Weekly Brief — 15 August 2025

Here’s a brief summary of the news this week which didn’t make it into a dedicated article:

Ofcom pursuing 4chan over lack of information

Ofcom has issued 4chan with a ‘provisional notice of contravention’ under Section 130 of the Online Safety Act 2023 following concerns about breaches of duties under s102(8) of the Act which requires companies to provide information to Ofcom

“Section 102 — Information Notices

(8)A person to whom an information notice is given has a duty—

(a)to act in accordance with the requirements of the notice, and

(b)to ensure that the information provided is accurate in all material respects.”

Online Safety Act, Section 102

Jeremy Chelot resigns from TOTSCo Board

Jeremy Chelot, CEO of Netomnia has stepped down as a director of The One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo), leaving a vacancy as a Constituency Director for the New Infrastructure Provider segment which needs to be filled. Whilst a new director is being chosen, the alternate director Domhnall Dods of CityFibre will serve in his place.

“It’s been a privilege to represent the New Infrastructure Providers on the TOTSCo Board and to contribute to the industry’s work on switching. I look forward to seeing how the programme continues to develop.”

Jeremy Chelot, Director, TOTSCo

Openreach pilots leak detection using its fibre network

Openreach has launched two pilot projects to use its fibre network to detect water and gas leaks. It will be doing this in partnership with various companies and using Lightsonic’s Distributed Fibre Optic Sensing technology which is already used across submarine cables. More details on Total Telecom.

“Openreach were the obvious choice of telecoms partner for this project. We want to create a model that can be adopted in other UK cities, not just in London. Openreach have the national reach we wanted”

Sam Bright, Innovation Manager, Thames Water

Mind your passwords — Virgin Media highlights password security

Virgin Media undertook research with an ethical hacker into people’s passwords and warns that users need to take more care with 78% of people admitting to re-using the same or near identical passwords across multiple accounrs online.

They produced a quick video to illustrate the problem. The skills here aren’t really exceptional, but I think that highlights the fact this is a very serious problem: