Longrider

On Bill Gates convening a group of bloggers at Redmond:

Seeing the look on Gates’ face when he walked into the room and every single one of us had a Mac open on the desk in front of us - Niall Kennedy had also set up a makeshift wifi network using an Airport

Well, it made me smile…

Although those of us opposed to the idea of reliance on technology to overcome human problems have always been aware of the potential weaknesses in such “solutions”, the government; obsessed with new technology and therefore blinded to those weaknesses has forged ahead regardless. Now, that bastion of government propaganda and dumbing down, the BBC has openly broken ranks with its masters in Whitehall. It dares to contradict the notion that electronic wizardry is the solution to all our problems:

The ePassport is one of the many measures pursued by the United States and governments internationally after the horror of 11 September.

It will, we are promised, keep the unwanted and dangerous outside our borders, while streamlining entry for those welcome to come and visit.

But as the implementation of the scheme gets underway it is becoming clear that there could be serious problems with it.

Well, yes, you don’t need to be a technogeek to work out the obvious; that which is manufactured by man can be replicated by man. That any lock will sooner or later be picked.

The good thing about RFID chips is that they emit radio signals that can be read at a short distance by an electronic reader.

But this is also the bad thing about them because, as Lukas demonstrated to me, he can easily download the data from his passport using an RFID reader he got for 200 Euros on eBay.

Indeed. This was entirely foreseeable. Foreseeable that is by everyone but government ministers. Remind me, just what is it we pay these buffoons for?

Now for the clever bit. Thanks to a software he himself has developed, called RFdump, he downloads the passport’s data onto his computer and then onto a blank chip.

Using a standard off-the-shelf component you can just buy at a component store you can have a cloned ePassport in less than five minutes.

…

When the cloned ePassport is read and compared to the original one it behaves exactly the same.

Et voila a cloned passport. The Home Office is belligerent, though.

The UK Home Office however dismissed the ability to get hold of the information on the chip.

A spokesman said: “It is hard to see why anyone would want to access the information on the chip.”

“Other than the photograph, which could be obtained easily by other means, they would gain no information that they did not already have - so the whole exercise would be pointless: the only information stored on the ePassport chip is the basic information you can see on the personal details page.”

Presumably for the same reason that people forged the old type passports – to sell them to people who desired to pass themselves off as someone else. Why else?

He said: “Being able to copy this does not mean that the passport can be forged or imitated for illegal or unauthorised use.”

“British ePassports are designed in such a way as to make chip substitution virtually impossible and the security features of the passport render the forgery of the complete document impractical.”

Oh, give over, please. It’s bad enough that these people are blinded by technology, that they would seek to impose insecure data management on us, that they are so ignorant and arrogant that they treat our personal data with barely concealed contempt, but this is taking patronising us to new levels. Any document produced by the authorities is forgeable and there will always be someone who will seek to profit from doing exactly that.

It is almost like writing your pin number on the back of your cashpoint card.

Indeed. Why would anyone want to do that?

…If not, the danger is obvious - that a scheme, the declared aim of which is to increase our security, could well do the exact opposite.

Given government incompetence so far, that’s a highly probable scenario. Just as well I renewed mine early and got myself an old style paper version.

The NHS database rolls forward – behind time, over budget, but like Frankenstein’s monster awakens slowly. Some patients (like Mrs Longrider and I) have expressed privacy concerns and expressed a desire not to be included on this behemoth. It is, after all our data, is it not? Last month the government rejected such requests. Now, it seems, they may be back pedalling.

The government has bowed to privacy concerns about a new NHS computer system and conceded that patients should be allowed a veto on information about their medical history being passed from their GP to a national database.

Following a Guardian campaign against the compulsory uploading of personal details to the system known as The Spine, Lord Warner, the health minister, will announce a plan that would allow individuals to review and correct their records and withhold them from the database.

This is good news indeed. Evidence that people power can influence even the most autocratic of government departments. However…

Lord Warner said it was not yet possible to guarantee a right of veto. Some doctors were concerned that patients might be putting themselves at risk by refusing access to records that could save their lives in an emergency.

Bollocks! Lord Warner is a pillock of the highest order. How, exactly, have the emergency services managed to save countless lives up until now? How did they manage without a database to tell them what they can glean from the patient, the patient’s relatives and friends, from carrying out tests at the time? For crying out loud! Health care providers are perfectly capable of dealing with an emergency effectively without a database, it’s what they’ve been doing since the invention of medicine. Ah, but, ZANU Labour with its managerial obsession knows better. Frankly, I’ll take my chances with the paramedics rather than allow my details to be uploaded onto a national database and my privacy threatened.

Lord Warner said the government remains firmly committed to the creation of a national database and hopes to persuade the vast majority of patients to consent to their records going on it.

Not me, you won’t.

A public information campaign will be launched shortly, claiming that lives could be saved in emergencies with instant access to information about patients’ allergies, medications and previous treatments.

Bollocks.

The new proposals will not change the government’s plan to upload patients’ names, addresses and dates of birth to the national database. Ministers say the NHS needs a list of who is entitled to free treatment and has legal authority to make this information accessible to authorised medical staff throughout England.

One might almost be inclined to diagnose obsessive compulsive disorder on the part of hmg…

Update: All is not as it seems. See Terri’s comment below. The question is; have you told your GP you want to opt out yet?

Seen on the back of a bus yesterday, the Safety Camera Partnership’s latest campaign:

Less speed = safer roads; it’s a simple equation.

No, it is NOT a simple equation. A suitable and safe speed is defined by influencing factors; the road and traffic conditions, weather, the vehicle’s type, age and condition, the driver’s age, condition, general health, alertness and level of concentration. A suitable and safe speed takes into account a combination of these factors. A lower speed may well mean a lower overall impact in the event of an accident incident and in the event, walking away as opposed to dying. However, good driving and, therefore, good traffic management and education must surely be about avoiding the incident in the first place rather than mitigating the consequences.

Ah, yes, but that’s just a little too difficult – as is thinking, it would seem. An alert driver on a good road in clear conditions may drive perfectly safely and without incident at three figure speeds. It is not speed that causes accidents, it is drivers who drive at inappropriate speeds, who talk on their mobile phones, who eat their lunch, do their makeup, read, change the CD or are just too stupid to multi-task while at the wheel.

What matters is not speed taken in isolation but the driver’s ability to drive the vehicle with consideration for developing hazards and deal with them before they become a problem. Simply forcing people to drive more slowly – and, importantly, simply educating them into thinking that this will make them safer drivers – merely reduces the speed at which they drive badly. It is still possible to die in a road traffic incident at 30mph. Therefore, it would make more sense to train drivers to avoid the incidents in the first place, would it not?

Convincing people who are unwilling or unable to figure it out for themselves that driving more slowly makes them safer drivers is contributing toward making the roads more dangerous. Ah, but, that’s the hard of thinking for you. Always looking for a simple-minded solution rather than stretch the grey matter and seek a properly thought out one.

Ryan Newell comments over at UKIPhome about the impending EU driving licences:

As mentioned earlier the new licences must be renewed every 10 to 15 years. This means that every 10 t o15 years we will be forced to fork out to renew our licences. We can also be forced to pay for a new test each time our licence needs renewing.

There are doubtless plenty of valid arguments against a homogenised EU driver licensing scheme (I’m going to be paying particular attention to the motorcycle proposals). To rage against renewing them every ten to fifteen years however misses a vital point: Our current photo licences are already subject to renewal every ten years. Oh, and I can’t find anything about a new test every time a licence is renewed. I don’t know where Ryan got that one from.

Commander Dave Johnston manages to come up with a spectacularly excellent example of just why the police force should be firmly separated from politics:

DNA samples should be taken from babies and stored on a database to help in the fight against crime, a senior police officer said yesterday.

Commander Dave Johnston, Britain’s most senior murder investigator, said the information could be used to both to solve and prevent crimes.

He also suggested samples could be taken from people when they renewed their passports and from migrants arriving in the country.

Maybe Davey boy should spend less time watching CSI and more time in the real world. Sure, DNA is a useful tool for determining whether someone was at the scene of a crime; doesn’t mean they committed it, though. However useful DNA is to the investigation of a crime, to treat the whole population as potential suspects is going just a little too far. Do we wish to become a totalitarian state or not? Well, better not ask Dastardly Dave, we might not like the answer.

Mr Johnston, the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide and Serious Crime Unit, told The Sun: “We have 300,000 unsolved cases where we have taken a profile at a crime scene but have not yet matched it.”

“As well as solving crime, it would really make someone think twice about committing crime if they knew their DNA was on a database.”

Really? Every advance made by law enforcement agencies is mirrored by advances made by the criminal fraternity. Does dopey Dave really think that someone, somewhere won’t find a ruse to fool the system? Does he not consider the possibility that innocent people will suffer miscarriages of justice as the law enforcement agencies rely heavily on “infallible” evidence (as opposed to effective police work)? Just as they did with Shirley McKie? After all, fingerprints are infallible, aren’t they?

What the fuckwitted Commander Johnston forgets is that he is stumbling into the political arena; bolstered no doubt by the Blair government’s desire to give the police whatever Draconian measure they ask for, for no other reason than that they ask. It is up to politicians to listen carefully to power hungry coppers on an ego trip; nod earnestly, smile and then tell them to fuck off and get on with policing and keep their noses out of politics. Dodgy Dave may think it appropriate to stimulate debate. In a personal capacity as a citizen that is within his rights. As a serving police officer, this is politics and well outside his remit.

I, for one, will never willingly submit my DNA so that Dangerous Dave can eliminate me from whatever enquiry he is currently engaged upon. His job is policing, not documenting, data tagging and cataloguing the population so that they may be treated as criminals. He is there to serve us, not the other way around.

Shami Chakrabati puts it succinctly:

“It is about time we had a debate about whether we want to turn from a nation of citizens into one of suspects,” she said.

“Certainly at Liberty, the answer is No.”

Quite.

I’ve never much liked politicians. This quote sums them up beautifully:

Still, we Americans should be aware of the venality, the meanness, the duplicity, and the downright vilenss of the pompous power-hungry pols who specialize in being elected to Congress.

It would be a simple matter to replace Congress with Parliament and Americans with Britons – it would still scan; it would still be accurate.

I note a spat developing between the Devil’s Kitchen and Chad over at UKIP Home. Chad has decided that DK is a Tory stooge. If that’s what he believes, then he is free to make his case. However, it is in the making (or not) of the case that he crosses certain boundaries. He is unable to comprehend why DK objects to the publicising of personal details – in this case; real names. Chad chooses to write under his real name. Fair enough, that’s his choice. DK, like many of us, chooses to draw a thin veil of separation between online and offline personae. This means that during discussions, we refer to each other by our chosen monikas not our real names. That those details may be found relatively simply does not mean that they should then be publicly displayed – it is impolite, it crosses the boundary of acceptable behaviour. Despite having been asked to refrain, Chad continues to publicise DK’s name and as a consequence may impact on his offline employment prospects. That, frankly, is way below the belt.

Having looked at UKIP Home, I’m less than impressed. It tells me little of what UKIP stands for and an awful lot about how awful the Tories are. Ah, well, there’s nothing new in the silliness of politics. Chad sums this up for us with his comment about who will win the next election:

For example, no political leader would ever publicly say they believe their rivals will win even if the rival has  60% poll share rating.

The reason is obvious; by stating the possibility of your rival winning, you add strength to that frame because you do not want it to happen.

Yes, Chad. It is this intellectual dishonesty that is responsible for the electorate holding the political classes in such contempt. I, for one, would have some grudging respect for a politician who was, just for once, honest about their electoral chances. I’m tired of being lied to by politicians.

Also, implying by not implying that someone has hacked your site is not only childish, but is coming very close to libel. Does Chad have evidence that DK hacked his site – or didn’t, but you know what I mean, nudge, nudge, wink, wink? This, frankly, is a scurrilous slur.

If **** ******* wants to be trusted in a professional IT role, it is time for him to come clean about his involvement or knowledge of who was behind this hack.

I’ve learned more about UKIP – and as a consequence started to take them more seriously – from the Devil’s Kitchen, than can be gleaned from the tedious, spiteful and libellous whinges on UKIP home.

As others pointed out in the discussion at the Kitchen, Chad really doesn’t get it. Why would anyone pay him £2.50 to comment on his blog? It’s not as if you get value for your money, after all. Subscriptions may well deter trolls and spammers, but there are other effective means that do not stifle discussion. I’ll be dammed if I pay a blogger to comment on his blog – that’s why I’m doing it here. Oh, and no one is expected to pay me to comment here. So long as you are civil, then say what you please. Agreeing with me is nice, but not essential.

If UKIP really want to be taken seriously, they will publicly distance themselves from trolls like Chad.