The encryption pioneer who was written out of history

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8 October 2010
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In History, Politics, Technology, World
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In the early 1970s, three men working for the British Government developed an encryption system that – almost 40 years later – underpins every transaction on the internet. There was only one problem: they couldn’t tell anyone about it.

Between them James Ellis, Clifford Cocks and Malcolm Williamson invented Public Key Cryptography, a system that permits secure communications and electronic transactions without the prior exchange of a secret key. Their work was used to secure Government communications – and naturally their bosses at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) wanted to keep their discovery top secret — via redwolf.newsvine.com

What do you do with 8 million books? Build a shelf 153 miles long

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8 October 2010
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Viewed from the outside, it could be any old warehouse in the country.

Inside, though, it has the equivalent of 153 miles of storage space to store more than eight million books which form the bulk of the stock of arguably the country’s most famous library.

Welcome to the new home for books owned by Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, which has found that its historic entitlement to a copy of every volume published in the UK had led to it running out of storage space — via redwolf.newsvine.com

French ISP Refuses to Send Out Hadopi File-Sharing Warnings

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8 October 2010
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In Politics, Rights, Technology, World
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During the last week, French Internet users have been starting to receive letters as part of the graduated warning system built in to the controversial Hadopi anti-piracy legislation. The email warnings are being sent by Hadopi via France’s ISPs. But even at this early stage at least one ISP is refusing to forward them to their customers prompting complaints from rivals that they are seeking to achieve a competitive advantage — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Human waste turned into renewable gas to power homes

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6 October 2010
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Next time you flush the toilet, you could be doing your bit for green energy. After being stored for 18 days, human waste will from today be returning to homes in the form of renewable gas.

Centrica is opening a plant at Didcot sewage works which will be the first in the UK to produce renewable gas for households to use.

National Grid believes that at least 15% of all gas consumed could be made from sewage slurry, old sandwiches and other food thrown away by supermarkets, as well as organic waste created by businesses such as breweries — via djd.newsvine.com

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