Investigatory Powers Act


Recently China implemented new restrictions on the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), by introducing the requirement for VPN providers to be registered with the Chinese Government. VPNs are very popular in China as a means of getting around the Chinese Government’s internet monitoring and censorship programme that goes under the euphemism of the “Great Firewall of China”.   Given the ability of VPNs to break state censorship it is not surprising that the Chinese government has initiated a clamp-down on their use. The internet monitoring busting capabilities of VPNs is something that the UK Government may have to face in the near future following the introduction of the Investigatory Powers Act (IP Act) and the Digital Economy Act (DE Act).  Both of these will drive an increased use of VPNs in the UK. In the case of the IP Act VPNs are likely to be employed by internet users to […]

What Chance a UK Ban on VPNs?


One of the most interesting phenomena to come out of the leaks of Hilary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta’s e-mails last year was the Pizzagate affair, which has also morphed into “Paedogate” (For those of you interested in getting a flavour of Pizzagate the #Pizzagate hashtag on Twitter will give you a good overview). For those of you not familiar with Pizzagate it is a narrative (or depending on your point of view a conspiracy theory) which claims that a child sex ring operated within the senior echelons of the United States Democratic Party.  This child sex ring was claimed to be linked to various restaurants, but in particular a Pizza restaurant called the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria in Washington DC.  It started with leaking of the e-mails by WikiLeaks and the story spread rapidly on Social Media particularly on Twitter, 4Chan and Reddit. Subsequent publication of the story by […]

Pizzagate’s Big Data Problem