Australia/2005

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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

An English lawyer has pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice. He faked a legal judgment and sent it to a father who was pleading in Taunton family court to be able to remain involved in his child’s upbringing. The lawyer, London barrister Bruce Hyman, now awaits his sentence. The judge indicated that he could receive a prison sentence. Bruce Hyman is well-known in media circles, having produced The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on BBC Radio. He also produced a series with Clive Anderson, at Above the Title Productions, called Unreliable Evidence.

The father, a former City financier, had attended a series of court hearings in order to make suitable arrangements to see his child following an acrimonious divorce. Shortly before one of these hearings he received an email, ostensibly from a self-help group to which he belonged, which had attached a Court of Appeal case that appeared favourable to an application he had made for the judge to stand down from the case. The father, who was representing himself, duly showed the case to the judge. At this point, Bruce Hyman, the lawyer representing the former wife, claimed to the judge that the case was a forgery, which indeed it turned out to be.

After confirming that the self-help group had not sent him the email, the father then embarked on some detective work his own. The fraudulent email was traced via its header to a dial-up internet connection and a phone number belonging to a shop in London. The shop was able to recover CCTV footage which showed a man sending the email from an Apple laptop. The man turned out to be Bruce Hyman.

Sentencing of Hyman is due in Bristol Crown Court on the 19th of September.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Accused of EPO doping by the French cycling daily L’Équipe in a four page story on Aug. 23, cyclist Lance Armstrong appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live TV show Aug. 25, saying he did not trust the French testers or the French testing system, and that his urine was manipulated to falsely accuse him of doping.

Dr. Christiane Ayotte, director of a Montreal doping detection laboratory said that ethically critical and important scientific questions were raised by the EPO doping allegation against seven-time Tour de France winner Armstrong.

USA Cycling official Gerard Bisceglia said these L’Équipe charges were unfair and lacked credibility. Bisceglia is chief executive of USA Cycling, principal authority over Armstrong for cycling sports in the United States.

L’Équipe released Paris lab data allegedly finding banned EPO in five year old samples of Armstrong’s urine, originally taken after he won the 1999 Tour de France. No official source would confirm medical identification of Armstrong as provider of the anonymously tested urine, and to do so would be a violation of World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) regulations.

Armstrong suggested motivation for such manipulation is a French national hatred of all non-French sport winners, and specifically because a French rider has not won the Tour de France for a quarter century. As evidence of malice toward him, Armstrong cited a French newspaper poll in which he was named the third most hated sportsman in France.

Dr. Ayotte is Doping Control director at Canada’s Institut National de la Recherché Scientifique in Montreal, which is a WADA certified lab nearest to WADA’s Montreal headquarters. Ayotte is also a world class scientific authority and instructor on sports doping detection. Dr. Ayotte’s expert opinion has significant influence on the outcome of WADA regulatory decisions.

L’Équipe reported that the EPO detection method used was experimental, which raises a scientific question. All experimentally based forensic evidence is subject to the close scrutiny of scientific opinions before it can be used in a disciplinary or legal proceeding.

Ayotte expressed surprise that chemical testing of 1999 urine could have been done in 2004 at the French national anti-doping laboratory at Châtenay-Malabry. She said that she routinely instructs all doping laboratory organizations, that previously detectable EPO protein deteriorates and disappears after two or three months, even if the urine is frozen.

Ayotte thinks that a new statistical mathematics model was used to reanalyze numerical data resulting from earlier chemical testing. “My interpretation is that retesting itself must have been conducted in 2000 or in 2001, but the results were reviewed using the new mathematical model that is now being developed in Paris.”

Ayotte does not question whether the new type of analysis is correct; rather she questions the ethics of long-delayed test results.

The first ethical problem is that this adverse finding cannot be confirmed with second samples. There are normally available two urine samples, “A” and “B”. The Châtenay-Malabry EPO findings were based on Armstrong’s “B” samples. Armstrong’s “A” samples were depleted in 1999 for tests that did not include EPO, because no EPO test was available that year.

Without addressing the ethics problem, Dick Pound, the head of WADA, said. “You can count on the fingers of one hand the times a “B” sample has not confirmed the result of the “A” sample”.

Both France and USA officials observed that L’Équipe’s unofficial adverse finding was not consistent with WADA regulations. French Sports Minister Jean-François Lamour said that without the “A” samples, no disciplinary action could be taken against Armstrong. USA official Bisceglia confirmed that WADA regulations require a confirming “A” test to prove guilt.

The second ethical problem, according to Ayotte, is that an athlete charged with doping long after the athletic event, has no way to submit to additional testing to disprove an adverse finding. This same ethical problem was also stated by USA official Bisceglia.

The third ethical problem for Ayotte is that L’Équipe disclosed Armstrong’s medical identity. “It seems to me,” Ayotte continued, “that this whole thing is breach of the WADA code. We are supposed to work confidentially until such time that we can confirm a result. By no means does this mean that we sweep a result under the carpet, but it has to meet a certain set of requirements.”

In a further ethical complication, the medical identification of Armstrong is completely unofficial and is made only by L’Équipe. Ayotte characterized the disclosure as “leaked”.

Châtenay-Malabry’s lab refused to confirm L’Équipe’s claim that the urine samples belonged to Armstrong. Nor is it likely that Châtenay-Malabry will ever identify Armstrong, because WADA regulations require that all single “B” samples used for experimental testing must remain permanently anonymous. Ayotte said, “I’m worried, because I have a great deal of respect for my colleagues in Paris. I am concerned that they did not cover their backs before being dragged into a very public issue of this kind.”

Lance Armstrong has responded on his LanceArmstrong.com website, branding L’Équipe’s reporting as being “nothing short of tabloid journalism.” Armstrong says: “I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance enhancing drugs.”

Further confusing public understanding of the EPO doping claim is Armstrong’s statement in his autobiography, It’s Not About the Bike: he said he received EPO during his cancer chemotherapy treatment. “It was the only thing that kept me alive,” he wrote.

Armstrong last received chemotherapy EPO in late 1996. Apparently speaking from his knowledge of conventional EPO testing, Armstrong agrees that traces of 1996 synthetic EPO should not have been present in his 1999 urine. There are now tests to distinguish natural from synthetic EPO. But it remains an unresearched scientific question whether the sensitivity of the experimental new method could detect use of synthetic EPO from three years previously. By scientific analogy, the polymerase chain reaction process can detect as little as a single molecule of DNA.

Jean-Marie Leblanc, the director of the Tour de France, said that Armstrong owes cycling fans an explanation. Armstrong subsequently provided an explanation claiming urine test manipulation.

Leblanc also said; “For the first time—and these are no longer rumors, or insinuations, these are proven scientific facts—someone has shown me that in 1999, Armstrong had a banned substance called EPO in his body.”

“When people start using comments like, ‘irrefutable scientific evidence,’ that’s a pretty strong statement to make,” said Bisceglia, “when the person you’re making it about has never been given the opportunity to refute the statement. You’re making claims about something that took place in 1999. Based on what I’ve read, it’s pretty clear that any opportunity to have a black-and-white resolution to this case has been destroyed.”

Bisceglia said that USA Cycling, the governing body in the United States, lacks the officially required evidence, and therefore will not investigate the L’Équipe report.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Domas Mituzas is a Lithuanian software developer recently given a temporary position on the Wikimedia Foundation‘s board. The position lasts until June this year, after which he has stated he will decide whether he will run for a full term of two years. As well as working for the Wikimedia Foundation, he is employed by MySQL AB.

In light of his recent appointment to the board, Wikinews conducted the following interview with Domas Mituzas.

((WN)) Congratulations on your new board position! Can you tell us a bit about your background – previous work with the Foundation, what you do with MySQL AB etc?

Domas Mituzas: Thanks! Though my first edits to Wikipedia were in 2003, I became actively involved in site technology back in 2004. Then I was working for a major IT company in the Baltic States, and was leading the systems group there. Back then I could apply quite a bit of practice I had from my job to maintain Wikipedia in its technology infancy. It became increasingly involving, and eventually the things we started doing became far more complex, especially when the exploding growth hit us. Managing the growth and sustaining the site up was quite stressful at that time, and we started both lots of optimization and resource expansion work. Eventually I got involved in the MySQL community, and was suggested to apply for a job in MySQL AB. There I work in services division, assisting our customers with their problems, helping to grow their operations. Now as part of company acquisition I’m joining Sun Microsystems, and I’m eager to see what possibilities can that provide.

Back in my childhood I was deep into encyclopedias, first dead tree ones, later CDs and online version of Britannica. I had a dream, that once I get my own home, I’ll get full dead-tree version of Britannica on my bookshelves. It didn’t happen, as I got into Wikipedia the same year I bought my apartment. Life is full of irony 🙂

Actually, back in 2000 I approached university professor and tried to explain him a concept of dynamically edited news repository, where every concept could be explained deeper and deeper into elemental knowledge particles, and later that can be assembled in many dynamic ways. His first question was “Is that some kind of website?”, and I was angry at him for not getting the generic concept of knowledge at all. Year or two afterwards I was discussing same concepts with a colleague, and he provided with far more practical visions of all that. Seeing Wikipedia for the very first time was a dejavu, so it was easy to get into the project. That is different from what I imagined, but far more useful.

((WN)) Why do you think you were chosen for this position, and what do you think you can contribute?

DM: One of reasons was both my long-term presence in site operations and communicating about our work, spreading our ideology, providing opinions. I try to be able to explain difficult topics in human language, and that is quite well appreciated. Additionally, I was being a bit of outsider – more of a reader than writer, so I feel that my views are slightly less community centric, more of value centric. My experience in a technology team is quite similar to what I expect to see in the board – wide array of issues to work on, and maintaining consensus is incredibly important to keep the productivity high. So even though I have deep roots in the project, I feel that I can bring in lots of fresh ways to the board. Of course, I will try to provide best possible technology advise, if the board needs it.

((WN)) Will you continue doing your previous technical work at the same time? If you do, how will you find a balance?

DM: I would really avoid to do all previous work – but it is not needed any more. Years ago we were monitoring the site 24/7, shortage of resources was causing all sorts of difficult problems. Now everything is way more steady and reliable, so I have way much more free time. I used to do lots of other activities too, so I think I can scale my time just fine. And still, of course, I’ll provide as much work to technical part as needed, it just isn’t as demanding as it used to be, and we’re really happy about that.

((WN)) What major actions do you expect to come your way during your term in office?

DM: Though my term is quite short for now (until June elections), the biggest work will be done in understanding how the foundation should function to establish a really long-term presence, to support the projects far into the future. It may need changes in how we get external experience, how we interact with other organizations, how we do interact with office staff and each other. Foundation did lots of work to get to stable and reliable state, now it is time to think more about the future sustainability and expansion.

I have operations experience, so of course I will want to maintain high efficiency of overall operation, but on the other hand I want to work on scaling other parts of the foundation – especially reach out, evangelism, and of course – fundraising.

((WN)) Do you expect any major upgrades to be needed to hardware or software anytime soon, and if so what?

DM: Projects are always growing – pages, pageviews, revisions, users, media, archives – to facilitate that there will always be major upgrades. We still have some of the solutions that allowed us to survive for years, but are not suitable for a whole millennium. There will always be new features, that will need more resources, so we definitely won’t stop improving our hardware or software platform. I have to take off the board member hat to answer these questions, as they should be really directed to technology team, instead of board. I won’t mention exact projects, but we have a trail of features that have to be implemented, and will be, soon. But indeed, that is very much operational issue, that the technology team and foundation staff is known to handle well.

((WN)) What do you expect lies ahead for the Foundation in the long run – say, the next ten years?

DM: My generation is already forming the ‘Wikimedia Alumni’ – the readers, consumers of our content love us. It is amazing to realize what powers they may have in the next ten years, and how they will be able to assist us.

The biggest work to be done – maintaining the loyalty of our community, continue being the good guys of the Internet. Next ten years will be years of continued Internet penetration, and us being the major beneficial part of that process is especially exciting.

I really want to believe, that our offline activities will be just an intermediate step, and we will have whole world using our online resources, and of course – contributing to them.

Also, I’m not sure if we will be capable to achieve in next ten years, but besides digital divide, we will have to break information isolationism that certain countries or communities maintain – and the best way to achieve it is by providing the best knowledge resource possible. Opening up communities and having them work together may really become the next great wonder of the world. Who doesn’t want to be part of that? 🙂

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Sunday, November 28, 2004

A more efficient way to produce useable hydrogen has been demonstrated by researchers. It uses very high-temperature electrolysis to separate hydrogen from water, so that hydrogen may be used for energy production.

Electrolysis is one method by which laboratories and factories produce hydrogen. An electrical current is passed through water, breaking it down into hydrogen and oxygen gas, which are then collected above the water reservoir.

Researchers in Salt Lake City, Utah, at Ceramtech Incorporated, in collaboration with workers at The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory report that when water is superheated to 800 degrees Celsius, far less electricity is required to produce the same volume of hydrogen. The researchers envision that future nuclear fission plants could be used both to heat the water as part of their cooling system, and generate the needed electricity.

Concerns have been raised regarding the safety of such arrangements, however. Jeremy Desterhoft, an independent consultant on nuclear energy safety, warns the “elevated levels of radiation required to sufficiently lower the atomic separation point is beyond the current capabilities of any recent cooler.” He does not believe that economically viable cooling technology will be available for at least four to six more years.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Monday saw the latest edition of the vetted version of Wikipedia, which is aimed at educational use, go quietly online. The extensively revised version covers over five thousand topics, targeting the eight to seventeen years age group. Partnerships with the Shuttleworth Foundation and the Hole in the Wall project will see it distributed in South Africa and India as well as copies being available globally via the offices of SOS Children UK’s umbrella organisation, SOS Kinderdorf worldwide.

First launched in 2006 as a 4,000 article edition, the extract of Wikipedia has employed hi-tech distribution methods, as well as offering a website version which has steadily climbed up in ranking to above other reviewed Wikipedia rivals and copies; the 2007 version was available on the BitTorrent peer to peer network to keep distribution costs down and was equivalent to a fifteen-volume printed encyclopedia. Monday’s release is compared to a twenty-volume print edition.

Key to the process for selecting articles is the English National Curriculum and similar educational standards around the world. The initial vision was to bring this wealth of knowledge to schools where access to the Internet was poor or unavailable, but copies of Wikipedia for Schools can be found on many first world school intranets and web servers. Among the compelling reasons to adopt the project are the vetting and additional study materials which overcome the oft-publicised concerns many educators have with the million article plus Wikipedia that anyone can edit.

In today’s press release announcing the launch, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner expressed delight at seeing the project bring out a new version, “Our goal is to make Wikipedia accessible to as many people as possible around the world, and SOS Children is a great partner that helps us make that happen. Wikipedia is released under a free content license so that individuals and institutions can easily adapt, reuse and customize its content: we encourage others, like SOS Children, to do exactly that.”

Running 192 schools in the developing world, SOS Children sees Wikipedia for Schools as a key piece in fulfilling the educational aspect of their mission. SOS Children’s Chairwoman, Mary Cockcroft gave us an introduction and, a Wikipedia administrator himself, the charity’s CEO Andrew Cates spoke to Wikinews at length about the project.

You are part of SOS-Kinderdorf International, can you explain a little about how this works in terms of distributing funds raised in the UK and involving UK citizens in work outside the country?

Mary Cockcroft: SOS Children[‘s Villages] is a “club” of member charities in 130 countries helping orphans and vulnerable children. The club elects SOS-Kinderdorf International as secretary. SOS is a large organisation whose members in aggregate turned over $1bn in 2007, and whose projects include owning and running 192 schools and family-based care for 70,000 children. However much of these funds are raised locally, with for example the member charities in each of India, Pakistan and South Africa raise considerably more funds in their own country than SOS UK does from the UK. Nonetheless SOS Children UK principally raises funds to finance projects in the developing world, and has only financially small projects in the UK (such as the Schools Wikipedia, which is very low cost because of extensive use of volunteers). This year we expect about 80% of our UK income will leave the UK for overseas SOS associations, and some of the remaining 20% will pay for project oversight. We do not spend money in the UK on Direct Mail or TV advertising. Our UK office is involved in overseeing projects we finance and a small number of high-skilled volunteers from the UK help overseas. However around 98% of SOS staff worldwide are local nationals, as are most volunteers.

((WN)) How much work does the UK charity actually carry out within the home country? Are there failings within the government system for orphans and other needy children that you feel obliged to remedy?

MC: We are deeply unhappy about the situation of children in out-of-home care in the UK. However our care model of 168 hour-a-week resident mothers does not fit with the UK philosophy for children without parental care. Internationally SOS always has a policy of sharing best practice and we are working to improve understanding of our way of working, which appears to us to have far better outcomes than the existing one in the UK. Ultimately though the legal responsibility for these children lies with government and we cannot remedy anything without their invitation.

((WN)) Who first came up with the idea of doing a vetted Wikipedia extract? What was the impetus? Was it more for the developing world than first world?

Andrew Cates: I honestly cannot remember who first suggested it, but it came from somewhere in the Wikipedia community rather than from the charity. The original product was very much pitched at the developing world where the Internet is only available if at all over an expensive phone line. I worked in West Africa 1993-1996 and I know well at how thirsty for knowledge people are and how ingenious they will be in overcoming technical obstacles if the need for infrastructure is removed.

((WN)) In reading past year’s announcements there’s some pride in the project being picked up and used in the first world, was this expected or a pleasant surprise?

AC: It was a pleasant surprise. I don’t think we had realised what the barriers schools faced in using the main Wikipedia were. It isn’t just pupils posting material about teachers or meeting strangers: the “Random Article” button on every page could potentially deliver an article on hardcore porn. We had already started when discussion broke on banning Wikipedia from classrooms and I am sure we benefited from it.

((WN)) Can you give an outline of the selection and vetting process? Is it primarily Wikipedians working on this, or are people from the educational establishment brought in?

AC: It was a long and painful process, even with a really good database system. Articles were taken into the proposal funnel from three main sources: direct proposals for inclusion from Wikipedians, lists which came from the Release Version team and proposals drawn up from working through National Curriculum subjects by SOS volunteers. In a few cases where we felt articles were missing we asked the community to write them (e.g. Portal:Early Modern Britain, which is a curriculum subject, was kindly written just for us): These “proposals” were then looked at by mainly SOS volunteers (some onwiki, some offline). Our offices are in the middle of Cambridge and we get high quality volunteers, who skim read each article and then compared two versions from the article history by credible WP editors a significant period apart (this picks up most graffiti vandalism which runs at about 3% of articles). Once they had identified a “best” version they marked any sections or text strings for deletion (sections which were just a list of links to other articles not included, empty sections, sex scandals etc). A substantial sample of each volunteers work was then doubled checked for quality by one of two office staff (of whom I was one). We then have a script which does some automated removals and clean ups. Once we had a selection we posted it to relevant wikiprojects and a few “experts” and got any extra steers.

((WN)) Will you be making use of BitTorrent for distribution again this year? Was it a success in 2007?

AC: BitTorrent was a bit disappointing in that it got us the only substantial criticisms we received online. A lot of people find it too much effort to use. However for the period we offered a straight http: download we had huge problems with spiders eating vast bandwidth (the file is 3.5G: a few thousand rogue spider downloads and it starts to hurt). As per last year therefore our main two channels will be free download by BitTorrent and mailing the DVDs free all over the world. At a pinch we will (as before) put straight copies up for individuals who cannot get it any other way, and we have some copies on memory sticks for on distributors.

((WN)) Is it your opinion that the UK Government should be encouraging the adoption of projects like this as mainstream educational resources?

AC: Clearly yes. We have had a very enthusiastic reaction from schools and the teaching community. We think every school should have an intranet copy. We expect the Government to catch on in a few years. That is not to say that Wikipedia is as good as resources developed by teachers for teachers such as lesson plans etc. but it is a fantastic resource.

((WN)) You’re a Wikipedia administrator, all too often a thankless task. What prompted you to get involved in the first place? What are the most notable highs and lows of your involvement with the project?

AC: Funnily the thing I have found most amazing about Wikipedia is not widely discussed, which is the effect of Wikipedia policies on new editors. I have seen countless extreme POV new editors, who come in and try to get their opinions included slowly learn not only that there are other opinions to consider but that elements of their own opinion which are not well founded. Watching someone arrive often (on pages on religions for example) full of condemnation for others, gradually become understanding and diplomatic is one of the biggest buzzes there is. The downside though is where correcting things which are wrong is too painfully slow because you need to find sources. I was a post-doc at Cambridge University in combustion and I know the article on Bunsen burners has several really significant errors concerning the flame structure and flow structure. But sadly I cannot correct it because I am still looking around for a reliable source.

((WN)) Do you believe schools should encourage students to get involved contributing to the editable version of Wikipedia? Does SOS Children encourage those who are multilingual to work on non-English versions?

AC: I think older students have a lot to learn from becoming involved in editing Wikipedia.

((WN)) To close, is there anything you’d like to add to encourage use of Wikipedia for Schools, or to persuade educators to gain a better understanding of Wikipedia?

AC: I would encourage people to feed back to the project online or via the charity. The Wikipedia community set out to help educate the world and are broadly incredibly well motivated to help. As soon as we understand what can be done to improve things people are already on the task.

((WN)) Thank you for your time.