KEY POINTS:
I've spent the morning watching scientists in white coats poking and prodding a colossal giant squid that's being thawed out in a giant bath at Te Papa Museum.
You can watch too, from several different angles, via the Te Papa web cameras.
The one over the dissection table will no doubt get the most attention as the Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, as it is known, is converted into half a tonne of calamari.
The scientists are keeping an interesting blog running throughout the big thaw, and Deep Ocean Quest Productions are taking reference measurements so they can make a scale digital model of the giant squid. Their website is worth a look.
Big brother in blue
Tentacles of a different kind now, the police may soon be able to use wireless cameras as part of surveillance operations under a proposed law change that the Government will put forward in a bill this year. It seems that tracking devices and phone bugging are well catered for under existing legislation but video surveillance isn't.
You can see why the police want to be able to more freely use this technology to gather "evidential material". The technology has become quite sophisticated and allows remote surveillance with images beamed back to a police operational unit that's less likely to have its cover blown. The cameras are also small enough now to avoid detection.
There are also plans to introduce specific provisions for searching computer hard drives, storage devices and internet accounts for evidence. The police will be able to get warrants for such surveillance lasting up to three months and use the technology for up to 72 hours without a warrant in urgent cases.
I don't think too many people will be jumping up and down and claiming this will erode privacy and extend the surveillance society. But it will need some rigid oversight, not to mention a new area of skills expertise on behalf of the police tasked with operating wireless video equipment.
BigPond makes a splash
Meanwhile, across the Tasman, the country's largest internet provider Telstra BigPond has said it is prepared to fight legal challenges from the music industry if it tries to force the ISP to shut down customers who are downloading pirated content.
Despite moves in Europe to make ISPs responsible for policing peer-to-peer file sharing, including plans in Britain to enshrine such provisions in legislation in the next couple of years, Australian ISPs have virtually unanimously rejected such an approach for Australia. They claim that Australian copyright law.
"We are a mere conduit and are protected as such under the Copyright Act. We are all in favour of cooperating with the music industry using the existing provisions established under law," a Telstra spokesman told the SMH.
New Zealand ISPs currently have no legal obligation to scan their networks for sources of illegal material and downloaders of pirated content. But the Copyright Amendment Act passed this month introduced a "notice and takedown" system whereby ISPs have to take down content when approached by copyright holders claiming the content is being used in breach of the Copyright Act.
There's been wide criticism of that from the likes of internetNZ, which had this to say earlier this month: "InternetNZ proposed a notice and notice regime for dealing with copyright infringement for websites. This is a sensible approach adopted by countries such as Japan and Canada. Instead the Government has taken on board a notice and takedown system akin to the United States system, which has been widely criticised as open to abuse."
While there's been no talk here yet of the music industry taking legal action against ISPs to crack down on file sharing, that provision in the act may well become the Trojan Horse by which the entertainment industry seeks to police digital content distribution in this country.
