Daily Archives: April 13, 2008

Surveillance by Javascript

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Interesting post by Landon Fuller.

Meraki provides free wireless access throughout San Francisco, using the network name “Free The Net”. Trying out their service at a coffee shop in my neighborhood, I discovered that Meraki has adopted a location-aware advertising driven model, and are now injecting ads into every page you visit using their network. (Screen shot).

I was surprised that Meraki is adding advertising to my web site (where’s my cut?), but that’s just the beginning. Meraki is sharing your location with every site you visit.

To display their advertising, Meraki adds a small piece of JavaScript to every page:

Included in that URL is your current estimated longitude and latitude. In my case, that’s the street just outside of Cafe Reverie, where I was taking lunch — a fairly accurate reading.

This is a new twist on the cross site scripting problem — because Meraki’s script is injected directly into the site that I’m visiting, a simple piece of javascript, added by the web page’s author, can fish out your current location.

Thanks to Michael for spotting it.

City council spies on family using RIPA

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One of the things that astonished me in 1999 when I was campaigning against the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill was the way it would grant sweeping powers of surveillance not just to genuine security authorities, but effectively to every jobsworth in the country. And lo! so it has proved. Here’s a fascinating Telegraph report on the latest abuse.

A council has used powers intended for anti-terrorism surveillance to spy on a family who were wrongly accused of lying on a school application form.

For two weeks the middle-class family was followed by council officials who wanted to establish whether they had given a false address within the catchment area of an oversubscribed school to secure a place for their three-year-old.

The “spies” made copious notes on the movements of the mother and her three children, who they referred to as “targets” as they were trailed on school runs. The snoopers even watched the family home at night to establish where they were sleeping.

In fact, the 39-year-old mother – who described the snooping as “a grotesque invasion of privacy” – had held lengthy discussions with the council, which assured her that her school application was totally in order.

Poole borough council disclosed that it had legitimately used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to spy on the family.

Ludicrously, the Council is correct. See here for a pdf of some of the snoopers’ logs.

Child’s play?

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This morning’s Observer column…

For some months, strange goings-on have been reported in branches of Toys ‘R’ Us. Shifty-looking middle-aged men and younger males wearing ponytails and Grateful Dead T-shirts have been observed leaving the premises with small cardboard boxes which they then gleefully tear open upon reaching the safety of their cars. Exclamations of ‘Yes! And ‘Yeehaw!!!’ have been heard by security guards, who are as puzzled by all this as their checkout colleagues.

‘I can’t figure it out,’ said one store manager, when quizzed by this columnist a few months ago. ‘The things are just walking out of the store. They sell out the minute we get a delivery.’

The mystery of Broon — contd.

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Martin Kettle thinks the unthinkable?

This much, though, is certain. Brown is not ready to give up, but nor is he confident he can win the public’s support back. For whatever reason, he lacks the certainty of his predecessor. Even when Blair was wrong, he was clear about where he was heading. But Brown lacks Blair’s confidence – and this is now corrosive. “The challenge is primarily psychological,” says a senior minister, “It’s about being confident.” “He simply doesn’t know what to do,” responds a senior backbencher. “There’s no sense of direction whatever. There’s nothing there.”

What can Brown do about this mood? Helpfully meant suggestions abound – be more radical, be more centrist, be yourself, be someone else, get a speechwriter, get a haircut – yet most of these miss the point. Guys of 57 don’t change much. The way people have behaved in the past, a wise minister observed this week, is still the best guide to the way they will behave in the future. A large amount of the wishful-thinking school of commentary on the Labour government’s predicament persistently overlooks this obvious point. There isn’t an Attlee or Roosevelt lurking inside the prime minister. There’s just the same old Gordon with the same old strengths and weaknesses…