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  • mazsa 06:53 on February 11, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , United Kingdom   

    Definition of open standards:

    standards which fulfil the following criteria:

    • are maintained through a collaborative and transparent decision-making process that is independent of any individual supplier and that is accessible to all interested parties;
    • are adopted by a specification or standardisation organisation, or a forum or consortium with a feedback and ratification process to ensure quality;
    • are published, thoroughly documented and publicly available at zero or low cost;
    • as a whole have been implemented and shared under different development approaches and on a number of platforms from more than one supplier, demonstrating interoperability and platform/vendor independence;
    • owners of patents essential to implementation have agreed to licence these on a royalty free and non-discriminatory basis for implementing the standard and using or interfacing with other implementations which have adopted that same standard. Alternatively, patents may be covered by a non-discriminatory promise of non-assertion. Licences, terms and conditions must be compatible with implementation of the standard in both proprietary and open source software. These rights should be irrevocable unless there is a breach of licence conditions.

http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/openstandards/chapter-1/

 

  • mazsa 18:36 on November 21, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , United Kingdom   

    “The proposed General Anti-Avoidance Rule [UK] [...] attacks arrangements with one or more of these qualities:

    (a) arrangements that would result in receipts being taken into account for tax purposes which are significantly less than the true economic income, profit or gain;

    (b) arrangements that would result in deductions being taken into account for tax purposes which are significantly greater than the true economic cost or loss;

    (c) arrangements that includes a transaction at a value significantly different from market value, or otherwise on non-commercial terms;

    (d) arrangements, or any element of it, inconsistent with the legal duties of the parties to it;

    (e) arrangements including a person, a transaction, a document or significant terms in a document, which would not be included if the arrangement were not designed to achieve an abusive tax result;

    (f) arrangements that omit a person, a transaction, a document or significant terms in a document, which would not be omitted if the arrangement were not designed to achieve an abusive tax result; and

    (g) arrangements that include the location of an asset or a transaction, or of the place of residence of a person, which would not be so located if the arrangement were not designed to achieve an abusive tax result.” http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/11/21/making-aggressive-tax-avoidance-illegal-what-a-new-gaar-might-do/

     

  • mazsa 08:09 on June 6, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , United Kingdom,   

    MI6 to Rest of World: Cyber War is On. Anyone, Anywhere is Fair Game. Arm yourselves. “[...] it makes it OK for any government agency to target our servers and the tone of the article suggests moral impunity for government agencies engaging in these attacks. If it’s OK for British intelligence to hack (most likely) US based servers then it’s OK for Chinese officials to attack an ad network based in the USA if they run an ad for a dissident website.

    At first glance this looks like a cute prank. But this attack may spark the beginning of a global cyber war fought by government agencies and private contractors, the logical conclusion of which is an Iron Curtain descending on what was once an open and peaceful communication medium.” http://markmaunder.com/2011/cyber-war-is-on/

     

  • mazsa 05:50 on May 14, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , United Kingdom,   

    Tax havens: the heart of the global economy “[...] tax havens have grown so fast in the era of globalization, since kind of the 1970s, that they have now become right—they are now right at the heart of the global economy and are absolutely huge. I mean, there are 10—anywhere between 10 and 20 trillion U.S. dollars sitting offshore at the moment. Half of world trade is processed in one way or another through tax havens. It’s all around us, and it’s absolutely huge. [...]” http://www.australia-offshore.com/offshore-banking-and-tax-havens-have-become-the-heart-of-global-economy/

     

  • mazsa 06:36 on April 19, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , United Kingdom   

    “There is a danger that time is running out, is the technological genie already out of the ethical bottle, embarking us all on an incremental and involuntary journey towards a Terminator-like reality?”

    The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems – Joint Doctrine Note 2/2011 http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/DDE54504-AF8E-4A4C-8710-514C6FB66D67/0/20110401JDN211UASv1WebU.pdf

     

  • mazsa 21:53 on April 7, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , United Kingdom   

    Blown with the Wind:

    The nature of wind output has been obscured by reliance on “average output” figures. Analysis of hard data from National Grid shows that wind behaves in a quite different manner from that suggested by study of average output derived from the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) record, or from wind speed records which in themselves are averaged.

    It is clear from this analysis that wind cannot be relied upon to provide any significant level of generation at any defined time in the future. There is an urgent need to re-evaluate the implications of reliance on wind for any significant proportion of our energy requirement.

    Analysis of UK Wind Power Generation, November 2008 to December 2010 https://www.jmt.org/assets/pdf/wind-report.pdf

     

  • mazsa 08:11 on April 6, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , United Kingdom   

    Don’t Tax the Rich “[...] some on the left are better at posturing than thinking.” http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2011/03/the-intelligent-question-posed-by-saturdays-march-is-what-alternative-is-there-to-osbornes-spending-cuts-theres-on.html

     

  • mazsa 10:01 on March 10, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , United Kingdom   

    The UK national identity card: “During the period 2002–2010 the UK government of the time attempted to relate the rights and entitlements of citizenship with a standard identifier for all British citizens and its representation in a national identity smartcard. The scheme to introduce this identity token for all UK citizens was finally abandoned in December 2010. This teaching case describes the history of this endeavour as promoted by the UK government and its agencies. It also describes the reaction to these plans on the part of numerous other stakeholder groups within the UK. This is a rich case for examining a number of critical, contemporary issues of relevance to Information Systems theory and practice that are occurring worldwide. On the one hand, the attempt to introduce such an identity token brought into focus the critical role that identity and its management plays as supporting infrastructure in areas such as e-Government and e-Business. On the other, the introduction of a national identifier and associated token raised major challenges to data protection, data privacy and public trust in the information governance of this nation state. Indeed, such difficulties constituted a major part of the rationale for the abandonment of the project.” http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jittc/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/jittc20113a.pdf

     

  • mazsa 07:53 on February 15, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , United Kingdom   

    Court confirms: IP addresses aren’t people “[...] Just because some lawyer cites an Internet Protocol (IP) address where illegal file sharing may have taken place, that doesn’t mean that the subscriber living there necessarily did the dirty deed. Or is responsible for others who may have done it. [...]” http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/court-confirms-ip-addresses-arent-people-and-p2p-lawyers-know-it.ars

     

  • mazsa 15:47 on February 5, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , United Kingdom,   

    [Video+full text] PM Cameron: this is how it looks like when a politician says something 

    Original: http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts/2011/02/pms-speech-at-munich-security-conference-60293

    Cf.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994

     

  • mazsa 12:56 on December 13, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Denmark, , , , Poland, , , United Kingdom   

    The Netherlands to EU: Hands off our pensions 

    “After the effective nationalisation of the private pension schemes in Hungary and Poland last week, only a handful of countries have large pension reserves. Think of the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. [...] The European commission should first ask itself the question: whose money is in the pension funds? These are national funds, paid for by employers and employees. It is not government money. It is not European money. This in itself is more than sufficient reason for the commission not to extend its power to national pension systems. Only for cross-border workers (a tracking service) can an exception be made. [...]

    The temptations in Europe are very large. The Dutch pension sector alone controls more than €750bn ($991bn), about as much as is available in the Eurocrisis fund, if the maximum can ever be used. But this money cannot and will not be brought under European control. The Dutch parliament unanimously approved my recommendation to that effect.

    I count on support from fellow nations and MPs to rely far less on European pensions and money. ”

    http://www.cda.nl/Omtzigt/Actueel/Nieuws/2010/12/49/Hands_off_our_pensions.aspx

    Cf.: http://euractiv.com/en/euro-finance/poland-strikes-pension-deal-with-eu-news-500531

     

  • mazsa 12:38 on November 19, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , United Kingdom   

    Prime Minister David Cameron welcomes the announcement of the publication of all central Government spend over 25K [video, 2'] 

    Respect:)

     

  • mazsa 16:31 on November 14, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: United Kingdom   

    Britain’s Trillion Pound Horror Story 

    Parts 2-5: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Britain’s+Trillion+Pound+Horror+Story%22

     

  • mazsa 15:12 on November 4, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , United Kingdom   

    Conspiracy theory of the week: Foundation X video:) 

    Cf.:

    http://hopisen.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/the-lord-the-cabinet-minister-foundation-x-and-a-mysterious-5-billion/

    http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/11/03/392971/the-parliamentary-foundation-x-files/

    http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/11/03/conspiracy-theory-of-the-day-foundation-x-edition/

     

  • mazsa 16:48 on November 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , Rolling Stones, , United Kingdom,   

    Inside the Rolling Stones Inc. 

    “[...] in many respects the Rolling Stones are like any other large business. They are global, they pay taxes (grudgingly), and they litigate. The band has a P&L and budgets, and accountants, and lawyers, and bankers, and investments, and software, and hardware. “They know what they’re doing,” says Barry Diller, a Jagger confidant. “That’s what separates them from any other band.” [...]

    Connected to the Stones partnership and Prince Rupert is a group of companies that include Promotour, Promopub, Promotone, and Musidor, each dedicated to a particular aspect of the business. This family of companies is based in the Netherlands, which has tax advantages for foreign bands. When the group isn’t touring, these companies employ only a few dozen employees. At the high-water mark of a tour, on the night the band is playing, say, Giants Stadium, the Stones may employ more than 350. Backstage the enterprise resembles a flourishing startup, with dozens of fast-moving junior employees in black T-shirts running around to make sure the IPO, er, the show, gets off without a hitch. It looks crazy, but it works. Perhaps Keith sums it up best: “With our business, who really knows what’s what. You go and look at Lake Superior, and you say, ‘Look at all that water, and that’s just the top!’” [...]

    The Stones are famously tax-averse. I broach the subject with Keith in Camp X-Ray, as he calls his backstage lair. There is incense in the air and Ronnie Wood drifts in and out–it is, in other words, a perfect venue for such a discussion. “The whole business thing is predicated a lot on the tax laws,” says Keith, Marlboro in one hand, vodka and juice in the other. “It’s why we rehearse in Canada and not in the U.S. A lot of our astute moves have been basically keeping up with tax laws, where to go, where not to put it. Whether to sit on it or not. We left England because we’d be paying 98 cents on the dollar. We left, and they lost out. No taxes at all. I don’t want to screw anybody out of anything, least of all the governments that I work with. We put 30% in holding until we sort it out.” No wonder Keith chooses to live not in London, or even New York City, but in Weston, Conn.”

    http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2002/09/30/329302/index.htm

     

  • mazsa 22:37 on May 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , United Kingdom,   

    Interesting. UK tactical voting: http://j.mp/UKTacticalVote

     

  • mazsa 19:01 on April 16, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , United Kingdom, , ,   

    Digital Economy Act: This means war “With the rushed passage into law of the Digital Economy Act this month [cf. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/tag/debill ], the fight over copyright enters a new phase. Previous to this, most copyfighters operated under the rubric that a negotiated peace was possible between the thrashing entertainment giants and civil society.

    But now that the BPI and its mates have won themselves the finest law that money can buy – a law that establishes an unprecedented realm of web censorship in Britain, a law that provides for the disconnection of entire families from the net on the say-so of an entertainment giant, a law that shuts down free Wi-Fi hotspots and makes it harder than ever to conduct your normal business on the grounds that you might be damaging theirs – the game has changed. [...]

    Parliament has just given two fingers to me (and every other small/medium digital enterprise) by agreeing to cripple Britain’s internet in order to give higher profits to the analogue economy represented by the labels and studios. [...]

    Elements of this agenda are also on display (or rather, in hiding) in the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement [cf. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/tag/acta ], a treaty being drafted between a member’s club of rich nations. They’ve turned their back on the United Nations to negotiate in private, without having to contend with journalists or public interest groups. By their own admission, they intend to impose this treaty on poor countries as a condition of ongoing trade, and in the US, the Obama administration has announced its intention to pass ACTA without Congressional debate. [...]

    I am enough of a techno-pessimist to believe that baking surveillance, control and censorship into the very fabric of our networks, devices and laws is the absolute road to dictatorial hell.” Cory Doctorow, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/16/digital-economy-act-cory-doctorow

    Be our friend @Facebook!

     

  • mazsa 11:13 on April 16, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , United Kingdom   

    J. K. Rowling: The single mother’s manifesto: “The 2010 election campaign, more than any other, has underscored the continuing gulf between Tory values and my own. It is not only that the renewed marginalisation of the single, the divorced and the widowed brings back very bad memories. There has also been the revelation, after ten years of prevarication on the subject, that Lord Ashcroft, deputy chairman of the Conservatives, is non-domiciled for tax purposes.

    “Now, I never, ever, expected to find myself in a position where I could understand, from personal experience, the choices and temptations open to a man as rich as Lord Ashcroft. The fact remains that the first time I ever met my recently retired accountant, he put it to me point-blank: would I organise my money around my life, or my life around my money? If the latter, it was time to relocate to Ireland, Monaco, or possibly Belize.

    “I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.

    “A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug.” p.2.

     

  • admin 12:32 on April 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , United Kingdom   

    “In April last year Sweden’s Internet traffic took a dramatic 30 per cent dip as the country’s new anti-file sharing law came into effect.

    “Prior to this, Sweden, the home of the Pirate Bay, had been a hotbed of illegal trade in movies and music.

    “But several months later traffic levels started to surpass the old levels. Consultancy firm Mediavision found that the accessing of illegally shared movies, TV shows and music simply recovered. But there was with one crucial difference. Much of the internet traffic was now encrypted.

    “In other words, the very laws the entertainment industries had lobbied politicians to pass in order to protect their industry, had created the even bigger headache of untraceable file sharing.

    “For them, this will be the legacy of the Digital Economy Bill.

    “But a worse legacy will be the wrongly accused (without the presumption of innocence) and the technology innovators discouraged from innovating, and thus actually creating the new digital economy the Government continually lauds with words but not, it turns out, with actions.”

    http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/04/08/doublethink-the-digital-economy-bill-against-the-digital-economy/

     

  • mazsa 17:57 on April 7, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , United Kingdom   

    Digital Economy Bill http://interactive.bis.gov.uk/digitalbritain/digital-economy-bill/factsheets/

    http://interactive.bis.gov.uk/digitalbritain/digital-economy-bill/faqs/

    http://interactive.bis.gov.uk/digitalbritain/digital-economy-bill/related-documents/

    Vs.

    http://whatdebill.org/

    http://nevali.net/post/501647501/an-open-letter-to-sion-simon-pete-wishart-david

     

  • mazsa 09:00 on April 6, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , United Kingdom   

    “Lump-sum taxation is a special way of assessing income and wealth. It is used when the assessment of worldwide income and wealth of a taxpayer would involve substantial practical difficulties.

    “The basic prerequisite for lump-sum taxation is that the persons concerned must not pursue an occupation in Switzerland. This type of taxation is available to those who make Switzerland their tax home for the first time [...]. Foreigners enjoy this right indefinitely [...]

    “The lump-sum tax is calculated according to the total amount of annual costs for livelihood expended by the taxpayers in Switzerland and abroad for themselves and their dependents living in Switzerland. To simplify the calculation, expenses for federal and most cantonal taxes are deemed to be five times the notional rental value of one’s home. No deductions may be claimed.

    “The law also provides for an additional minimum calculation according to which the tax may not be lower than the tax on specified gross elements of income and wealth according to the regular tax rate. This income includes all income from Swiss sources as well as income for which the taxpayer claims relief from foreign taxation in accordance with a double taxation agreement concluded by Switzerland.

    “Lump-sum taxation is available to all persons meeting the specified prerequisites, irrespective of the amount of their income. [...]

    “Some states, such as Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and Sweden, consider lump-sum taxation to be harmful tax competition, as this type of assessment is said to lure wealthy taxpayers from these countries to Switzerland. In general, the tax burden of these taxpayers is indeed reduced. However, this has less to do with the type of taxation than with the generally lower tax burden in Switzerland than in the countries of origin.

    “Other countries have also taken measures to attract wealthy taxpayers. Not all of these countries are so-called tax havens. The best-known example is the UK, which taxes certain foreigners only with respect to the part of their income transferred to the UK from abroad. Even though not directly comparable, the British “non-dom system” (GBP 30,000 lump-sum tax) is sometimes more advantageous, since unlike Switzerland, it allows time-limited employment. Many foreigners, including Swiss citizens working for a few years in the UK, benefit from this rule.

    “The Federal Council does not accept the accusation that lump-sum taxation encourages tax flight to Switzerland from abroad. It believes that abolishing lump-sum taxation would not make any significant contribution to preventing national and international tax flight in light of the existing measures to prevent abuses.”

    http://www.efd.admin.ch/dokumentation/zahlen/00579/00608/00720/index.html?lang=en

    Cf. http://www.horizontalimage.com/2010/03/why-should-one-go-for-a-swiss-bank-account

     

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