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 February, 2007
Petitions that work
Monday, February 26th, 2007Software with true “Wow!”
Monday, February 12th, 2007Here are a couple of lists of FLOSS (Free/Libre Open-Source Software) that are decent (in most cases) replacements for other proprietary software that you may use. The review at Simple Dollar lists 30 essential applications that you really should be using; OS-Alt has a more extensive list that you can search for software that serves a precise need. Bear in mind that although it may not be as fully featured as something you pay for from a big corporation, you’re getting it for free, it’s likely to be less invasive and more secure than more heavily integrated software, and that if you want to contribute an improvement or a bug, the whole community of users will benefit.