The brilliant UK govt. has released information on plans to create a huge database of phone calls and e-mails based in Britain. Quite aside from the civil liberties/govt. intelligence agencies powers angles, the fact that there have been multiple incidents involving lack of data security within the last year have led to many people being [...]

This is definitely one of those cases where it is difficult to tell whether unfolding events are heading towards a better crime-free world, or simply Big Brother worming its way even further into our everyday, law-abiding lives… de Telegraaf (a Dutch newspaper) originally reported this issue, where the police will have access to live video [...]

This sort of post is perfect for the Aware or Conspiracy Nut category here at ChrisMerriman.com. Each of the following actually occurred, and are well documented. However, if your friend just bought up the topic without any sort of background info, you’d probably write them off as another internet conspiracy nutter. My thanks to Cracked.com [...]

I remember seeing a segment on a TV program back in the 90s that showed a Japanese research scientist playing space invaders without touching anything. He basically thought Left/Right/Fire, and a hybrid EKG machine ‘read’ his though patterns and sent the appropriate command to the computer.
It looks as though this technology has continued to mature, [...]

Just noticed that since changing ISPs, FireFox’s search bar now defaults to the Kazakh Google domain (google.kz) for searches. Any other Kazakh readers out there find this behaviour with FF?
Hmmm, nope, can’t find an online option to prevent this redirection from .com to .kz . Will see if I can hard wire it for .co.uk, [...]

I have recently being using Facebook more than in the past, and noticed a few new groups that were formed to try and influence Facebook’s policies on a few matters - members’ browsing & purchasing habits being sold on to 3rd parties, and all rights§ being signed over when photos are uploaded. In the first [...]

Whilst I am against the punishing of Peer To Peer users in general, it is interesting to see that France has tried a (slightly) different route in persuading people to stay legal when it comes to music, movies, games and applications. Check out the BBC’s article on it here. Monsieur Sarkozy has announced a scheme [...]

Just finished reading an interesting article over at the BBC site. It reports that Glasgow council are considering various ways to improve the health of their school’s pupils. Whilst their aims are obviously commendable, some of the options are quite laughable when you consider that it will be children who are expected to play along. [...]

OK, this is one of the last posts I will make whilst in Kazakhstan, so I intend to use it to catch up with a few articles, videos and sites I have been meaning to post about in the last few weeks. Otherwise I will return in a little under a month, and forget all [...]

OK it is 6.55am over here, and I am still up, hoping to catch another WorldWide Wednesday opportunity over at PayPerPost, as I managed to last week (see the Argus post). If it does not appear soon, I shall give up and grab some sleep. The official release time for these opps is Wednesday midday [...]

The technology is amazing. The possibilities can be mind blowing. There is no need to worry.
Only two of the above unfortunately apply in the real world. If we could have complete faith that there were no crooked police officers, scientists or even just lab tech, then perhaps all three would be true…
So what am I [...]

Reading between the lines of an article, it would appear that there have been rumours of government involvement in China, with hackers’ attempts to infiltrate German Government computer networks, in a similar way to how Russia was accused over Estonian security breaches (see my post from a while back - Moscow Get Techy). Given that [...]

WordPress.com has been officially blocked in Turkey! Although that does not effect this blog, anyone who uses the WordPress server to host their own free blog will find that Turkish people are unable to access their blog! There are of course ways to circumvent this issue, however for the average Turkish internet user, any friends [...]

Why would anyone ever search for the term “hide IP address“? Although it may conjure up an image of a geek in a bedroom, not wanting his activities recorded, there are a lot of main stream applications for this activity.
First of all though, a little background about your IP address. If we use a mobile [...]

Wikipedia Scanner - doing the leg work most of us can’t be bothered to go through…
As you will know if you are at all interested in Wikipedia, for most pages, anyone can edit them. This of course leads to issues when two sets of people have different views on what is reality. This leads to [...]

I enjoy watching NCIS, CSI, and Waking The Dead (the first two via some Swiss satellite channels, with the 2nd audio channel selected to retain the original English sound track, and the 3rd program from BBC Prime). Anyway, according to a Daily Telegraph article, the science behind finger print analysis has just jumped forward. Basically, [...]

Just prior to my hard drive crashing, I came across a post on an Irish blog, that really caught my attention. The main reason is that I will be flying out to Amsterdam, then Britain, then a little while later, making the return journey. To save a few hundred dollars, the trip is actually over [...]

I have linked to quite a few Malaysian bloggers in the past, and some have linked back, so when I discovered how the government over there is once more cracking down on them, using anti-terrorism laws(!), it came as sad news. Not shocking really, just a tad depressing.
If bloggers (one would assume their would be [...]

Just caught this report over on the BBC World news channel.
Apparently the American government and GreenPeace (for differring reasons) is not very happy at the prospect of KazAtomProm (the Kazakh Nuclear Company) wanting to buy an 8% stake in an American company, WestingHouse Nuclear.
KazAtomProm is a Kazakh state company that produces Uranium. Anyway, here is [...]

BP has asked bloggers to help put forth their point of view, over the recent debacle started by the Chicacgo Tribune with its recent article on the chemicals being placed in Lake Michigan. This is quite unusual in that companies will often want a positive slant or spin to be placed on the issue being [...]