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This is a very strange article. No idea what City of London police has to do with this- there aren't even any universities in City of London (probably a few pub

This is a very strange article. No idea what City of London police has to do with this- there aren't even any universities in City of London (probably a few publishers though). Sci-hub doesn't have any logins barring captchas so why would that be an issue? You could make the same argument for YouTube being a security threat.

carmen_sandiego 6y ago
The City of London Police are often involved in nationwide fraud issues, consulting with other regional police forces, etc. They're a leading UK center for it just because they deal with it so often. This is all a bit "you wouldn't download a car" of course, but it's not that unusual for them to comment on these things.
- vijayr02 6y ago
  Also, the City of London is (I think) the only municipal body where businesses are allowed to vote alongside residents AND outnumber residents. From the Wikipedia article: > As it has not been affected by other municipal legislation over the period of time since then, its electoral practice has become increasingly anomalous. Therefore, the non-residential vote (or business vote), abolished in the rest of the country in 1969, became an increasingly large part of the electorate. The non-residential vote system used disfavoured incorporated companies. The City of London (Ward Elections) Act 2002 greatly increased the business franchise, allowing many more businesses to be represented. In 2009, the business vote was about 24,000, greatly exceeding residential voters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation
  - corty 6y ago
    Also, the sherrifs are elected by the Common Hall. The Common Hall consists of the senior members of the Livery Companies which are the guilds and trade associations. So the police is exclusively elected by the businesses.
ChrisKnott 6y ago
CoLP has a national responsibility for fraud, so it has several teams that are nothing really to do with the City, the Intellectual Property Crime Unit is one of them. As for the article they are clearly scraping the bottom of barrel trying to come up with ways to dissuade users. If they have grounds to enforce it as an IP crime, they should enforce a block. Either way they should stop this embarrassing nonsense trying to spin it as a cyber threat.
corty 6y ago
The City of London is an age-old construct by the financial and aristocratic elite to further their interests and evade a few taxes and regulations. The CoL police is more like the financial police, and therefore primarily enforces business interests and prosecutes mostly financial and business-relevant crime. The name is definitely weird, just like Scotland Yard has little to do with Scotland or units of length.
- mnd999 6y ago
  Scotland Yard is a place where the Met just happened to be based.
- OJFord 6y ago
  City of London is no weirder than New York City, and Scotland Yard is no weirder than Wall Street. In the UK 'city' doesn't mean 'big place', so we have some that you'd call villages, and others that you'd recognise.
  - eigenket 6y ago
    City of London is kinda weird as its the only place in the UK that companies can vote (as far as I'm aware). its got like 10k actual humans voting there and like 24k votes from companies.
  - tankenmate 6y ago
    In times of yore in the UK (and England in particular) city status was bestowed primarily by dent of there being a cathedral in the city. City status was (and I think also still is on advice of parliament) also bestowed by the Crown. These days it is largely down to population size.
  - corty 6y ago
    CoL is far weirder. First, it is not the same as "London", it is just the central part of London. CoL has a different election system from all other parts of England, corporations get a vote (actually, several, how many depends on size and kind of business, derived from the ancient guild system) and outnumber residents by far. This also includes voting the sherrifs into office, explaining the firmly pro-business stance of the police. The CoL also owns properties outside it's own domain, even public grounds in Northern Ireland (via an intermediary). Large parts of the CoL and thereby electoral votes in the CoL are owned by the Crown, the royal family and various lords. This explains the CoL escaping all attempts at reforming it into something more democratic and into a normal part of the city of London (note the non-capital 'c' in 'city'). Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London if you are interested. If you want to know how ancient and ingrained the weirdness of the CoL is, look no further than to one of three clauses of the Magna Carta still in effect: "IX. THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, as with all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs."
skissane 6y ago
> No idea what City of London police has to do with this I don't know why City of London police even exists. Is there any good reason for them not to be absorbed by the Metropolitan Police Service?
- dageshi 6y ago
  There's probably some law on the books that says the City has their own police force and rewriting it opens up a whole can of worms nobody wants to deal with.
  - skissane 6y ago
    > There's probably some law on the books that says the City has their own police force City of London Police Act 1839 > and rewriting it opens up a whole can of worms nobody wants to deal with. The issue is political. Business interests want to retain the City of London as independent from Greater London because while the rest of London is a one-person-one-vote democracy, the City of London is not. Most of the votes in the City of London are controlled by businesses not residents. The City of London having its own police force is a sign of its independence. Merging City of London Police into the Metropolitan Police Service would be seen as a potential steppingstone to making the City of London part of Greater London, and hence introducing to it genuine democracy
tome 6y ago
> there aren't even any universities in City of London This is tangential to the main discussion, but London Metropolitan University has a campus in the City, the Guildhall School of Music is there, and there seems to be a campus of Chicago Business School too.
IshKebab 6y ago
> Sci-hub doesn't have any logins barring captchas so why would that be an issue? They need Shibboleth logins to download the papers. There have been claims that they use phishing to obtain them.

carmen_sandiego 6y ago

The City of London Police are often involved in nationwide fraud issues, consulting with other regional police forces, etc. They're a leading UK center for it just because they deal with it so often. This is all a bit "you wouldn't download a car" of course, but it's not that unusual for them to comment on these things.

vijayr02 6y ago
Also, the City of London is (I think) the only municipal body where businesses are allowed to vote alongside residents AND outnumber residents. From the Wikipedia article: > As it has not been affected by other municipal legislation over the period of time since then, its electoral practice has become increasingly anomalous. Therefore, the non-residential vote (or business vote), abolished in the rest of the country in 1969, became an increasingly large part of the electorate. The non-residential vote system used disfavoured incorporated companies. The City of London (Ward Elections) Act 2002 greatly increased the business franchise, allowing many more businesses to be represented. In 2009, the business vote was about 24,000, greatly exceeding residential voters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation
- corty 6y ago
  Also, the sherrifs are elected by the Common Hall. The Common Hall consists of the senior members of the Livery Companies which are the guilds and trade associations. So the police is exclusively elected by the businesses.

ChrisKnott 6y ago

CoLP has a national responsibility for fraud, so it has several teams that are nothing really to do with the City, the Intellectual Property Crime Unit is one of them. As for the article they are clearly scraping the bottom of barrel trying to come up with ways to dissuade users. If they have grounds to enforce it as an IP crime, they should enforce a block. Either way they should stop this embarrassing nonsense trying to spin it as a cyber threat.

corty 6y ago

The City of London is an age-old construct by the financial and aristocratic elite to further their interests and evade a few taxes and regulations. The CoL police is more like the financial police, and therefore primarily enforces business interests and prosecutes mostly financial and business-relevant crime. The name is definitely weird, just like Scotland Yard has little to do with Scotland or units of length.

mnd999 6y ago
Scotland Yard is a place where the Met just happened to be based.
OJFord 6y ago
City of London is no weirder than New York City, and Scotland Yard is no weirder than Wall Street. In the UK 'city' doesn't mean 'big place', so we have some that you'd call villages, and others that you'd recognise.
- eigenket 6y ago
  City of London is kinda weird as its the only place in the UK that companies can vote (as far as I'm aware). its got like 10k actual humans voting there and like 24k votes from companies.
- tankenmate 6y ago
  In times of yore in the UK (and England in particular) city status was bestowed primarily by dent of there being a cathedral in the city. City status was (and I think also still is on advice of parliament) also bestowed by the Crown. These days it is largely down to population size.
- corty 6y ago
  CoL is far weirder. First, it is not the same as "London", it is just the central part of London. CoL has a different election system from all other parts of England, corporations get a vote (actually, several, how many depends on size and kind of business, derived from the ancient guild system) and outnumber residents by far. This also includes voting the sherrifs into office, explaining the firmly pro-business stance of the police. The CoL also owns properties outside it's own domain, even public grounds in Northern Ireland (via an intermediary). Large parts of the CoL and thereby electoral votes in the CoL are owned by the Crown, the royal family and various lords. This explains the CoL escaping all attempts at reforming it into something more democratic and into a normal part of the city of London (note the non-capital 'c' in 'city'). Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London if you are interested. If you want to know how ancient and ingrained the weirdness of the CoL is, look no further than to one of three clauses of the Magna Carta still in effect: "IX. THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, as with all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs."

skissane 6y ago

> No idea what City of London police has to do with this I don't know why City of London police even exists. Is there any good reason for them not to be absorbed by the Metropolitan Police Service?

dageshi 6y ago
There's probably some law on the books that says the City has their own police force and rewriting it opens up a whole can of worms nobody wants to deal with.
- skissane 6y ago
  > There's probably some law on the books that says the City has their own police force City of London Police Act 1839 > and rewriting it opens up a whole can of worms nobody wants to deal with. The issue is political. Business interests want to retain the City of London as independent from Greater London because while the rest of London is a one-person-one-vote democracy, the City of London is not. Most of the votes in the City of London are controlled by businesses not residents. The City of London having its own police force is a sign of its independence. Merging City of London Police into the Metropolitan Police Service would be seen as a potential steppingstone to making the City of London part of Greater London, and hence introducing to it genuine democracy

tome 6y ago

> there aren't even any universities in City of London This is tangential to the main discussion, but London Metropolitan University has a campus in the City, the Guildhall School of Music is there, and there seems to be a campus of Chicago Business School too.

IshKebab 6y ago

> Sci-hub doesn't have any logins barring captchas so why would that be an issue? They need Shibboleth logins to download the papers. There have been claims that they use phishing to obtain them.