Lord Mandelson Wants Students To Get More Tech Education; Can We Start By Educating Him?
from the learning-begins-at-home dept
Lord Mandelson, the UK Business Secretary who has been the leading force behind putting in place the entertainment industry's desired plan to require ISPs to kick accused file sharers off the internet under a "three strikes" plan, apparently is also saying that young people need better technology skills. Along with that, he's supporting a plan to get universities to do more technical skills training. Now, I'm all for more tech skills training in universities, but wouldn't it be nice if Mandelson started by getting some tech skills training himself -- including a basic understanding of why an IP address is not an accurate indicator of who is doing something online? Or, perhaps, an understanding of how BitTorrent actually works and a brief primer on encryption technologies....
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: peter mandelson, tech skills, three strikes, uk
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
More Suggested Learning
Maybe some economics courses, so he could understand why no one would give you $5000 for your MP3 player with 5000 tunes on it even if the recording industry insists that each and every copy of every tune is worth at least a buck.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sadly, that's probably not as far fetched of a question as it should be.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
He's not ready for extra credit training yet
He's currently stuck on the lesson module "Bribes are bad". Twice we've had an exam and twice he's failed miserably and had to forfeit the rest of the term.
We still hold out hope that with a few more decades education we might be able to rehabilitate him so he ceases to be a repeat offender and becomes a valuable, trustworthy member of society.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: He's not ready for extra credit training yet
I think you owe me a new keyboard because I spat out some tea all over it when I read that.
I'm actually pretty sure that Mandy becoming trustworthy is one of the signs of the apocalypse
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
My wife isn't a tech guru and she doesn't use file sharing software; but I'm sure if I downloaded a BitTorrent client and told her to enable encryption she could find the option in preferences in under 5 minutes.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
New Lord Mandelson Quote
"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy the music industry is insignificant next to the power of the Force."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
like most MPs in the UK
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
like most MPs in the UK
he is in the how to claim expenses from your government
1 building a island for ducks is out.
2 if you paid your misgauge off stop claiming interest.
3 stop paying your son/doughtier 30 grand a year to be your PA even if they are also a student.
NOT ALL OR ANY OF THESE EXAMPLES ARE MANDELSON'S expenses
but all from various MPs who have been ordered to pay back thousands. including Gorden Brown now they have to get the money from somewhere. Record Labels to the rescue.?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What's Funny...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]