The RIP Act regulations have now hit the media, and are generating quite a bit of traffic on UK Crypto and the Guardian's letters page. Must see what the Torygraph thinks of this lot. John Redwood MP appears to be against this, which is good ... must see what Anne Campbell MP thinks :)

Once again, it's the issue of people with no legal training having to make quasijudicial decisions; the new organisations being allowed access (without proper judicial review) don't have the experience the Police have of dealing with evidence collection. The Police have been operating under the Police And Criminal Evidence Act and its code of practice for two decades. Maybe this will get people thinking about how much trust we misplace in computer system managers.

Normally when I go into town I'll run into someone I know/recognise. Yesterday I ran into, in a very short space of time, Edmund Harris, Päivi Pasi, Ed Nokes, Ian Jackson, Matthew Johnson, Jonathan Hogg, Helen Deeming, Kit Scorah, Ben Rudge, Bridget Farrell, Dave Ingram, Guy Someone or other, Gareth Morris, and John Durrell, and then Anna Gunn and Mark Seaborn slightly later in the evening, the latter spotted at one of those Stalin, Darlin' meetings they tend to have at Kings. I also appear to have consumed a truly astounding quantity of alcohol at four different venues, and a receipt signed "£11.00" with the words "Very, very drunk" and, somewhat incongruously, "Besoffen", scrawled on it in my handwriting, which I have no recollection of doing. I do wonder whether I've been in Cambridge too long, though.

Tried cigarettes for the first time ever over dinner last night. Not impressed.

The Selwyn lot are being done for their filesharing node, not before time. The University Computing Service and the College seem to love thrusting needless responsibility and liability on themselves. In a few months, their position will be correct in law, though the underlying questionable morality of interventionism by intermediaries will remain.