Posts by Anji

'Vast majority of people' are onside with a data grab they know next to nothing about, reckons UK health secretary

Coincidence?

Interesting that yesterday (9th June) I received an unsolicited email, claiming to be from "Patient Access", the company that manages my GP's patients' web access.

In that email I was entreated to click on two separate links (destinations obfuscated behind buttons).

One regarded T&C's, the other their Privacy Policy.

"Please read and understand the above. Any ongoing use of the service constitutes acceptance of the updated terms and policies."

I have clicked on neither, but examined their code to identify exponia.com as a common destination. They are an American owned Customer Data Platform, acquired by "Bloomreach" VERY recently.

On the GP's website there is no mention of any changes in T&C or Privacy Policy.

So, is this an attempt to get me to unwittingly give permission for data-slurp?

Or perhaps it's good old fashioned spear-phishing by someone with access to my medical records?

Either way I'm not impressed.

Assange lawyers fume over leaked rape case docs

Shome Mishtake Shurely?

I'd have thought that releasing this information was guaranteed to ensure a fair trial would be impossible. If you can't have a fair trial you should not have any trial at all.

Police sitting on forensic backlog risk, says top e-cop

Bill to the rescue?

Microsoft might be the solution provider. Google for "Microsoft COFEE".

Police to keep innocents' DNA despite human rights ruling

But they're innocent!

Someone is accused of crime, then found innocent.

Not, a "bit" innocent or "mainly" innocent; INNOCENT.

For whatever reason they were wrongly accused. Maybe through over-zealous police round-up of a target group, maybe through the vindictive accusal of rape by a trouble maker. It matters not one jot what was the original charge. This half-hearted fudge - typical of the present goverment's approach to law and order policies - has so many holes you could drive several carts and horses through it.

Here's an idea that I bet they haven't though of ;-). You are charged with wilful littering because as you drove along with car windows open, an old pay-and-display ticket blew out the window.

Case dismissed because anyone can see this was accidental not wilful. What if the original summons read ... littering and plotting to blow up parliament? Of course the parliament bit would be dismissed out of hand, BUT it was a serious charge of which you were found innocent. Good enough for the DNA-retention squad then.

Please can we have a new government* now? This has gone well beyond a joke.

*and as these arbitrary laws are being dreamed up by faceless civil servants directing a goverment without the wit or will to question them, can we have new civil servants too please?

Mobile directory blames press for latest failure

Can't you see the risk

From even being ex-directory?

Michael Caine "not many people know that" mode;

Being ex-directory can give away valuable information to data-diggers;

With BT, if you don't want to be listed you actually have TWO options;

Ex-Directory or NQR (No Quoted Record).

With Ex-Drectory, anyone who phones directory enquiries with a name and "guessed" address will be told "That number is ex-directory" - confirming that the address was correct!

With NQR, an enquirer is told nothing. He is told there is nothing listed for that name and address.

My BT lines are - you guessed it - all NQR.

End of Michael Caine mode

PS, Anonymous Coward; since when has it been necessary to PAY for an unlisted line? You seem unfamilar with telecomms in the UK.

UK gov unleashes biometric IDs

Re "Here's a prediction"

And once there's a ready supply of card readers, that's another leg knocked away from that super-secure database. There have always been two levels of card authentication, one - stand-alone comparison of the human in front of you with data that's on the card, or two - on-line comparison of that human with data held on big brother's database and linked to that card id.

Maybe method 2 will be secure for a little while, but method 1 will clear the way for fraudulent access and use of the fifty pieces of information on the card.

UK health records should not be flogged off

Consent IS irrelevant, because...

Our Gordon has found another way to get you on his database. Anyone who does not wish their organs to be taken with assumed consent after their death may soon have to REGISTER that fact. I can opt-in by carrying my donor card. It seems opting-out by carrying a no-donor card isn't on offer. Your only recourse is to get on that huge NHS database, you know, the one we all told our GPs not to upload our records to when we had the (poorly publicised) chance. This whole matter has been so poorly thought-out - no surprise there - that it has driven a wedge between patients and doctors. The Government's attempt to force us into alignment with "the medical good cause" has simply driven us to consider doctors the paid stooges of the lying, money-grabbing, sell-your-granny NooLabour criminals.

UK's 'secure' child protection database will be open to one million

Re Petition anyone?

Yes please, but right now there's no opt-out. It's the law that your LA has to provide the requested info.

This dangerous data about our children is kept "live" until their 18th birthday - unless they have "been involved", in which case their records stay live indefinitely. As for the other 99.99%, their records stay on the system as "archives" for another six years. So they'll be 25 before they drop off the list - except they can be kept on indefinitely if "The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families or a local authority is satisfied it is necessary..."

This whole exercise is building a priceless database for Government mining in the years to come. Surely it MUST be stopped? Why is the populace just letting this happen? Even if there's a change of Government soon (please!) and the scheme is scrapped, what if the database is already part-populated? What security will there be for those incomplete records?

Somebody help us!

Prius hybrid to get rooftop solar panel

Battery top-up problem

There's a practical problem affecting the use of solar trickle chargers on most cars - the alarm.

When armed, most (if not all) alarms monitor battery voltage. That's because opening any door will switch on a courtesy light, causing a small drop in battery voltage which is detected and triggers an alarm.

That same drop is detected if your solar trickle charger is in bright sunlight when a cloud passes. The shadow causes a volt drop which is seen as an entry attempt.

Volumetric alarms are probably immune to this phenomenon, but even they usually have a secondary volt-drop detection capability.

Home Secretary in ID card gaffe

- and it gets worse!

As if it weren't bad enough that data security is compromised by all those remote card readers - connected or not to the database - the point of entry for your most personal information is now deregulated. In an interview today with "info4security" http://www.info4security.com/story.asp?storycode=4117775&sectioncode=10 , James Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service let slip this gem,

"As part of the proposed cost-cutting measures, the Home Office will be asking private companies to photograph and fingerprint ID card applicants directly."

“We had previously assumed that we would do that ourselves, but as we’ve been re-thinking about this with the home secretary over the last few months, I think we recognised there’s no need for us to do it ourselves – far better to allow the marketplace to do it,” Hall said.

“That allows you essentially to have competition between different providers, providing services to the public; probably allows you to have far more obedient points of presence out in the high street; and undoubtedly as a consequence will significantly drive down the cost.”

- And HOW much did we pay to commission all those 70-odd registration offices that were given the go-ahead (and finance) months before this sorry project ever came close to Government approval.. or was it..?

I have to go and lie down now. Blood pressure don't you know....