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In general, they prey on the elderly. That is a market of what, 50 million people?

And 4 million includes not just the people that call you, but the others in the business (mgmt, tech people, etc etc).

There are 15,000 in Finland...

"The United States has long pressured European airlines to submit passenger information in order to prevent the arrival of terrorists in the country."

"This information will include names, travel routes, credit card numbers, and possible special meals."

full article

Last october finnish chemistry student build a bomb and took it to shopping mall. It went off in his back-bag, and he and six others were killed. This student was active member on discussion board about "home chemistry", where teens were exchanging information about explosives and other "cool" stuff. From remains of the bomb police found out that it probably contained a timer, and they believe student did't mean to kill himself. Did he mean to detonate it in mall, nobody knows.

So when carrying those home-made explosives and poisons around stay the hell away from other people, so they don't have to pay because you felt smart and immortal enough to build something cabable of killing instantly if you made even smallest mistake.

Couple links about this tragedy: Finnish police check DIY bomb website and how information about bomber was spread in internet.

UMTS is already dead and buried - and everybody in the industry understood that shortly after last UMTS licenses were sold for crazy piles of money.

Very true indeed. UMTS is a comittee standard which effectively means it is not only overtly expensive but also too cautious on what people will demand of it -- half the performance of Wi-Fi with twice the price.

Of course, as some experts see it, UMTS will become reality regardless of its shortcomings, merely because so many governments and institutions have put so much money and effort into it. Feh.

Finns are quite precise about their privacy issues. Finnish media reacts very aggressievly to any insult of privacy, was it about snail-mail, telecommonucation or e-mail. A firm can ruin its reputation very badly, if someone finds out any interfering of privacy.

For example there is one major legal case underway, where Finland's biggest telecommunication company's head was arrested, including the former president of the company. The case is about tracing mobile phones to reveal people who are leaking sensitive information about the company to media.

So in the first place the article attached to this story trys to settle the concerned citizen by proving that the system is truly anonymous (temporary, non-personal and untraceable keys for following all those faceless mobile phones) and the police authorities have no access to it. I see no reason to doubt their honesty because the Road Administraion (which will use the system) is governmental bureau and lying might lead to yet-another privacy scandal in Finland.

Finns are quite precise about their privacy issues. Finnish media reacts very aggressievly to any insult of privacy, was it about snail-mail, telecommonucation or e-mail. A firm can ruin its reputation very badly, if someone finds out any interfering of privacy.

For example there is one major legal case underway, where Finland's biggest telecommunication company's head was arrested, including the former president of the company. The case is about tracing mobile phones to reveal people who are leaking sensitive information about the company to media.

So in the first place the article attached to this story trys to settle the concerned citizen by proving that the system is truly anonymous (temporary, non-personal and untraceable keys for following all those faceless mobile phones) and the police authorities have no access to it. I see no reason to doubt their honesty because the Road Administraion (which will use the system) is governmental bureau and lying might lead to yet-another privacy scandal in Finland.

Read it here!

And here and here are some links to Finnish news (in English).

And YLE daily news (in Real Audio)

Japan does have a Finnish parliament member though: Marutei Tsurunen (né Martti Turunen).

Yeah kids, dont plagiarize, you'll never amount to anything that way. Exept perhaps a minister of foreign trade.

Well,

In Finland the goverment and some of the biggest cities like Turku are currently spending quite serious money to find out if Linux / Open Office would offer a more sensible option than the MS-products. The reason -money. The new MS-lisence scheme has really irritated the local decicion makers. It's not easy to find 30-50% more money for software licenses at the same time as unempleyment rates have started to raise again...

The added security of OSS-products is of course nice benefit, but it's not the main factor.

v.