Yorick Wilks
Yorick Wilks is Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute
Written by Yorick Wilks Tuesday, 24 August 2010 12:51
The news that the new (compulsory) German ID card will be RFID equipped (International Business Times, 21 August) is a considerable step towards fulfilling John McCarthy of Stanford's remark 40 years ago that the solution to the problem of crime was the Government knowing where each of us is at all times.
The German government will now be able to do exactly that any time it chooses by...
Written by Yorick Wilks Thursday, 25 March 2010 11:28
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented...
Written by Yorick Wilks Wednesday, 03 March 2010 16:50
Suppose it is the case that the UK's financial position is far, far, worse than is currently being discussed in the newspapers, what should be the effect on Conservative policy: make the deeper facts more widely known and be accused of talking down the economy? Wait till victory and then make the classic "we had no idea how bad the books were till we saw them" statement? The Shadow...
Written by Yorick Wilks Wednesday, 24 February 2010 15:56
As a professional technophile, I have always dismissed outbursts of anti-technology feeling as agreeably retro but harmless, like the effusions of those who still write real letters on paper and tell us all so. I began to question my stance only recently when thinking a little about Jared Lanier's new book "You are not a gadget". He cannot be dismissed as a grumpy who has never known the...
Written by Yorick Wilks Thursday, 08 October 2009 14:21
One of the most stimulating parts of politics is the application of this iron law; yet no one can foresee all the consequences of their actions, as philosophers assure us, so why are we so quick to sneer and to blame? When Gordon Brown cut the tax exemption of company pension funds on coming to power as Chancellor, he certainly did not intend to unravel Britain's much lauded final-salary pension...
