I recently had an unsurprizingly disappointing experience with the Government’s e-Petitions; specifically, the one concerning ID cards. The petition was summarily closed and a ‘personal’ reply from Tony was posted, and e-mailed to signatories. The reply makes it clear that ID cards will be going ahead, because they can catch some criminals and won’t cost much (honest). Nowhere does it address concerns that the police are to be given free reign to rummage through the biometrics to find criminals, that your details will forcibly be added to the National Register when you get a passport whether or not you object, that there are no provisions yet advanced to govern the future use or ‘sale’ of your data by other ‘approved’ groups (‘remember the selling of the Electoral Register data?) or worst of all, that no large-scale project has proven that it can keep detailed personal information secure for any sensible timescale. For all these reasons, and more, the PM’s reply was simply fobbing off the signatories with the same-old same-old.
Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Petitions that work
Monday, February 26th, 2007Just a little bit more free than we might have been
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007There have been a few new items about DRM and ID cards out on the electron sea since Christmas. I’m happy to report that the Government have said that they’ll be storing less information on their ID cards; ‘format shifting’ (copying CDs) should be legal; the term of Copyright won’t be being extended to 95 years (thus upsetting Sir Cliff); and there’s a detectable undercurrent in the music industry that is beginning to realise that customers don’t like DRM. All good news for the New Year.
8% really don’t want a National ID Register
Wednesday, December 6th, 2006A Telegraph survey has found that 8% of nearly 2000 people interviewed would rather pay a fine than have their data added to the National Identity Register. Count me in! I genuinely don’t believe that a) the database would be properly secure, and b) that the Government wouldn’t try to ‘add value’ by selling it off.
Frankly, I’m not interested. Not one bit. So fine me and the other 4.8 million people who aren’t interested. I dare you.
There is no such thing as perfectly secure technology
Friday, November 17th, 2006In case any of you were remotely sceptical about the Government’s fabulous new plan to issue IDs along with passports, and more worryingly, add your biometric data to a National Register (which won’t be sold to anyone, oh no, honest), then you were right.
The Guardian, with a little help from a friend, has announced that it’s accessed and can copy the data stored on a standard UK passport chip using a cheap (174 UKP) reader. The article goes into some detail as to why this is important, and gives the Home Office it’s chance to answer concerns, so it’s worth a read.
Two for two!
Friday, November 10th, 2006I couldn’t resist posting this. After yesterday’s wonderful news that Don Rumsfeld had finally succumbed to the inevitable (Did he jump or was he pushed? I don’t care! :), today’s most worthy victim of common sense prevailing is the immensely arrogant John Bolton looks like he might be ditched too. Thank heavens. Yo might remember him as the ‘gentleman’ who tried to destroy the United Nations 60th anniversary accord on aid to developing countries, combating global warming and nuclear disarmament, by introducting 750 last-minute amendments of his own. Godd riddance, I say.
27/15 follows the Bonzos
Wednesday, November 8th, 2006That cryptic title just about covers the last excellent 24 hours. Last night, we went and saw the 40th Anniversary tour of the magnificent Bonzo Dog Do Da Band. An evening of mayhem, music, and madness. Truly excellent renditions of “Urban Spaceman”, “Mr. Slater’s Parrot Says Hello”, “Mr. Apollo” and much more had the audience baying for more. Guest appearances by Phil Juptus and Ade Edmonson (who were clearly in seventh heaven) bolstered the band’s complement and added to the lunacy (picture Ade dressed as a parrot wandering into the audience squawking “Hello!”)
Sobering thought for the day
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006We’d all be in a very different place now if it were not for Colonel Stanislav Petrov, a man who literally changed the course of history in 1983. That’s something to put on your Curriculum Vitæ.
Wow: great one-liner
Tuesday, August 15th, 2006In a marvellous blog entry about how we need to get the whole terrorists-and-airlines into some perspective, Kung Fu Monkey wins the award for the Best Clause In A Blog This Week: “suck my insouciance”, and the FDR/Churchill (faux) quotes made me cry with laughter. Mentioning Hello Kitty panties was off-base but worthwhile too.
Read and enjoy, and possibly donate.
Disgusted, amazed, and hooked
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006Another day of colliding emotional states: today I will mostly be
- Disgusted – about 20% at Israel for its pathetic apology for its refusal to stop killing innocents, but 80% at us, the rest of the World, for our utter lack of any spine in tackling Israel over this. Make. Them. Stop. If it were North Korea, you know the UN would have had a dozen resolutions before it already and we would be applying sanctions like it was going out of fashion. We are all so feebly ovine. I disgust me.
The monster from the ID
Monday, July 17th, 2006Well, we can live in hope: the ‘voluntary’ ID card scheme is being increasingly reported as in trouble. A giganitic white elephant of a project, so wrong, unpopular, and ill-concieved the only way to get it past the House of Lords was to threaten to neuter the rights of the Second House, and the only way to obtain the required information was to steal it off of another project – when you ‘volunteer’ to renew your passport, your information is automatically added to the National ID Register, and you can’t refuse. Data capture by redefining the meaning of the word ‘voluntary’. How Orwellian is that?