Posts by Jack the Ripper

MPs' Pretty Good Privacy 'ban' finally explained

Typical bloody IT

This response and attitude it simply typical of your average IT department. Rather than do something that the customer actually wants or needs they hide behind jargon, obscurity and half truths. Why didn't PICT do an evaluation of the latest version of their VPN software with the latest version of PGP. Probably because they were too f*cking lazy. So they banned the offending software instead. It's about time IT got their house in order and got of their @rses to deliver what their customers actually want and need, not what they can be bothered to support.

As for the MPs, firstly they need to fire the head of PICT, and then lock him up in the Tower. Some of them should also be educated in matters IT / IT Security so that they can hold these people to account.

UK.gov convinces just 2,000 Mancunians to join ID card trial

@iMess

At least having different data on different databases makes it more difficult for a security breach for a complete picture of your life to be built up. I know that the Civil Service and Government are incompetent but it is not as easy to put together all the information if there are multiple databases.

This is hammered home by the publication today on Wikileaks of the BNP member database, where name, address, dob telephone numbers and in some cases membership type (student, unemployed, working or retired) were listed. Now put all of that in a database together with every other piece of information that the Government has on you and if you aren't afraid you either need to get back in touch with reality or stop working for the Home Office.

UK.gov backs ID scheme with peanuts promo spend

@Alien8n

PR is not the panacea it is made out to be. I believe this is used in the EU elections and they resulted in 2(?) BNP MEPs. So while everyone is going on about how wonderful PR is, the standard warning of unintended consequences should be ringing loudly in everyone's ears, particularly when dealing with a body of people as fickle and potentially unpredictable as the electorate.

North Wales Police says the law is what they say it is

@ Jon 66

I don't think this is about us all wanting to "indiscriminately slag off plod" - more attempts to hold public officials to account and being stonewalled. This is particularly important when said officials are there to uphold the Law, but apparently make it up as they go along...

Office admin sacked for Blears abuse

Bye bye freedom of speech

Does this ruling mean that if you are a civil servant, you are not entitled to air your views of events that are in the public domain, no matter how emabarrasing for the executive? I wonder how much Big Brother spent on finding the author of this 'anonymous' posting!

Plod called in on MPs' expenses leak

@ AC 9th May 2009 15:23 GMT

"Tell me one of you wouldn't do either and I'll show you a liar."

Your view of the human race is jaded: if I were an MP (and I am sure that there are many who share this view) I would not milk the system for all it is worth. I have had ample opportunity to milk the expenses system of various employers and have not done so and never would. I hope (not being naive) that there are some MPs out there that have similar morals and eithcs; Hilary Benn and David Cameron appear to be emerging from this relatively cleanly so far.

To represent the people should be considered an honour, not an excuse to get rich at the people's expense. While a lot of the current incumbents have been found to have their hands in the till, it doesn't mean that all of them, or all of us, are the same.

Pilots plot air raid on Jacqui over ID cards

Re: Why are these tests not properly implemented?

Brilliant! Perhaps also for the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament. Thay way, they will spend so much time being id'd, drug-tested and failing lie-detector tests (have you ever known a politician to tell the truth?) that they won't have time to drag the country down from the cesspit that it's already in.

UK.gov to spend £2bn on ISP tracking

@AC Monday 27th April 2009 12:38

The beauty of encrypting a message and hiding it in a picture is that firstly you have to know that there is an embedded message in the picture. Secondly, if you use the recipient's public key to do the encrypting, you can't decrypt the message anyhow thus nullifying RIPA. They will, however, probably get you for something else (wasn't it amazing how, a couple of years ago, every terrorist suspect that couldn't be charged was found to have kiddie porn on the hard disks of their computers) but that's a different matter.

Street View nod prompts call for privacy watchdog reform

@ Daniele Procida

The difference between us taking photographs and big business / big brother recording everything is the scale of what is being captured and how searchable it all is. In a free society, the individual must be allowed to record whatever he wants, unless it really is going to compromise national security (I would suggest that photos of policemen or government buildings do not compromise national security, but plans drawn up to arrest terrorist suspects probably do qualify!).

The problem with big business / Big Brother recording this type of information is the linking of it all together. The fact that the world's biggest(?) interweb search engine is also recording what specifcally you are looking at on Google Earth / Street View is scary: the ability to link all of this information together and to pass it on to a 3rd party...

Wi-Fi Beeb viewing may break law

Licence fee

There is a lot of criticism of the BBC that I feel is unjustified. The BBC produce some great stuff in comparison to the mindless dross churned out by the other broadcasters in the UK (they also produce some pretty dire content). I don't know about everywhere, but the free-to-air TV that I have watched in the US and parts of Europe can't hold a candle to the Beeb. The greatest thing of all is the lack of adverts (esp now that F1 is back where it belongs), which imnsho is worth the licence fee alone. That doesn't even start to think about the radio services provided...

BBC zombie caper slammed by security pros

Security Awareness

All this whining by the security industry makes me want to throw up. They have been preaching "security awareness" for years without so much as a scratch on the surface. Along comes Auntie, and in 6 months (if that's how long it took for the programme to be put together) has done more than the security industry has in God knows how many years.

The BBC probably did break the CMA, but as a previous poster indicated, that's more to do with a badly written law. I am more than happy for my licence fee to be used this way.

Three months on, you still can't get off the DNA database

@ Nikki Andrews

<quote>

Personally, I'd rather run the (minimal) risk of all your horror stories and lock up a couple more rapists. I'm quite happy to give up an insignificant part of my civil liberty in order to help police with their investigations. So sign me up.

<quote>

So for the sake of a couple of rapist convictions you are happy to have innocents locked up and the key thrown away? How would you feel if you were one of the innocents? Or it was a member of your family? Still happy to be signed up, and for your civil liberties to be reduced (not insignificantly btw - the change in presumption of innocence (this is a convicted criminals' database after all) is a major change)?