News about or from Bristol Wireless
News has just arrived via email that registration for the Bristol IT Megameet (news passim) on 1st June has now been extended until Friday 24th May. To quote from the email: Although we currently have over 250 people registered, with the very recent addition of a couple more sponsors, we are now able to take […]
Next month on the weekend from Friday 7th to Sunday 9th, BarnCamp 2013 – a weekend of hacktivism, workshops, entertainment, politics and fun in the sun – will be taking place. BarnCamp is three days of workshops, discussions, demos and practical how-to sessions looking at how technology can be useful (and dangerous) for campaigners, community […]
On Saturday 1st June, UWE will be hosting the 2nd Bristol IT MegaMeet on its Frenchay Campus at Coldharbour Lane Bristol BS16 1QY (map). The event itself will be taking place in Rooms 2Q42 to 2Q50 in Q Block; more direction details and maps here. The event starts with a brew at 9.30 am, with […]
The W3C, the organisation responsible for web standards (which have so far been open standards. Ed.), has taken a step away from openness now that the HTML Working Group has announced their decision to release a First Public Working Draft of the Encrypted Media Extension (EME) specification and a statement has also been released by […]
As reported yesterday, Bristol Wireless is a signatory of the letter below that was submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on 24th April 2013 (news passim). Dear Sir Berners-Lee [sic], We write to implore the World Wide Web Consortium and its member organizations to reject the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) proposal. As prominent […]
Along with many prominent organisations around the world dedicated to defending internet and computing freedom, such as the Free Software Foundation, Free Software Foundation Europe, Bristol Wireless will be signing a letter to be sent to the W3C, the web standards consortium, to protest against proposals to include Digital Rights Management (DRM) – in the […]
The pressure is continuing to mount on the UK government’s proposals to monitor all of the UK’s internet and telecommunications usage and store users’ communications data under Home Secretary Theresa May’s proposed Communications Data Bill, also know as the Snooper’s Charter. On Saturday, the Daily Telegraph reported that the Home Office is facing legal action […]
Ben Hammersley, an adviser to 10 Downing Street on the Tech City (aka Silicon Roundabout. Ed.) project, has emerged as the latest critic of the government’s proposed Communciations Data Bill or Snooper’s Charter (news passim). Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Hammersley is quoted today as saying: As a society, it would be stupid to build […]
Regular readers will realise that Bristol Wireless has grave concerns about the Communications Data Bill, otherwise known as the Snooper’s Charter (news passim). As an organisation we contacted the Home Office urging for proper consultation on the Bill, which is currently being redrafted. However, it now appears that the Home Office is not interested in […]
The email below has been posted today to the Hacktionlab mailing list. Hi All, I’m pleased to announce that the BarnCamp 2013 sign-up is now live and on-line: https://barncamp.org.uk/ More information about BarnCamp on that site and at: https://hacktionlab.org/barncamp/ You know what to do! 🙂
The words free (as in freedom. Ed.) and open are quite commonly associated with academia and education: free thought, open access to knowledge and such like. Indeed, these concepts are actually embodied in the names of some academic institutions, such as the UK’s Open University and Germany’s Free University of Berlin. However, there are signs […]
Next Wednesday, 23rd January, has been designated CiviDay 2013 and 2 meet-ups have been arranged in London and Bristol respectively for users of CiviCRM, the open source CRM package, as used by Bristol Wireless. The meet-ups are described as a great way to: network with the CiviCRM community; find out about how people are making […]
Ever heard of vendor lock-in? Here’s a definition from Wikipedia: In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs. One of the techniques used to achieve vendor lock-in is offering certain customers […]
Regular readers will be aware that Bristol Wireless is deeply concerned about the implications of the Government’s proposed Communications Data Bill (news passim). Yesterday the secretary (aka the chief scribe. Ed.) has had the article below posted on local news website on Bristol24/7. In June of this year, the Government published its draft Communications Data […]
Yesterday evening the chief scribe attended the launch of Accessible Bristol down at Bristol’s City Hall (formerly the Counts Louse). Accessible Bristol’s aim is “bringing together digital and strategic knowledge to champion inclusion in Bristol and the South West”. We were welcomed to the event Stephen Hilton, the council’s Director of Futures (the man with […]
About this time 10 years ago, Bristol Wireless made its initial tentative appearance online. The very first item we posted online was the holding page (complete with the obligatory typo! Ed.) in the image below. The image comes courtesy of Archive.org’s Wayback Machine, which regularly trawls the web to archive its constantly changing face. The […]
Regular readers will know that Bristol Wireless takes a dim view of the government’s draft Communications Data Bill, also known as the Snooper’s Charter (news passim). Consequently, we were pleased to hear that the Open Rights Group is organising a series of workshops around the UK so supporters can help to tell people across the […]
Regular readers will recall that some time ago Bristol Wireless wrote to its local MP, Dawn Primarolo about the draft Communications Data Bill, aka the Snooper’s Charter (news passim). We have now received a reply from Dawn, which states the following: Thank you very much for your letter in connection with the draft Communications Data […]
The following email has been received today in the lab from the privacy and anti-censorship campaigners, the Open Rights Group (ORG): Hi all, As I mentioned in my previous email ORG are launching a big drive for new members. The plan is to launch our campaign to fund a Legal Officer on Thursday 1st of […]
News has just arrived in the lab via our IRC channel that Bails, one of our long-standing volunteers and his partner Nurçan have had a baby girl weighing in at 3.12 kg (or 6 lbs 14 oz in old money. Ed.). This happy event was announced by us on Twitter as follows: congratulations BW volunteer […]