration  which are easily exploited by hackers. Manufacturers have to take seriously computer security and not have people surprised by packages installed on their computers. Technology has enriched people lives by letting them do more but sometimes maybe the less technology is the better option.

links of interest

The Hacker News.

Back Blogging again

Decided to give this blogging lark another go, hopefully will get good results this time.