Author: Joan O'Connell

https://joan.ink/about/

Putin’s global ambition

Vladimir Putin’s political career began following the collapse of the USSR; but his life as a KGB man never ended.

Every moment of his political career – from his time in Boris Yeltsin’s administration, to his rise to power and since then – has been a response to the humiliation which was visited upon Russia in the early 1990s.

Putin has shown the world who he is, repeatedly: from Grozny and Chechnya, to Ossetia and Georgia, to Aleppo and Syria, to the lands and cities of Ukraine today. With each atrocity, the question put to the world has been: “What are you going to do about it?” And each response has been criminally lacking.

Thus, Putin repeatedly challenged the post-WWII consensus and international system of laws and customs, and its weaknesses have been found out.

Having established that repeated grave violations of the rule of international law are without consequence, Putin understands that the entire world order is a Potemkin legal order.

Above all, what this means for Putin is that Western hegemonic power is without substance. Equally importantly, Putin does not care for international rules or institutions, principles or agreements, courts or procedures – indeed, he rejects them entirely and has successfully undermined them again and again.

In a lawless world, might is right

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an outrage against humanity. Yet, this horrific invasion is simply the beginning of his next phase of his political career, which is to (re-)establish and (re-)impose Russian hegemonic power. For Putin, this goal is of greater importance than any other consideration, domestic or international.

This invasion, as some commentators believe, may extend beyond Ukraine and at least as far as the Iron Curtain. However far it goes, member states of NATO are seeking to avoid any escalation with a man who controls nuclear weapons.

As we know, Putin has already made threats to use nuclear arms, and we have now seen members of the Russian army fire artillery shells at the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

Therefore, I don’t believe that Putin’s armed conflict will be limited to conventional warfare.

Will he use nuclear weapons against countries which border Russia? He could re-locate to Vladivostok, but he works in Moscow and is from St Petersburg, so that may be unlikely.

What possible alternatives could there be? What might make an easy target? What non-NATO EU member state at the western edge of Europe, next door to NATO and permanent UN Security Council members Britain and France, with basically zero military and defence capabilities might there be?

Such an action would neatly serve to demonstrate Russia’s total power to the world.

Advertisement

“I wish I knew how to quit you, Spotify.” Well, here are a few simple steps.

To anyone considering quitting Spotify, but doesn’t know where to start, here’s a short guide based on my own experiences.

A couple of days ago, I hadn’t a clue where to begin or what to do, so hopefully this’ll help anyone in a similar situation.

tl;dr

  1. Choose your platform
  2. Transfer your music between the old and new services
  3. Cancel your Spotify subscription / account

More details are below:

Step 1: What alternatives are there & how do I choose?

To start off, I asked twitter (naturally), and had a look through the replies, and through other conversations. This highlighted a few trends for popular recommendations.

Based on these word-of-mouth recommendations, my preferences were:

  • Deezer
  • Tidal
  • Apple Music

So, I started Googling. I searched for comparisons of the three platforms, and found a few helpful sites from the past year or so, including:

Choosing a streaming service will be a matter for personal preference but, for me, Deezer pipped it. This was due both to the music catalogue and options and the sound quality, as well as the fact that they are based within the EU so GDPR compliance is (I assume) guaranteed.

Also, with Tidal, the ex-CEO of Twitter has some kind of financial interest in it, so that’s a hard nope from me. And, with Apple, well.. it’s Apple. So, Deezer won the day.

Within a few minutes, I had set up a new account, choosing a payment option that works best for me.

Step 2: How do I transfer my music?

At first, I didn’t realise it was possible to transfer playlists between streaming services, so I imagined a massive pain in the whatsit with this.

However, Deezer offers a music transfer option, through a third party service provider, Tune My Music. I just went directly to the company’s website, and followed the step-by-step instructions on their homepage.

It was really seamless, completed in just a few clicks, and Tune My Music offers free or paid options to transfer music libraries between a wide range of streaming platforms.

Step 3: How do I cancel my Spotify subscription? 

Spotify doesn’t allow users to cancel Spotify Premium via their app versions – the option isn’t there. Instead, to cancel Spotify Premium plans:

  • Using a web browser, log into spotify.com/account
  • In ‘Account Overview,’ go to ‘ Your Plan,’ and click ‘Change Plan’
  • Scroll to ‘Cancel Spotify’ (or ‘Available Plans’) and click ‘Cancel Premium’
  • Click ‘Yes’ to confirm cancellation

Note: This will only cancel your Premium subscription, switching you to the free version after your next billing date – it won’t delete your Spotify account. This means, in the free version, you will still have access to your playlists and saved music.

Kissing Gates in Dublin: Access to Information on the Environment

In August 2021, I sent a request under the Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) Regulations to five public bodies:

  • Dublin City Council (DCC)
  • South Dublin County Council (SDCC)
  • Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council (DLR)
  • Fingal County Council (FCC)
  • Office of Public Works (OPW)
  • Waterways Ireland (WI)

AIE Requests are similar in some ways to Freedom of Information (FOI) Requests, but there are crucial differences: while FOI exists under Irish legislation, AIE arises from EU legislation. Therefore, the Irish State is bound by EU obligations in respect of AIE; however, the government of the day can amend FOI legislation, as it has in the past and proposes to do so again. There are also differences in the public bodies which are covered by AIE and FOI, with more bodies subject to the AIE Regulations. On the other hand, FOI legislation may capture more kinds of records held by public bodies, above and beyond environmental information.

I sent the below request to each of the public bodies. The replies and responses I’ve received have been.. diverse.

I am making the following request under Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) Regulations.

Please provide information with details of all barriers/gates on pedestrian routes within the [Council/Dublin] area, including: on roads, paths, lanes, at any pedestrian entry and exit points to parks, and at any locations within within parks.

This requested information to be broken down by location and by type of barrier/gate – the requested information to include, but not be limited to:

– Gates
– ‘Kissing gates’
– Swing gates
– Styles
– A-frames
– K-frames
– All other barrier/gate types
– All locations of such barriers/gates

I am requesting the above information be provided in electronic format.

Essentially, I want to find out where and how many kissing gates and other barriers there are within Dublin City and County. It seems such a simple request.

I plan on providing updates in respect of each public body’s response in separate posts here, which will be grouped together under the “kissing gates” tag.

Wish me luck.

The battle of the bollards II: Battle harder (Please help!) in

Could I again ask a huge favour of anyone in Dublin 7 (or who is Dublin 7-adjacent)? This request is part of my nerdiness and also my need to feel safe while cycling (since walking leaves me in pain), so if you can help I would be hugely grateful.

Earlier this year, Dublin City Council put in a couple of changes in Dublin 7, including the below change to Grangegorman. I think this intervention improves safety and is a benefit to the community, but there is a lot of strong opposition.

It is looking likely that Dublin City Council will remove this in January 2021: 

  • On Grangegorman, bollards and tree planters were installed in July outside the TUD campus to make the street a pedestrian-friendly “quiet way” and prevent motor vehicles travelling through Grangegorman. Vehicles still have full access, but have to go back the way they came (so, it’s like a cul de sac if you’re driving).

People opposed to the changes are continuing to contact Council officials and local Councillors in significant numbers – so if you support the changes I’m asking you to please share your views, too. (I’m also asking for selfish reasons, because this street has been so hostile for anyone walking or cycling, that I’ve mostly avoided it – but now, is finally safely accessible.)

Below are the email addresses, and further below I’ve included some of the key points I think are relevant – please feel free to use these if you’re emailing your representatives.

Thanks a million, and if you want to chat about this please do give me a shout. :)

Dublin City Council email address

covidmobility@dublincity.ie

Councillor email addresses 

janice.boylan@dublincity.ie
christy.burke@dublincity.ie
Joe.costello@dublincity.ie
anthonyc.flynn@dublincity.ie
janet.horner@greenparty.ie
cllr.darcylonergan@gmail.com
raymcadam@gmail.com
eimer.mccormack@dublincity.ie
seamas.mcgrattan@dublincity.ie
declan.meenagh@dublincity.ie
cat.odriscoll@socialdemocrats.ie
colm.orourke@dublincity.ie
cieran.perry@gmail.com
nialring@eircom.net

Grangegorman key points 

  • Bollards and tree planters installed on Grangegorman: access only for motor vehicles (no through traffic).
  • Part of a trial to make the street quieter and safer for pedestrians.
  • Previously, this route has been used as a ‘rat run’
  • Residential area, schools and TUD campus
  • Expressing: my support for this measure
  • Asking: for your full support as a Councillor to this trial continuing beyond January 2021.

Grangegorman trial. Image: Dublin City Council

At the Copa Grangegorman. Image: Dublin City Council.

The battle of the bollards (Please help!)

Could I ask a huge favour of anyone in Dublin 7 (or who is Dublin 7-adjacent)?

This request is part of my nerdiness and also my need to feel safe while cycling (since walking leaves me in pain), so if you can help I would be hugely grateful.

In the last few days, Dublin City Council have put in a couple of changes in Dublin 7. I think they improve safety and are a benefit to the community, but there is a lot of strong opposition.

The changes are:

  1. On Manor Street, bollards have been put in to keep the cycle lane clear – this is outside Grano and DrinkStore, etc., where there have often been cars illegally parked.

These bollards have been put in as part of the Council’s Covid plan of temporary measures.

  1. On Grangegorman, bollards and tree planters have been installed outside the TUD campus to make the street a pedestrian-friendly “quiet way” and prevent motor vehicles travelling through Grangegorman. Vehicles still have full access, but have to go back the way they came (so, it’s like a cul de sac if you’re driving).

These changes are part of a four-week trial.

 

Some people opposed to the changes are contacting local Councillors in numbers, and so if you support the changes I’m asking you to tell your Councillors, too.

(I’m also asking for selfish reasons, because these streets have been so hostile for anyone walking or cycling, that I’ve mostly avoided them – but now, they might finally be safely accessible.)

I’ve listed local Councillor email addresses below, and further below I have included some of the key points I think are relevant – please feel free to use these if you’re emailing your representatives.

Thanks a million, and if you want to chat about this (or life in general) please do give me a shout. :)

 

Councillor email addresses 

janice.boylan@dublincity.ie
christy.burke@dublincity.ie
Joe.costello@dublincity.ie
anthonyc.flynn@dublincity.ie
janet.horner@greenparty.ie
raymcadam@gmail.com
nialring@eircom.net

If you can also CC covidmobility@dublincity.ie this will also go to the officials in Dublin City Council who are working on these projects.

 

Manor Street key points 

  • Bollards recently installed on the west side of Manor Street (along the northbound cycle lane, outside businesses including Manor DIY, The Green Door, Grano and DrinkStore).
  • Installed as a temporary measure under the Council’s interim Covid plan.
  • Allow access through, and to these places, safely by bike.
  • Previously, persistent illegal parking in the bike lane  resulted in danger to people cycling.
  • The bollards ensure greater safety for locals cycling on Manor Street and allow for safe access to businesses.
  • Expressing: my support for this measure
  • Asking: for your full support as a Councillor to this temporary change.

 

Grangegorman key points 

  • Bollards and tree planters installed on Grangegorman: access only for motor vehicles (no through traffic).
  • Part of a four-week trial to make the street quieter and safer for pedestrians.
  • Previously, this route has been used as a ‘rat run’
  • Residential area, schools and TUD campus
  • Expressing: my support for this measure
  • Asking: for your full support as a Councillor to this four-week trial.

 

Grangegorman trial. Image: Dublin City Council

At the Copa Grangegorman. Image: Dublin City Council.

Gird your eyeballs

In the middle of a pandemic, the limited time of the High Court of Ireland was taken up with several days of preliminary matters, as two people attempted to initiate Judicial Review proceedings against the government’s Covid-19 restrictions.

(The attempt failed.)

So that you don’t have to visit Yer Wan’s website, the transcripts and judgment are linked below. (Thanks to Peter Stafford for the heads-up on twitter.)

1. Transcript 1

2. Transcript 2

3. Transcript 3

4. Transcript 4

5. Judgment of the Court

 

Cannot unsee - 2 - 451x304

Working out in war zones: fitness app reveals military sites

Where privacy and (in)security collide.

 

If you’ve ever used an app to record your walking, running or cycling, you’ll know how handy they can be. You may even have seen friends sharing their progress with automatic updates published on their social media accounts. Personally, I prefer to keep my details private, and never publish them – in-app, or beyond.

Well.

Last night (27 January 2018), twitter came alive with the news that fitness app, Strava, had released a global heat map of user activity – including sites in conflict zones, areas of military operations, and other sensitive locations.

Researchers, analysts and others had a – somewhat alarming – field day.

Nathan Ruser of IUC Analysts appears to have been first off the mark:

Think-tanker and Syria researcher, Tobias Schneider, picked up on Ruser’s theme:

Journalist, John Beck, also noticed:

As well as Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat:

His response to a query provides a very succinct explanation, for those unsure of the implications of Strava’s release of this mapped information:

Dan Murphy also summed it up, thusly:

And Joshua Forman of MIT gave his summary:

The news, naturally, continued to quickly spread. Some tweets from someone interested in tracking government-supplied arms in MENA:

Here’s journalist Adam Rawnsley of the Daily Beast, also looking further afield, including the South China Sea, Iran and Somalia – and Area 51, naturally:

Adam shared this link to a Foreign Policy piece by Jeffrey Lewis, to provide “an idea of what a reasonably competent adversary could do if they pwned Strava”:

Adam also took a peek at Strava data elsewhere in the US:

He wasn’t the only one – the aforementioned Jeffrey Lewis tweeted:

Kate Oh, of the ACLU, explained Jeffrey’s finding:

Which he also later elaborated:

Across the pond, there was also this find by Phil Chamberlain, Head of the School of Film and Journalism at UWE Bristol and author of Drones and Journalism:

You can almost make out the early modern design of the original fortress defences, intended to deflect cannon shots.

But it’s not all about military installations. The cause of this flurry of activity on twitter and these finds originates with personal data.

Lawyer, Tiffany C. Li, of The Information Society Project at Yale Law School wrote in relation to the privacy aspects:

Here in Ireland, Pat Walshe recalls GDPR requirements and a previous overview of Strava’s data protection compliance:

All of the data used to populate Strava’s heat map derives ultimately from personal data – those people using the app, logged in with their personal details while the app gobbles up and processes data relating to everything they do while using it.

To generate the map, Strava may strive to ‘anonymise’ the data. This may be successful (I stress: may be) in a large and busy metropolis such as New York. However this anonymity breaks down in sparsely populated areas.

In low population areas, it may become easy to identify individual activites – if not the individuals themselves. If this is the case, the data are no longer anonymised: they have become personal data. And, as this information involves location data, this may also amount to sensitive personal data, according to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). (A guidance note from Ireland’s ODPC can be read here.)

Consider, for instance, the example found by one tweeter last night. This (which I am not linking to here) was of a remote compound in a conflict zone which has seen multiple mass atrocities over recent years.

From its appearance, there is a possibility that it is a UN compound. On the Strava heat map overlaid on the site, we can see multiple, overlapping perimeter routes and tracks.

However, we can also see where the individual has kept their device on when they re-entered the compound, and they can be traced through the compound into individual buildings – including their destination building. This may be assumed to be either washing facilities, accommodation, office or (given the small size of the compound) all three.

Let’s say, if I had been based locally and was watching this individual from afar, and wished to know where to access their private rooms, now I know.

Oh yes, by the way: today is 28 January. Happy Data Protection Day!

A letter to Claire Byrne Live

I emailed the Claire Byrne Live programme this evening. They cannot say they did not know.

* * *

Date: 9 January 2017 at 20:22
Subject: URGENT: Claire Byrne Live 09/01/2017
To: clairebyrnelive@rte.ie

Dear all,

I understand that tonight’s Claire Byrne Live (Monday, 9th January 2017) is to include Nicholas Pell among the speakers on the programme. Presumably, this will relate to a discussion on far-right extremism or similar.

I am urgently calling on the Claire Byrne Live team not to run with this item. As broadcasters, you have an ethical, moral and legal duty not to engage in such dangerous acts.

The right to freedom of expression is not absolute. It is limited. These restrictions are found in international treaties, such as the ICCPR and ECHR, and were included as a direct response to the events which led to the violent atrocities of the Second World War. Per ICCPR Article 19:

The exercise of the rights provided for in […] this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

 

These principles inform the Prohibition on Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989, as well as the provisions of the Criminal Justice (Victims of Crime) Bill 2016. And they are found in the Broadcasting Act 2009, Section 39(1)(d):

39.— (1) Every broadcaster shall ensure that—

(d) anything which may reasonably be regarded as causing harm or offence, or as being likely to promote, or incite to, crime or as tending to undermine the authority of the State, is not broadcast by the broadcaster

 

Mr Pell is an avowed far-right extremist. This is publicly known, and he does not deny it. These are precisely the circumstances envisaged by the drafters of the exemptions to freedom of expression in the aftermath of World War II.

As Franz Frison, an Irish survivor of Holocaust, wrote in a letter to The Irish Times on 12 December 1988:

Having experienced fascism in the flesh […] If fascism could be defeated in debate, I assure you that it would never have happened, neither in Germany, nor in Italy, nor anywhere else. Those who recognised its threat at the time and tried to stop it were, I assume, also called “a mob”. Regrettably, too many “fair-minded people” didn’t try to stop it, and, as I witnessed myself during the war, accommodated themselves with it when it took over.

[…]

People who witnessed fascism at its height are dying out, but the ideology is still there, and its apologists are working hard at a comeback. Past experience should teach us that fascism must be stopped before it takes hold again of too many minds, and becomes useful once again to some powerful interests […].

 

I campaigned for marriage equality in 2015. Though the outcome was that which we sought, our volunteers experienced sneers, insults, and physicial assaults – some so severe that the Gardaí investigated. I recall that during Germany’s Weimar Republic, a nascent movement for decriminalisation of homosexuality had begun. Just a few years later, these people were being sent to their deaths in concentration camps by the Nazis.

This is not a game. You who are now reading this email may not realise the real danger of proceeding with tonight’s programme and this item, including Mr Pell. However, there are many amongst your colleagues and viewers who do.

I urge you to accede to my request.

Yours sincerely,

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail: Ireland’s marriage referendum

 

Yesterday, the day after Leo Varadkar’s coming out, the first shots of Ireland’s marriage referendum campaign were fired.

What the day’s discussions across national radio and television revealed – to me, at least – is that the Yes campaign is wholly unprepared and has been outmanoeuvred at the outset.

Although there are four months of this to go, the initial skirmish has undeniably been won by the No advocates.

The debates yesterday demonstrated that the No side has, as in other debates in the past, mastered the three key elements needed for success:

  • Political opportunity
  • Framing
  • Mobilisation

    •  

    Already, the Yes advocates are on the back foot. This seemed apparent to me in the morning, listening to Newstalk FM.

    By midnight, it was absolutely beyond doubt, in my view, that Monday, 19th January 2015 saw a resounding victory for the No campaign – before the campaign has even begun.

    Here’s how I think they achieved that.

    (more…)