Hello.

I’ve been wondering a bit about the way technology news is still ghettoised. I don’t mean news about the latest rubbish web 2.0 start-up with a ridiculous name. I mean quite important stuff. Security problems and the like.

Take what happened last week. A patch to fix a major flaw in the DNS was released. It is pretty important stuff. But the only mentions of it have been ghettoised in the darkest recesses of the technology sections, cordoned off in yellow and black tape with “warning: geeks only” written on it.

I don’t watch the television much these days, so I might be wrong. But I saw no mention of it on the news. I heard no mention of it on the radio. You certainly don’t hear people talking about it on the streets or in pubs.

You might think, “So what? Security update for X, Y and Z are released every day. You can’t have the news reporting it every day.” But something extra happened with that security update that was released last week: it crippled many users’ computers. Including my parents’ computer.

It is just as well I was still able to use my computer to try and find out what the problem was and how to workaround it. It turned out that ZoneAlarm threw a hissy-fit after Windows XP had updated and prevented users from accessing the internet.

In fairness, the BBC reported this on their website — but that’s not very useful if you’ve got no internet. Perhaps there are still people scratching their head about why they’ve not been able to access the internet for the past week.

The problem is twofold. One, the mainstream media seems quite averse to any technology story unless it’s to do with [say this like a caveman] “GOOGLE” or “APPLE”. Or “GOOGLE”. Simply, if you want to find out anything meaningful about technology you have to really know where to look for it.

And this brings me on to the second part of the problem. The people who don’t know where to look for information are also the most vulnerable users. There are people who, for whatever reason, can’t be motivated to take proactive measures to prevent themselves from the various security issues that inevitably arise when you use the internet.

I have a friend who bought a new computer a few weeks ago. The other day he complained to me that his new computer has already got spyware on it. The thing is that it’s not difficult to protect yourself really.

I’m not really a computer expert in the slightest, but I know the basics of how to protect myself — essentially keep all your software updated with the latest patches and don’t click any dodgy links. I don’t think it’s really a difficult concept. And — touch wood — these basics have worked for me. Since I got my own computer early last year I’ve never had anything worse than a tracking cookie on my computer (as far as I know — I just know that this is an invitation for my computer to explode under the weight of pop-ups tomorrow…).

But even simple measures like these that anyone can take are difficult to get through to some people. So many people still treat computers with awe. It is sometimes easy to forget how foreign computers are to many people.

I remember a couple of years ago when there was a really bad signalling failure on the train line into Edinburgh. Basically every train was cancelled. An old lady pointed to the automated departure monitor and asked why it said a list of trains towards the bottom of the screen were still listed as being on time.

This is what she said in protest (as though it would make her more likely to get on a train to Edinburgh): “I thought computers were wonderful things that never ever went wrong.” But even my basic knowledge of how computers work told me exactly why the trains were still listed as being ‘on time’ — because they hadn’t even departed from their start station, so hadn’t passed any sensors and weren’t technically late at all. The computer was none the wiser for obvious reasons.

This can be put down to the old issue that people in their thirties and younger have been using computers for almost all of their lives and understand what a computer is good for and what it isn’t. Youngsters who have lived with computers all their lives understand how a computer works, but for many people older than that computers just work by magic.

The thing is, that divide between young and old is not so clear cut as I used to think. I was listening to iPM yesterday and there was an interview with Clive Sinclair. He pointed out that back in the 1980s computer users really understood computers because they had to in order to get them to work. Today’s youngsters growing up with computers generally don’t understand computers at all.

So we come back to my friend who is the same age as me and has a problem with spyware. I have had a few conversations with him where I have tried to persuade him to use Firefox. For him, the internet is the internet and he doesn’t understand how one browser can be better than another. Even though I have told him about all the superior features and better security that a browser like Firefox or Opera can provide, he persists on using Internet Exploder version bum point poo.

Many people, through ignorance, don’t take the simple measures to keep themselves safe on the internet. I’ve had a look at the stats for this website to see what bad browsers visitors to this site are using.

In the past month, an amazing 20% of visitors used Internet Explorer 6. This is a web browser that was originally released seven years ago and last updated four years ago. It is notorious for its security problems. The more up-to-date Internet Explorer 7 was released almost two years ago.

You would expect Firefox users to be smarter, right? Not always. In the past month, 243 Firefox users that visited this website were using a version of the browser that is considered unsafe (which I defined as 2.0.0.14 and below). This included 19 people using 1.5.0.12, 11 using 1.0.7 and 8 using 1.5.0.3. Most amazingly, 4 visitors were using Firefox 0.9.1, a browser that has been out of date for four years. I dread to think what kind of security problems these users have been getting themselves in.

It got me wondering. If this many people are using dodgy browsers, how many people are still trying in vain to unsubscribe from spam emails? How many don’t know that even viewing an image in an email alerts a spammer that your email address is active? You could go on.

I don’t mean all this in a preachy kind of way. I completely understand why it is difficult for people to keep up to date with all the security issues that arise. I just find it really frustrating that simple awareness issues are not, well, made aware to people.

Things don’t get much more ubiquitous than the internet. It is impossible to imagine that someone growing up today will not be a regular internet user in some form or another. And there are real dangers on the internet that aren’t to do with [say this like a caveman] “PEDOPHILS” and “CYBER BULLIES”. But the media reports on made-up dangers like “KNIVES” and “YOOFS” and “KNIVES” as though we are on the verge of bladeageddon.

Yesterday I was listening to Digital Planet. They had a chap called Stefan Frei on reporting that around 60% of all internet users are using an out-of-date browser. He had a really smart way of thinking about software security. You should think of software as being perishable, just in the same way as foodstuffs. You wouldn’t eat a mouldy slice of bread, so why would you use a browser with a huge security hole in it?

It’s a really smart analogy that should be spread far and wide. It’s just frustrating that the place I heard it was on Digital Planet, which is probably listened to mainly by people who already know that they should be updating their browsers.

“Xenophobic” is certainly the wrong word. Xenophobia is the hatred of foreigners, and I am certain that SNP members as a whole do not hate all foreigners.

A more accurate word might be, well, nationalist. Hardly a slur, to some. But as I said a couple of weeks ago, I do find slightly distasteful an ideology that thinks the most important thing is where policies are made rather than which policies are made.

The comments might have resulted in the SNP rolling with faux-outrage. But I think we all know the certain kind of thing Jamie Stone was talking about, and it has a certain ring of truth to it.

Most SNP supporters probably call themselves nationalists (correct me if I’m wrong), but the way some of them react when somebody calls them the Scottish Nationalist Party is quite telling in a way. They know that the N-word sounds bad.

The E-word is even worse, and the SNP now goes to great lengths to make it look as though it quite likes (or is at least ambivalent towards) England. Not that I believe this is merely cynical political gameplay. I am sure that the majority of SNP members and the SNP party itself are not Anglophobic.

The problem for the SNP is the independence movement as a whole. Ask the average independence-supporting Joe on the street why he wants Scotland to be independent, and you are more likely to get an incoherent anti-English rant than any talk about the finer points of the economy.

So now rather than thinly veiled attacks on England or Britian, the official, SNP-led pro-independence voice is all about how successful small countries are. Although this doesn’t square with the SNP’s recognition that Scotland needs more immigrants. That is how you improve the economy, not divorcing Scotland from England.

Despite the SNP’s official line, there are little glimpses of what the SNP is really about from time to time. There are the claims from some SNP members that an independent Scottish Parliament would be inherently better than Westminster. It is never explained why though. Or why the Scottish economy would suddenly blossom once you erect a barrier at the border. Surely if Scotland was such a great nation it wouldn’t need to be independent to have a wonderful economy.

Take also the recent issue of the theatre in Berwick-upon-Tweed that was accused of being racist by SNP MSP Christine Grahame. What a cheek! Here is the SNP bullying a private theatre that is in a location that it would rather was in a different country! So much for independence then. It reeked more of scoring a point against England than anything else.

Christine Grahame was at it again when she made her offensive remarks bemoaning media coverage of cricket, “which is only of marginal interest in Scotland.” It played on the popular myth that cricket is a sport for English toffs and Scots are completely uninterested in it.

The problem is that it is actually a bare-faced lie because cricket is a more popular participation sport in Scotland than it is even in England and has a longer history in Scotland than even football.

And before you all start, I am very well aware that Christine Grahame was born in England. But this makes the point all that more important. Because I think the very fact that she feels the need to take these pot-shots at England and its culture is very revealing indeed.

A lot of people will claim she has a valid point about London-dominance in the media. It is a common complaint. But the points about media coverage are all rather silly if you ask me.

If Scottish independence even changed the face of the media, it would only mean that the news would be Glasgow-dominated (with a bit of Edinburgh if you’re lucky) rather than London-dominated. Big whoop if you’re in Glasgow. Not much cop if you are one of the majority of Scots who happen not to live in the big two though. We have enough Glasbolisation as it is.

New Labour is all about embracing the free market, getting rid of Clause IV and generally being nice and middle class. And every so often a Terry Kelly comes along to remind you what goes on when you scrape beneath the surface. By the same token, the SNP’s cuddly image can let you forget about some unsavoury elements of the grassroots independence movement.

In my post a couple of weeks ago I said I was considering voting for the SNP. As things stand at the moment, I won’t be. The debates over the past couple of weeks have reminded me why I dislike nationalism so much. I respect the Liberal Democrats that little bit more as well.

This story makes me angry on so many levels.

First of all, if I ever got a school trip it was to Edinburgh Zoo, not the bloody World Cup. These kids were on a “£410-a-head tour”. Where do schoolchildren get that sort of money to fritter away on a school trip? Where is this school? Zurich?!

Also, if you order World Cup tickets from a website that looks like this, you must be the most gullible person in the world and need to be taught this lesson anyway.

So what happens instead? The bloody government gives them tickets to grab a headline. Bastards.

I wonder if the government would be so forgiving of a company that pissed money down the drain like that.

Chris Applegate:

Won’t someone please think of the children? Well, fuck ‘em. They’re not the first people to be diddled out of their money, and they certainly won’t be the last. It would have been a valuable lesson in life - never, ever trust a tout. Instead the lesson they’ve learnt is to make a big moan to the papers and rely on cronyism to bail you out for your foolhardiness.

In that post I wrote about blogging a couple of weeks ago I said that I’d never gone out and investigated anything in my life. Well I’ve turned over a new leaf because that all changed today. To investigate the effects of the smoking ban I went to the pub. Of course, I could have gone to the pub on Sunday, but I couldn’t even be arsed to do that.

Anyway, I’ve never quite been able to make my mind up about this smoking ban. For purely selfish reasons, of course, I couldn’t wait for this smoking ban to go ahead. Too often it simply isn’t worth going out if you’re going to spend the rest of the day stinking of smoke. I will probably end up going down the pub more — I’ve already accepted one invitation that I probably wouldn’t have prior to Sunday. So instead of being on the fags I’ll be on the booze.

I’m pretty sure most people are in favour of the ban. I saw Jack McConnell on the television the other day going on about how young people in particular are heavily in favour of the ban. For once, I think he’s right. Maybe it’s just because I mainly associate with student lefties, but I can only think of one person who I’ve met in the flesh who was against the ban.

As a generation, we youngsters have had it hammered home to us pretty relentlessly. And not just by the government. Smoking family friends and relatives warn you never to start. Meanwhile, parents would disown you if you did. We know, we know: smoking will make you die horribly and slowly and those people who make you breathe in their second-hand smoke are absolute bastards.

There is just a feeling of inevitability about it all. The tide is very much against the smoking industry, and nobody is even attempting to turn the tide back in the other direction any more. Smoking in adverts is gone, smoking adverts themselves are gone, smoking in public places and workplaces is gone. And most people (particularly young people) seem pretty ambivalent about it. A friend told me he was half-expecting to see people smoking five at a time, but when I was out on Saturday I didn’t see any evidence of last-minute pre-ban defiance. It all felt very normal, in fact, as if the collective response was just, “Yeah, smoking ends tomorrow. Big deal.”

Given all this, though, I’m surprised the government even needs to step in. If there’s such a high demand for smoke-free environments, why aren’t employers and pub managers prohibiting smoking themselves? I heard that smoke-free pubs existed prior to the ban, but I certainly wouldn’t have been able to tell you where. I’d be amazed if there were any in Kirkcaldy, although I heard that there were three in Edinburgh (still not a lot though when you consider how many pubs there must be in Edinburgh).

I guess businessmen are just really risk-averse and are afraid to be the first to make that kind of decision. Just look at how all the broadsheets have turned to tabloid one-by-one. They’ve been banging on for as long as I can remember about how going tabloid will increase the number of readers because broadsheets are bloody ridiculous and give everybody a sore back. Yet none of the broadsheets made the switch, until a couple of years ago when The Independent had no other choice than to take a risk. Surprise surprise, more people began to read the Indy and then almost everybody else followed suit soon afterwards. See? It wasn’t so hard after all.

Anyway, back to the pub. There was the predicted huddle of smokers standing at the doorway, despite the fact that it was absolutely pissing it down today, but only at one of the four times I found myself passing through the door. It wasn’t the most pleasent tunnel I’ve ever been through, but it was a hell of a lot better than contending with a foggy pub for the entire duration of your visit.

Was the smoke cloaking other smells for all those years? The jury is out. It didn’t feel weird when I first walked in — everybody did turn round and stare at me and the pub did still smell like a pub. I reckoned the new carpet played a part in that smell, though some said it just smelled like stale beer. At our particular corner it smelled of old man and old man urine. Nice. I might have marginally preferred the smoke in that instance. But back home, and you wouldn’t have known I was in a pub because my clothes didn’t stink of smoke, so that is a major plus point.

All-in-all, I have personally enjoyed the new improved smoke-free Scotland. But I think the ban has gone too far. For instance, The Devil’s Kitchen has had a couple of posts detailing how our favourite television characters will no longer be able to light up. And according to The Sunday Times, “Even a request to permit herbal cigarettes has been rejected.” Isn’t that going a bit too far?

Will Howells also wrote about the regulations that businesses now face. There I wrote a comment about my experience at the train station.

…when I used the toilet at Waverley Station recently it was clear that somebody had just been smoking in it. It’s like high school or something. My clothes stank for the rest of the day.

I wonder if the smoking ban is merely going to lead people to smoke in public places secretly rather than stop smoking in public places altogether…

Maybe I’m missing something really obvious here, but I would have preferred a licensing system. If you have to have a license to sell alcohol, why not have a licensing system to give people the choice of both smoking and non-smoking pubs?

One last thing about my trip to the pub. I thought I was given a counterfeit fiver in my change. But then I realised that it was a Jack Nicklaus fiver! I’m surprised any of these are still in circulation.

When David Farrer wrote about them when they were first issued they were going at £102+. They mostly still seem to be going for more than £5. Although if I were to use this note to pay for something it would only be worth a fiver. And it made up £5 of my change. If I think about this much more my head will probably detatch itself and walk off Beachy Head.

I hope the new colour scheme isn’t putting anybody off? I’ve not been blogging very much recently. Mostly cos I couldn’t be arsed. But yesterday I was away to see The Mighty Boosh in Edinburgh. It’s the first time I’ve gone outside for almost four years. Why don’t I do it more often?!

Anyway, the Boosh were pretty good. Hopefully I’m keeping spoilers to an absolute minimum here. If I were to have one criticism it would be that is felt like they were just trying to crowbar as many of their ‘greatest hits’ into one show as they could. Lots of the same old jokes and the same old scenes, only with a re-jigged plot.

Of course you have to expect them to use their popular material — I’m sure one particular person in the crowd (who the entire audience told to “shut the fuck up!”) would have been disappointed if Old Gregg didn’t make an appearance. But most of the time it just felt like they were always gearing up to tell a joke that we’ve already heard rather than coming up with genuine new funnies.

Still, it was very funny. I thought they wouldn’t really be that bothered to entertain because it’s the middle of the tour and are surely fed up and tired, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves on stage. Julian Barratt was right in there taking the piss out of audience members from the start, which laid my fears to rest. There were lots of good bits — Noel Fielding and Rich Fulcher having a spit-spat and the Hitcher’s soliloquy, complete with a dig at BBC Three’s scheduling, particularly stuck in my mind.

I keep on remembering lots of stuff, as you do with these things. Looking at The Mighty Boosh website, I see that they are making a DVD of the live show, which is fantastic news! You can watch it again and again, etcetera. I’m looking forward to it.