Posts by Eclectic Man

Study confirms experience beats youthful enthusiasm

Re: Experience includes institutional knowledge - Documentation???

One of my colleagues in a former employment had the job of finding out the following:

1 What are we providing to the $customer?

2 What are we billing the $customer for?

2 What are we contracted to provide to the $customer and at what prices?

He was often 'hindered' in this due to frequently having clients where we had 'lost' the written contract*, were providing services on the basis that 'someone from their team phoned us up one day and asked us to provide an extra', and even finding out that we were charging them for services we had terminated years ago or were not billing them for and never had.

He saved the company millions. But very rarely did any of the two above agree, and he never found one where all three were in agreement.

* When I left I had to send them a copy of my written contract specifically the clause concerning my notice period so I paid the correct amount of tax on my retirement lump sum because they had lost their copy and had not bothered to take an electronic backup.

Early retirement

It may well be the case that older staff are more experienced, but we often come with added health conditions (aka 'co-morbidities'). My father was a teacher and later the headmaster of a state comprehensive school.

He retired at 60* on the basis that the colleagues he knew who had worked to the age of 65 died around the age of 70. He died aged 96 and 6 months, having collected his index linked teacher's pension for a full 36 years.**

It is all very well saying that heterogeneous teams are best, but what really makes the difference is competent management caring for their staff. I'd like to see that in a 'Management Consultancy' report.

* I got out at 58, and am enjoying the prospect of a long retirement. The amount I'd have to be paid to go back to the hell-hole of paid employment would be vastly more than even my genius*** would be worth.

** I am also looking to spend 'Dad's' money on having a bit of fun. He was quite the miser :-)

*** PhD in pure maths

New hire fixed a problem so fast, their boss left to become a yoga instructor

Aside - Politics

We will soon see which one Keir Starmer has ...

I'll get my coat, it's the one with a letter of resignation in the pocket.

The Rolling Stones' hit song '(I can't get no) Satisfaction' was literally dreamt up and recorded:

"Keith Richards wrote the music and the song’s most important lyric. He has long claimed that the song’s signature riff came to him in his sleep and that he got up, played it into a tape recorder (onto a Philips cassette, to be exact) and then returned to bed."

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/Satisfaction.pdf

And modesty does not prevent me from claiming that I have had some the best ideas in maths and cryptography that I have ever had, lying awake in bed at night in the dark (on my own in case you were wondering).

re: multitasking

This is like the suggestion that people should stand on one leg while brushing their teeth. If you need to concentrate on some task, do not do something else at the same time that will divert your attention. You really should take care when brushing your teeth. Difficulties flossing, inflamed gums etc should be noted and if they persist maybe a visit to the dentist is in order. If you concentrate on standing on one leg you are unlikely to brush your teeth properly. Similarly if you sit on a chair or stool that requires your attention to balance then you are not going to do a good job for your owners, sorry managers .

Stash or splash? Lawmakers ask NASA to find alternatives for International Space Station

Beyer's markup

Another markup, introduced and later withdrawn, came from Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) regarding the controversial requirement to relocate a space vehicle to Houston.

For a brief moment there I actually envisioned Beyer suggesting NASA de-orbit the ISS on Houston to comply with Trump's promise to give them a spacecraft in which astronauts had actually flown.

Must be getting old.

Workday reveals around 400 staff soon won't have to work another day

Just the thought of taking Boris Johnson to the vet to have him 'seen to' makes me queasy, and amused in equal measure.

Re: revenue generating roles

My old employer decided for one year that my part of the business would only give bonuses for direct revenue earning work. If someone's job is important enough for them to be paid to do it, and told to do it by a manager, then my opinion is that if they do it excellently they should be eligible for the bonus scheme. If their work is of no value to the employer, then why are they being told by management and paid to do it?

Let's face it, there are quite a few roles in businesses that are not directly revenue earning but which are important, such as data controller (mandatory for GDPR compliance in UK and EU), System Administration for internal IT, and don't forget cleaning the toilets (if this does not happen, your building will soon seriously stink).

Just sounds like a cost-cutting exercise with an announcement designed to shore up the share price - 'it's OK, we're not cutting anyone important, honestly'.

'The EU runs on Microsoft' – and Uncle Sam could turn it off, claims MEP

Re: Reality bites

Sorry for the late reply, but you do know that AWE is in very frequent contact with their American counterparts don't you? When DOGE fired a lot of the USA's nuclear staff, the AWE staff who relied on them in order to maintain the UK's 'independent' nuclear deterrent were at a loss. The American managers were reduced to contacting their former staff on Facebook and other commercial sites to get them back.

Even if the Americans do not have the ability to directly prevent the launch of a nuclear Trident missile, they could make it impossible for the UK to maintain its nuclear deterrent for very long.

(I have a friend who currently works at AWE, and visits the USA regularly for work.)

Re: Reality bites

OK, thanks for the information about Trident.

However, the UK's new F-35A nuclear weapons are only usable with American permission, see:

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-confirms-us-control-of-nuclear-weapons-for-f-35a-role/

"The UK’s planned air-launched nuclear capability for its F-35A Lightning II aircraft will rely on US-controlled weapons under NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements, the Ministry of Defence confirmed.

Responding to a parliamentary question from Conservative MP Mike Wood, Minister of State for Defence Luke Pollard reiterated that the nuclear weapons assigned to NATO’s dual capable aircraft mission are United States assets and remain under US control and custody."

Re: Reality bites

Please point to the kill switches in FOSS.

I did say "probably", and if I knew, I would alert the relevant bug people, not publicise it on this website. In any case just because something is open source, does not mean it is safe, see:

"The International Obfuscated C Code Contest" at https://www.ioccc.org

Reality bites

I am unlikely to be popular for this, but, the fact is that the USA military and intelligence 'communities' are deeply embedded in both the UK's and the rest of NATO's military and intelligence gathering organisations. The USA's NSA is embedded in the UK's GCHQ, the USA's armed forces are embedded in the UK's armed forces. The UK buys weapons from the USA that can only be used with their permission. The UK's nuclear deterrent is rented from the USA and can only be used with American permission. How long would 'our' F35's fly without American support?

Even if they would let us, disentangling the UK's intelligence and military from the USA would take years. And not to mention the high probability that there are people in the pay of the USA in important positions in the UK that are not officially known to be working for the USA. It may not be quite so bad in other countries, but the USA will probably let us 'have our fun' when it comes to getting rid of MS (after all they probably have 'kill switches' for the replacement software anyway), but at far as letting us genuinely disengage from American control, not a chance.

(Sorry)

Palantir declares itself the guardian of Americans' rights

Re: Went for a quick reminder about the Fourth Amendment

"temporarily unavailable"

Maybe they are protecting the privacy of the US constitution?

I'll get my coat, it doesn't have a green card in the pocket.

the political system in the Uk is just as fucking corrupt as it is in America

Yeah, but the USAfolk do it all with so much more panache! than we do.

Re: Palantir

If they are looking for a new 'eminence grise', I believe that Peter Mandelson may soon be (un)-available, depending on the Police criminal investigation into his links with a certain Mr J Epstein. He seems willing to work with almost anyone.

Karp's 'philosophising' contained far too much in the way of 'buzzword bingo' for my liking. (OK, admission, I barely understood what he was going on about, just that he was trying to make rich, rightwing, mostly white, mostly men, feel that they are the true 'majority' of Americans.)

Shivers down spines all round.

Nitrogen ransomware is so broken even the crooks can't unlock your files

Quality control?

According to a retired bomb disposal officer, the IRA had a pretty good build standard for their 'official' explosive devices. Now admittedly the IRA bombing campaign on the UK mainland was mostly to scare rather than kill people, so they wanted the UK authorities to know that their bombs would cause damage if they were not defused in time, but also that they could be defused in time if their warnings were heeded. They also did not want to blow up their own people.

Criminals using ransomware to obtain funds really do need to check the quality of their code and to test it properly first. I'm not expecting ISO certified quality here, just common sense*.

*If you are expecting any from this poster, you are going to be seriously disappointed.

Next-gen nuclear reactors safe enough to skip full environmental reviews, says Trump admin

Re: Approval not rejection

Ah yes, the 'Linux - OS to the Gods' icon, I did not consider that to represent the natural world.

Silly me.

Approval not rejection

The clear intention here is speed up approval of new Nuclear Reactor designs, not to speed up a rigorous and valid assessment process.

How long does it take to fly to New Zealand?

(Aside: I have just noticed the complete absence of any icon depicting the natural world in the Register's selection. Interesting. The 'won't someone think of the children' icon being the closest I could find to the sentiment I wish to express.)

Feeling taxed by layoffs, IRS turns to AI helpers

In other news

"Trump and his sons sue IRS and US Treasury over leaked tax information

US President Donald Trump and his two sons have filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against the federal government over leaks of their business and personal tax returns.

The civil complaint, filed in Miami federal court, seeks $10bn (£7.25bn) in damages.

The Trump family accuses the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) - the US-wide tax body - and the Treasury Department of failing to prevent the disclosure of "confidential, personal financial information" by a former IRS contractor.

... in September 2020, just before the November election, The New York Times published an extensive report on Trump's tax returns, revealing he paid only $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency and no taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years.

Two years later - in 2022 - Trump released the documents himself."

As Scott Bessent runs the Treasury Department and is a Trump appointee, I wonder how this case will go. Will he defend the action, and tell his boss to go away, or will he just cave in and pay DJT US$10 Billion? I doubt he'll leave it to an AI, however well trained, to decide what to do.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c23ryyrx40yo

You just could not make this up.

Challenger at 40: The disaster that changed NASA

See also ...

... the section 'Mr Feynman goes to Washington' from Richard Feynman's memoir "What do you care what other people think?" and appendix F.

Watchdog says US weather alerts are getting lost in translation

Re: Confused

Ahem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_of_the_Coptic_Orthodox_Church

"The pope (Coptic: Ⲡⲁⲡⲁ, romanized: Papa; Arabic: البابا, romanized: al-Bābā, lit. 'father'), officially the pope of Alexandria and the patriarch of the see of St. Mark. also known as the bishop of Alexandria, or the patriarch of Alexandria, is the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, with ancient Christian roots in Egypt. The primacy of the Patriarch of Alexandria is rooted in his role as successor to Saint Mark, who was consecrated by Saint Peter, as affirmed by the Council of Nicaea. It is one of three Petrine Sees affirmed by the council alongside the Patriarch of Antioch and the Pope of Rome. The current holder of this position is Pope Tawadros II, who was selected as the 118th pope on November 18, 2012."

Confused

Umm, see: https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/27/pope_warns_flock_to_raise/ No less a person than the current Roman Catholic Pope (Leo XIV) has just warned against trusting AI.

Chess notation gets around translation issues by using pictures, couldn't the weather services use images to get their messages across?

Microsoft illegally installed cookies on schoolkid's tech, data protection ruling finds

Re: Business model flaw

If companies approached the design of systems sensibly - lets look at relevant laws, regulations and local requirements and only then build it out, we'd end up with software that had privacy by design.

Ha-hahahahaha. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Ha-hahahahaha. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Ohhh dearie me.

Wipes tears from eyes.

Now I've got hic-coughs.

(Former IT security consultant to HMG departments and agencies and their suppliers, financial institutions, UK Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force IT systems, and a few others.)

Well at least I didn't spill my drink.

(Upvoted for the right idea though.)

Pope warns flock to raise their faces, protect their voices in fightback against AI

Catholics and critical thinking skills

Catholics need to develop critical thinking skills to counter the dark side of AI and counter unnatural attachments to chatbots ...

Well, at least Leo XIV is consistent in avoiding wanting catholics to develop critical thinking about the Catholic Church's teachings and control over them. Let's face it, a man whose three favourite films are 'The Sound of Music', 'Ordinary People' and 'It’s a Wonderful Life!' is not much into introspection or self-doubt.* Maybe I could send him DVD's of 'Philomena', 'The Mission' and 'The Magdalen Sisters'?

He is right about AI though and the unbelievable level of trust it has inherited from our reliance on normal computer systems.

We're doomed, aren't we?

Edit= tidying up a few things.

*Confession: I am not a Catholic. I was 'raised' to be a Quaker, so not baptised as a child. In a gay pub one evening I mentioned this to one of my 'friends', whereupon he insisted that I could not die unbaptised, and reached up and made the sign of the cross on my forehead with his right thumb. As I was sitting on a stool at the time I could not avoid it. I gave him a look Paddington bear** himself would have been proud of, and he was a bit contrite, but it still rankles.

** Paddington has three grades of stares, IIRC.

Oracle AI sailed the world on Royal Navy flagship via cloud-at-the-edge kit

Aside - Coracle

The (allegedly children's) adventure story 'Treasure Island' by Robert Louis Stephenson contains a wonderful description of how (not) to drive a coracle.

Keep it simple, stupid: Agentic AI tools choke on complexity

Tea?

It is not just complexity that gets AI to fail

"And do you know why I would like a cup of tea?"*

(Re: Nutrimatic Drinks Machine)

I'll get my coat, it's a dressing gown with a towel in the pocket ...

*I'm an ignorant ape descendent who doesn't know any better.

MPs ask who's responsible when AI crashes the UK finance system

Re: There must be clarity on who is responsible:

Oh dear.

The whole point of automating systems that make decisions is that no one is to blame, no one gets fired, and no one gets punished (apart from us underlings, and we were always expendable anyway, so not much of a loss). 'AI' is just another way of confusing anyone who tries to find a causal link or a decision making chain between a disaster and an identifiable living person.

I once worked for a company that was very badly managed. The two owner - directors had told one person to do a piece of work that was literally essential to the continuing existence of the company. They had said that if he failed they would 'cut his head off'.

I then went to this actually very good and competent person and asked "do they understand the difference between delegation of authority and abrogation of responsibility?" Before I had finished he had already replied "No." (His work was fine and the company survived another few years.)

Just look at the astonishing number of corporations that settle out of court, without accepting liability, for an undisclosed sum, having forced a non-disclosure agreement on the victims. When Harry Stanley was shot by two armed police officers who thought he had a shotgun (it was a wooden chair leg he had been restoring, in a plastic bag), the verdict was that the officers were not to blame. There was no consideration of what would happen when the armed police officers told someone who did not have a gun to "put the gun down NOW!" Similarly, Jean Charles de Menezes was shot by accident, but the police officer who emptied a magazine of seven bullets from his automatic pistol into the bak of his head while sitting on top of him was in full control of himself.

Basically if you follow the rules and there is a disaster, you will be ok. It, whatever 'it' is, will not have been your fault. The people who wrote the rules will have moved on and there will be no-one left to take the blame in person. And if the rules are incomplete, contradictory, unclear, ambiguous or merely 'commercially confidential' so cannot be released for general review (like search engine results or social media 'recommendations') so much the better.

SO: The committee said there should be clear lines of accountability when AI systems produce harmful or unfair outcomes.. is pointless and never going to happen.

Royal Navy's helicopter drone makes its first autonomous flight

Re: Blimey!

"What's that? Its a big round thing, It's coming at me very fast, very fast indeed. it needs a big round sounding word. Round, ground. Ground, that's it! Ground!

I wonder if it'll be friends with me!"

(HHGTTG, Magrathea episode.)

Congress throws NASA a lifeline, leaves Mars sample mission to die in the dust

Atmospheric science?

NASA is also renowned for its Earth observation and atmospheric science. Any news on that? Trump has, in effect, waged war on anything that objectively shows human activities are having serious effects on the atmosphere and 'global warming'.

Any chance that Congress will see sense and save that too?

There was so much fraud on COVID loans, the feds trained an anti-fraud AI on the applications

Not just the USA

We had our own Covid fraud here in the UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c075vjxyx3no

"Much of the £10.9bn in taxpayer money lost to fraud and error in Covid support schemes is now "beyond recovery", a report has said.

The response to the pandemic had led to "enormous outlays of public money which exposed it to the risk of fraud and error" with many organisations unprepared, the Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner, Tom Hayhoe, said.

Employment support schemes set up by the previous Conservative government, including furlough and help for the self-employed, suffered £5bn of fraud, the report found.

..."

Not to mention Baroness Mone and her PPE contract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ0PcKoaf-U

"Baroness Mone-linked company ordered to repay UK government £122m over PPE contract"

The video has this statement for balance:

"Conservative Peer Michelle Mone has taken a leave of absence from the UK’s House of Lords "to clear her name", amid allegations she benefitted from a company she recommended for a Covid contract.

Her spokesman said the allegations had been "unjustly levelled against her"."

It seems that when governments are in a crisis and throwing money at a problem, all sorts of people turn up to thrust their snouts in the trough, some of them are not entirely honest.

ISS stint ends early as NASA aborts Crew-11 over crew illness

Medicine in Space

Dr Kevin Fong did the UK's 'Royal Institution Christmas Lectures' one year on space medicine. The ISS has minimal medical facilities as firstly, astronauts and cosmonauts are really super healthy people, and all the medical equipment would have to be blasted into orbit in competition with scientific experiments. They are also super careful about avoiding injuries etc, so hope there are no serious medical emergencies up there. But sadly, they cannot cater for every eventuality.

https://www.rigb.org/about-how-survive-space

Boffins probe commercial AI models, find an entire Harry Potter book

Re: Memorising the Bible

"This parrot is no more, it has ceased to be.

Bereft of life, it rests in peace. I you hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies.

It has shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to join the bleedin' choir invisible.

This is an ex-parrot!"

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Re: I can believe it - Shakespeare

The British actor Robert Lindsay was in a Shakespeare play in London's West End (I think it was 'Hamlet', but I'm not sure). Anyway, he realised that some Japanese people in the audience were following the dialogue with their own printed copies. As he was recently returned from a tour of the play in Russia, he spoke the next line in Russian, and watched with some satisfaction the consternation in that part of the audience as they tried to find his words in the text.

As they say, little things please little minds.

Re: Can it improve the Harry Potter books?

the Earthsea books are well worth reading

Actually a lot of Ursula Le Guin's books are worth reading. 'The left hand of darkness' and 'The word for world is forest' are both good, if you like something with a bit of interesting philosophy as part of the plot instead of 'cowboys and Indians in spaaace'.

ISS spacewalk postponed over mystery astronaut malady

Re: Flat Share

When studying for 'O'-level biology* the teacher had one Petrie dish prepared with agar for each member of the class. We had to decide on what to put on it and it would then be incubated for a week. We all picked something different. I chose breath, I and a couple of other students just breathed out onto the gel. After a week there was a 'healthy' growth of bacteria. Not as much as some others, but enough to ensure that I would never, for example blow into a camera to remove dust from the sensor.

These microbe thingies are everywhere .

*Yes, I really am that old. I got a 'B' and decided to study maths.

Indeed. See the 'documentary' The Andromeda Strain:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain_(film)

Historic NASA test towers face their final countdown

Re: Controlled implosion

start with 1lb C4 and your initiator of choice

I'll pass on that, if that is ok with you. My main interest in explosives is limited to watching decorative fireworks*.

I really do believe that serious explosives should only be handled and used by people who are both trained and competent. Although I do recall hearing a former UK bomb disposal officer stating that the IRA had a well specified and implemented build standard for their explosive devices during 'the Troubles' and their bombing campaign on the British mainland.

*As a young man, I really thought that 'The Anarchist's Cook Book' contained recipes for food, until I learnt better. - Hence the 'D'Oh' icon.

UK regulators swarm X after Grok generated nudes from photos

Re: Why

Is that 'pooh' as in faecal matter, or as in 'Winnie-the-Pooh' so beloved of President Xi Jinping?

Upvoted anyway as you made me smile, thanks.

'Request for Comment'

X did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

I wonder why.

re: censorship

Looking forward to Elon complaining about censorship from European countries.

J D Vance beat him to it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_JD_Vance_speech_at_the_Munich_Security_Conference#:~:text=In%20his%20speech%2C%20Vance%20argued,threats%20from%20Russia%20or%20China.

"On 14 February 2025, U.S. vice president JD Vance delivered a speech at the 61st Munich Security Conference. In his speech, Vance argued that Europe's principal danger came from erosion of democratic norms — especially censorship, ..."

Bitfinex crypto thief who was serving five years thanks Trump for early release

Re: I have come to ask you to do a service for me !!!

Each day I read of yet more people (criminals) who Herr Trump has decided need to be free ... and everyday I feel more and more safe !!!

See: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/21/trump-white-collar-criminals for a list:

"As those concerned with environmental collapse, economic instability and the spread of authoritarianism find themselves increasingly sidelined, white-collar criminals – Zhao among them, and Trump himself – are enjoying a political moment unlike any they have known before.

For this coterie of fraudsters and tax evaders, the past year has been a cresting wave of successes: the abandonment of seeming slam-dunk prosecutions, presidential pardons for even the most egregious crimes, and a steady hollowing out of the agencies tasked with holding them to account. Trump’s not wrong when he rails about a surge in crime. But “the crime wave,” as journalist Jacob Silverman wrote earlier this year, “is white collar”."

Maybe Maduro just didn't pony up enough dosh to support Trump in his old age*. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/explosions-reported-venezuela-caracas )

* Sorry, this is a foul slur on both presidents, by all accounts they hate each other.

China wants to ban making yourself into an AI to keep aged relatives company

On talking dogs

Read the opening lines of Patrick Ness's 'Chaos Walking' trilogy:

The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is, dogs don't got nothing much to say.

"Need a poo, Todd."

"Shuddup"

"Todd! Poo!"

Re: Great Danes

Some time last century, when I used to go jogging in the cool morning air, I would often see a man walking his very well behaved Great Dane (the leash was always loosely hanging, he never had to tug at the dog at all). The thing is that the dog would just watch me jog past on the other side of the road, and I could never shake the thought that it was weighing up whether there was enough flesh on me to be worth the effort of the chase.

North American air defense troops ready for 70th year of Santa tracking

There IS a Santa Claus!

"As the story goes, a Sears Roebuck ad included a phone number for children to call, but that number was wrong. Instead of reaching the retailer’s Christmas line, it included the unlisted number for NORAD command."

No I don't mean that NORAD are actually tracking Santa as he delivers presents. What I mean is that of all the typographical errors that could have happened in an article about tracking Santa, it 'just happened' that it changed a civilian, commercial number into an unlisted one for the one organisation* at the time that would actually do 'that sort of thing'. Coincidence? I don't think so ...

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

HO HO HO!

*OK, NORAD, 'No Such Agency' etc, pay attention. You really need your unlisted phone numbers to be at least TWO typos away from any commercially available phone number, see 'Hamming Distance'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_distance

Around 1,000 systems compromised in ransomware attack on Romanian water agency

Critical National Infrastructure

Romanian Waters' network was not protected by Romania's system for safeguarding critical national infrastructure.

Not sure any further comment is necessary, just how could any government not consider water supply and sewerage to be critical infrastructure?

Here's hoping it gets sorted out soon.

Hegseth needs to go to secure messaging school, report says

Re: Walk the walk.

Why would Trump take on Putin? Trump does not care about Ukraine, but does want access to Russian rare earth elements. The latest '28 point plan' for 'peace' in Ukraine included the USA getting 50% of profits from rebuilding and developing Ukraine (item 14: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/21/trumps-28-point-ukraine-plan-in-full-what-it-means-could-it-work ) .

Trump likes to work with one person to make a deal, which is why the EU and the Europeans are ignored in his 'negotiations', despite clause 11: "Ukraine is eligible for European Union (EU) membership and will receive short-term preferential access to the EU market while this issue is being considered."

Now I don't know what the revised version says, but if you say that someone else (the EU) will provide "preferential access", you really ought to have asked them first.

Security Training

"unless one considers a bit of remedial security training to be a punishment"

For someone with Hegseth's level of seniority, sheer arrogance and sense of entitlement, security training (actually training of any sort other than, for example, how to fire a bazooka or drive a tank) counts as a punishment. Look at the books he has written, they are all about 'macho' warriors, individual fighters. From a Defense Secretary, I'd hope for something a bit more strategic, such as an analysis of the campaigns of Alexander the Great or Octavian.

UK pushes ahead with facial recognition expansion despite civil liberties backlash

Re: It's alright crowing

Indeed, they do not say how many people were stopped and let go after they proved they were not the person the system thought they were.

The Guardian has an interesting piece, claiming that the technology is not accurate for black or asian faces:

"Analysts who examined the police national database’s retrospective facial recognition technology tool at a lower setting found that “the false positive identification rate (FPIR) for white subjects (0.04%) is lower than that for Asian subjects (4.0%) and black subjects (5.5%)”.

The testing went on to find that the number of false positives for black women was particularly high. “The FPIR for black male subjects (0.4%) is lower than that for black female subjects (9.9%),” the report said."

from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/05/home-office-facial-recognition-tech-issue-black-asian-subjects

Now this is 'at a lower setting', so not sure how relevant it is to the implemented system. (I did walk past one of these things on Oxford Street recently by Oxford Circus station, but as I am not currently a fugitive, cannot tell whether it worked or not.)

There is, of course, a claim that they review results before acting:

"Officials say the technology is needed to help catch serious offenders. They say there are manual safeguards, written into police training, operational practice and guidance, that require all potential matches returned from the police national database to be visually assessed by a trained user and investigating officer."

I would like to know exactly what this training, operational practice and guidance involves around not arresting someone who might be wanted. (Hopefully I will never need to find out.)

Twins who hacked State Dept hired to work for gov again, now charged with deleting databases

Yet another 'Highest priority'

The security of our customers' information is our highest priority

Along with safe working practices, compliance with all applicable legislation, non-discriminatory employment practices, and so on.

The fact that one of the twins still had access after being dismissed is an example of lax administration.

My guess is that their current 'highest priority' is actually saving the CEO's arse* from a good kicking.

* 'ass' in USA- speak