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2011 February 27
At the PPUK conference yesterday, Rick Falkvinge explained PPSE's "Three Pirate Rule". In the finest Pirate tradition, we're copying it.
PGP Keysigning at the PPUK Conference
2011 February 22
In a world where the capability to intercept and/or forge communications is ever increasing, it is becoming more and more important to have a trustworthy way to ensure that an e-mail is actually from who it claims to be from, or to ensure that only the intended recipient can read its contents. One widely-used communications security system is Pretty Good Privacy (or PGP), and in particular the GNU Privacy Guard implementation.
Due to the way PGP works, it is necessary to establish a web of trust between users, which is carried out by signing PGP keys that you trust with your own PGP key. A common way of building an initial web of trust is a keysigning party, which allows users to quickly and easily verify a large number of other users' keys. I will be holding a PGP keysigning party at next weekend's Pirate Party UK Conference in Glasgow. If you wish to take part, read on.
A Bill of (removing) Rights - Why We Need the ECHR
2011 February 17
This week, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced that the government will be establishing a Commission to investigate creating a British Bill of Rights (or rather, another one, in addition to the one of 1688). Such a Bill would be aimed at replacing the Human Rights Act 1998 (the "HRA"), and by doing so, removing the requirement that the Courts and other public bodies act in a manner compatible with the European Convention of Human Rights (the "ECHR"). This is being sold to us on several grounds; in particular, that it is for Parliament to make laws, not the Courts, and certainly not some "bureaucratic, foreign" court in Strasbourg. In particular, issues have been raised over decisions by various Courts that prisoners should not automatically be disqualified from voting (in 2005) and more recently, that those on the Sex Offenders Register should have some form of appeal available to them.
These arguments are, of course, completely ridiculous. The actions of the Government are most troubling.