Nice one Barclays

Or is it the new comms bill in work already?

What's my name?

I have long understood that, in the UK, your name is whatever name you are known by.

I would be interested in credible references from anyone on this, either way.

Basically, that we have no formal legal notion that we all have a single official name that we must always use, or that we have a single legal name.

Now I know about using a deed poll, which is a statement to the world renouncing a previous name and stating you will only use a new name. Even so, this is not something that is official or registered or anything - it is a statement you make yourself in writing (on paper with straight edges). To convince people (banks, etc) that it is a valid thing, you usually want a printed and even sealed one, but in principle you could just hand write it in crayon and it means the same thing.

I think a lot of people in the UK think that people do have an official name and even that a deed poll is some sort of official document.

The one thing that does matter, as I understand it, is that you don't use different names for fraudulent reasons. But you can be any name you like, and I think you can even be different names in different contexts.

I know loads of people that "go by" their middle name, and lots of people that use a name that is an abbreviation of their original name, e.g. Jim.

Why has this come up?

Well, I have used some aliases. This has not really come about by some desire to be covert or difficult, it just sort of happened. I have aliases in various contexts because of the way things work - e.g. you have a "handle" on things like irc and I am "RevK". I am "RevK" on a few World of Warcraft realms too. I am known to some as "The Reverend". Having been given an orc by a customer, I also ended up being known as Thrall Horde because we set up facebook account in that name, and that has been kind of adopted by myself.

At one point I was briefly known as Bill (with email of bill@gates.me.uk) because someone called William was trying to get bill.me.uk off me via Nominet dispute process. I called myself Bill for the discussions as someone going by Bill would have more right to bill.me.uk than someone called William, surely :-)

Anyway, there have been a couple of cases recently where the question of a person's name has come up.

One is Nominet me.uk domains that have to be registered to an individual. I have one registered to me where I am using the name Thrall Horde. I think that is valid. It is me, and I am not hiding that fact (not fraudulent). There are people that know me by that name, and some may only know me by that name.

Another case is RIPE getting confused by the notion that people can have any name they choose. They want your "official" name when applying for PI space and fail to understand the idea that we don't have "official" names in the UK.

From what I can tell there are countries where people do have a single "official name", probably countries that do have ID cards, which we don't, yet.

So, am I right? Am I legally allowed to call myself anything I want for non fraudulent purposes? Or is there one true official name that I have? If the latter, how is it that a simple self declaration like a deed poll is good enough to change my name for passport, driving licence, bank account, etc.?

I am pretty sure of the idea of having any name I want, but less sure that I can have more than one name in use in different contexts at the same time. I really don't know, and my googling is not getting me the answers.

Update: Some interesting references. It looks like there was once a restriction on changing a Christian name (from baptism) but that being generally not the case now, and in general one can simply adopt a name - its a matter of providing evidence that you have done so in some cases for some purposes. Some rulings seem to suggest a man cannot have two names at once but it seems also recognised that many people (particularly actors) do just that. It seems even the passport office will place an "observation" that someone is also known as stage name. Perhaps I should make Thrall Horde my stage name and get a note on my passport :-) The key thing is that a name is simply a (non unique) means to help identify an actual person - and if the name does that, and is not used for fraud, then it is your name!

Update: Nice article on names and computer systems.

Suggested serving size

Many foodstuffs have high levels of salt, or fat, or sugar, or something, especially snacks and sweets.

The government obviously want to fix this, being a "nanny state", and make it clear to people that the thing they are buying is bad for them.

So, they get manufacturers to add some traffic light things that show if levels of a few key things are high or low compared to recommended daily intakes. That will make it clear where things are bad for you.

But hang on, clearly, some things are sold in packages that are not one portion. A packet of breakfast cereal or a tub of butter are perfect examples. You can't rate the whole package, you have to rate a typical "serving".

So manufacturers get to suggest a "serving" size. Now, if that serving size was bad for you because of some very high level of some metric, then of course, the responsible thing for them to do is recommend a smaller serving.

End result, all things are good for you in the suggested serving size.

Taken to the extreme - see picture - a bag of aero bubbles has a suggested serving of 9 sweets. That seems to work out to be around 27g. They show on the back details per 100g and per 9 sweets. Its a 113g bag (about 38 sweets).

FTTC/Etherway working

Well, the good news is that the teething problems have been sorted and the service is finally working. There are many lessons to learn as to why this took so long to resolve, and we are waiting for details of the underlying cause from BT.

Obviously we provided details of the fault, packet dumps, and our views on what seems to be the underlying cause to BT. I hope this was helpful to them in resolving the issues.

However, it makes for a very interesting service.

I am pleased to say that we have managed to set up fall back routing for this customer. We are testing the link state on each of our connected routers, and allowing fall back to conventional broadband if the link drops. We can even set up 3G fall back as a third tier for this now.

This provides a high availability fixed price Internet access service to a small ISP in Basingstoke, and we now have a happy customer.

As I understand it, the roll out for this is to have all the exchanges that do FTTC and have Ethernet access nodes covered by the end of the year (around 500 exchanges).

RIPE NCC winding me up (again)

So, I have an block of PI, and so there is an inetnum record.
I am one of the maintainers (mnt-by) and so I can change details.

One of the details I can change, of course, is the "descr" record. It is described in the database definition as "A short decription related to the object." [sic]

Now, RIPE objected when I made a change (changing Adrian Kennard to Rev Kennard) and said I was not allowed to change this.

Well, these days, PI space is provided under a contract so I asked where in the contract it was that I should not change it. The referred me to a RIPE policy stating "Registration data (range, contact information, status etc.) must be correct at all times (i.e. they have to be maintained).".

To me, that is a requirement that I do change things where needed to ensure they remain "correct", and not, as RIPE NCC said, a prohibition on my making changes!

Indeed, whilst on an "application" for IP space, with a template inetnum, you are required to set "descr" to the name of the IP space owner, I cannot see anything saying that it is, as per the database definition, incorrect to update the record with any correct "short decription related to the object.". RIPE NCC have not answered this point at all. I may be wrong, of course, in which case they just have to reference the contract and policy in their reply.

Anyway, having agreed that we could change the PI space to my new company "Thrall Horde", and having sent all the paperwork they wanted, I changed the inetnum accordingly.

They have complained again about my making the change, even though the change is to ensure the record is "correct" and maintained as per RIPE policy.

Now they have locked the record preventing me from following the very RIPE policy they referred me to requiring that I maintain the record.

Arrrg.

Update: They have stopped me maintaining routes and domain objects too - now that is taking the piss.

Update: Spotted that my inet6num was not locked, but they had changed back to something not quite my name. What are they up to.

Update: Sorted - records unlocked and updated - so just now awaiting an explanation of what PI space contract terms and/or RIPE policy allowed them to lock the inetnum record, and supposedly prohibits my changing it in future. That will be fun.

BT refusing to work on a fault 24/7?

So, an Ethernet fault reported on Friday and still not fixed. Hmmm.

Basically, their latest plan is to :-

(a) wait until 00:00 to do some "tests", which will take until 02:00
(b) wait until 09:30 to have a "call" about the tests

That means STOPPING WORK for 6 hours now, working for 2, then STOPPING WORK for 7.5 hours before doing some more work.

That does not sound like they are working on this fault 24/7 to me...

I wonder what they will say in answer to my question "are you refusing to work on this fault 24/7?". Hmm...

I supposed at least if they are refusing to do what the contract says then they can kiss goodbye to the normal very limited compensation that is in the contract and pay something more realistic. After all, this would be breach of contract if they are. Well, that's the way I read it anyway.

Update: After lots of emailing, blogging, facebooking, google+ing, and tweeting, they are finally going to do tests now rather than waiting 5 more hours. Lets see how it goes.

iPad on PI

By the wonders of modern technology my iPad is now "on my LAN" when I am out and about. I simply have one of my Data-SIMs set to relay to the FireBrick at the house which routes on to the LAN. Works a treat.

Although the iPad is not IPv6 when on the mobile network (watch this space on that one) the L2TP relay to my house is IPv6 - which is a slightly backwards world.

P.S. I cannot give it the same IP on WiFi and Data-SIM. Well, technically I can, but as the Data-SIM is a /32 route it means all traffic to it would go via mobile even when using the WiFi, which would not be good.