Are you Fur Real?

The use of real fur in fashion has, in recent years, sparked huge protest from various extremist groups, People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in particular. But the presence of fur in the fashion world can be contested in numerous ways.Animal Rights extremists argue that there is no need for designers to use real fur in today’s world when there are such realistic and “ethically correct” imitation furs that can be used.This is the argument hurled at Blackglama’s new fur campaign headed by Liz Hurley. She has been on the receiving end of some harsh criticism from PETA claiming that “her wardrobe is now as dead as her career”.With groups such as PETA on the war path you may ask why designers still insist on using real fur when it is so blatantly going to attract such extreme protest with the splashing of red paint, wine, or any other “ethical” substances over any fur garments worn in public.Maybe these extreme animal rights activists are demonstrating a valid argument and the existence of such realistic fur imitations has made the need for real fur redundant, making the use of real fur in fashion ethically unacceptable.However, when considering the debate surrounding fur, we must go back to our caveman roots and remember that in those early days, real fur was used for survival to keep warm. There were no ethical issues in those simpler times. So if the cavemen of our primitive world thought it natural to use the animal’s fur, why do we have a problem with it now? And if Liz Hurley wishes to regress to those prehistoric times then who are we, or PETA, to judge?But perhaps it’s all merely a publicity stunt nowadays with phrases such as “there is no such thing as bad publicity” being coined in the minds of many of those who are hungry for exposure. With well known celebrities such as Natalie Imbruglia heading PETA’s own anti-fur campaign, we must consider the obvious publicity that these situations induce. So we must ask, is this all a PR stunt for the models and the fashion industry that animal rights activists are playing into? Or are groups such as PETA just as aware of the benefit of such publicity as everyone else?

Kangaroo's Hopping Onto our Screens in the New Year

It would seem that despite the current financial climate the whole IPTV/Video on Demand market is bubbling along nicely.Recent reports suggest that the joint TV on demand venture between ITV, Channel 4 and the Beeb will be hitting our screens early 2009.According to the Guardian"It is understood that Project Kangaroo will go into alpha mode in December with the uploading of programming content and aims to launch trials of the service early next year.The trials, or beta phase, will see a limited number of users allowed to access the service in a strictly closed test of the service's usability and functionality."Should we be asking Santa for an ADSL 2+ net connection or will the project be killed off by the Competition Commission before it even gets going?

Two cheers for the NHS

Of all the categories of sensitive data, it is information about our health and our medical histories that is perhaps the most personal and private.For example, you wouldn’t want a stranger – or worse, a colleague – knowing that you’re being prescribed Anusol Ultra for your chalfonts, would you? Nor would you want your boss to know about the methadone prescription, or your mother to know about your latest suicide attempt. Unless, of course, it was a cry for help.But even if it contains nothing as dramatic as an overdose, we tend to guard our medical history very jealously.So it may come as a shock to learn that not only has the NHS amassed a central database of around one billion confidential records of patient visits to hospital, it is routinely sending some of these records to an academic organisation outside the NHS. These records contain personally identifiable information, such as postcodes and NHS numbers, as well as medical information, including diagnoses and any treatment given.Now, a certain breed of querulous privacy advocate will start whining the moment they hear the words “giant database” in conjunction with “confidential data”. Not so data grub: we understand that there are often the very best reasons for aggregating personal data, as long as stringent measures are in place to ensure absolute confidentiality.In this case, the aim is to use this vast resource of information to improve the NHS’s service and treatment outcomes, which I think we can agree is a Good Thing.The other good news is that both the NHS and the academic organisation that uses this data, the inanely-titled Dr Foster Unit, seem to have taken decent precautions to protect patients. All data is held on encrypted discs and is sent by secure courier, which is a pretty good start. Then, at the Dr Foster Unit, the data is kept in secure offices, on disc-less workstations which have no link to the Internet.While this compares pretty favourably with the cavalier approach towards data security shown by other public sector bodies, among them the Ministry of Justice, the MoD and the Department for Work and Pensions, it’s certainly far from perfect.Our main gripe is that personally identifiable information (PII) is contained within the data that’s being sent out of the NHS. While PII such as postcodes may be vital for making distinctions between different areas of a town or the country, surely the NHS should secure people’s informed consent if they are to use their data in this way?So, two cheers for the NHS and the Dr Foster Unit for at least trying to apply best practice to the use of sensitive data. But, as we asked at the beginning, why should anyone other than one’s doctor be able to look at your confidential medical history, even if it’s just some academic at Imperial College?Now, if they anonymised this PII irreversibly, ensuring that records cannot be traced to an individual, while at the same time remaining useful to the bean counters (all perfectly possible with today’s technology), well – that would be just what the doctor ordered.

Pirates Français de P2P Feel the Noose Tightening

French file-sharers take note. This week the French senate voted 297 to only 15 in favour of introducing the controversial “three-strike” rule, giving ISPs the right to disconnect suspected illegal file-sharers if two warnings are ignored.This position runs contrary to the European Parliament’s view which rejected the “three-strike rule” in a vote back in April.After the vote one MEP said, “The vote shows that MEPs want to strike a balance between the interests of rights holders and those of consumers, and that big measures like cutting off internet access shouldn't be used."In Britain, ISPs favour a self regulatory approach and have formed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agreement between copyright holders and six of the UK's largest ISPs, accounting for around 9 in 10 consumer connections. However, the MOU doesn’t go as far as suggesting how persistent file-sharers should be dealt with and we are still waiting to find out exactly what happens to these alleged infringers.