Posts by Disgusted of Cheltenham

Airbus keeps an A350 flying for 24 hours

Re: Noise cancelling headphones

When I asked where the free water was in Bristol Airport I was assured that there was none for passengers as water is only required to be provided for employees. It may have changed since I stopped using it.

Leading AI models (even Grok) are all a bunch of leftist punks

Mussolini mostly drove around in right hand drive cars...

Home Office's glitchy eVisa rollout lands UK privacy regulator in campaigners' crosshairs

Re: Glitch

The ICO is a parliamentary body, not least so it can take Crown bodies to court, so nothing wrong with Parliament sorting it out. It's grossly overworked because extra (sometime conflicting and always underfunded) work keeps being dumped on it: e.g. FOI and eIDAS. We should be clear that the primary fault is with the Home Office, not the watchdog. It was supposed to be rolling out such systems under the thumb of GDS. Why did GDS let it go ahead without producing the required impact assessments? Or were the GDS demands so unreasonable (such as using Verify) that the HO had to work around them to deliver anything? Horizon was a problem with the law, lawyers, and the Post Office. There was, eventually, a consultation on the legal presumption that a computer is working correctly. It closed 14 months ago, and the (unrebuttable) rebuttable presumption remains, along with a failure to note that networks or real time systems aren't deterministic (as was noted during the Apollo lunar landings, so not news). It may all come down to confusion between digital and online; we want verifiable digital solutions (signed power of attorney, probate, Visas) but that doesn't mean online.

Britain plots digital bedtime after kicking under-16s off social media

Re: Reeally....

The Australian kids I spoke to explained politely that they already had VPNs to Turkey because subscriptions to Netflix were cheaper there. No need for a new one.

"including overnight social media curfews" - perhaps like the ones the South Koreans had for years but have now abandoned. But then attitudes to public services there are different, with a digital fire brigade: help my computer is on fire - let us access remotely to fix it... The idea of using cohort instead of date of birth was really helpful for schools as everyone in grade x got the same.

(And isn't there going to be a pre-MMIX crtificate soon: born before 2009 so you can buy tobacco products?)

Civil servants to protest outside Capita AGM over pension shambles

Re: Uncivil servants

Not all of those count as civil service.

ICO chief John Edwards steps back as workplace probe quietly unfolds

Not sure if peerage is available for New Zealanders, but why is a Crown body like DSIT lording it over a Parliamentary one (ICO)?

UK gov pays public £550 to discuss Digital ID – then bans journalists from the room

Consent? You did not read the bit in the consultation where it explicitly said that what we mean by consent here is not as defined in GDPR, without saying what it was.

It is strange to consult before there is one or more proposals to discuss.The consultation doesn't close until 5th May.

The Verify roadshow came to Birmingham just after its consultation closed. Has anyone seen any evidence of an open meeting anywhere in the country? Even a briefling for the press would be a good start.

If this, or the last government knew what they wanted then we would have it by now. A bunch of mutually incompatible requirements is not a system design, even before scope creep is called upon, not least to spread the painful costs which come before the benefits.

Age checks could turn internet into an ID checkpoint, complains Proton CEO

Re: He understated the problem

There's already a new attribute to check now: pre-MMIX show you were born before 2009 to buy tobacco in the UK.

The relying party should never rely on processing done by anything under control of the claimant. Verifiable credentials means verifiable by anyone needing to check, should they bother to do so..

Stale gov.uk pages are feeding AI overviews old data and Brits are believing it

We wouldn't be using Google if the gov.uk search worked properly.

England's school phone ban gets teeth, just in time to bite no one

Re: in my day, teachers regularly confiscated calculators, catapults and god knows what

But these phones can make sounds at high frequencies that all the children can hear but very few of the teachers.

Re: Disjointed thinking

What's e-mail, Daddy?

Under 25s cannot be assumed to have it, whatever GDS might pretend.

Re: Disjointed thinking

The consultation

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/growing-up-in-the-online-world-a-national-consultation

includes

whether the guidance on the use of mobile phones in schools should be put on a statutory footing

and ends on 26th May.

Why is anyone legislating before the closure of the consultation?

Responses take time. https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/use-of-evidence-generated-by-software-in-criminal-proceedings/use-of-evidence-generated-by-software-in-criminal-proceedings-call-for-evidence closed over a year ago.

'People's Panel' to check if UK wants controversial Digital ID will cost £630K

Re: with the output "weighed alongside the broader consultation feedback"

There was a relevant consultation last year on digital evidence, to which no response has yet been seen, and now we have (another) consultation on ID whose results will not be available to this people's panel. With no proposed architecture there is no costing and no impact assessment (or any type) for the lucky few to consider. Where is the requirements capture? And interoperability? Why not just become Estonian e-residents- apart from overloading their system? (That would require a change to a basis of entitlement rather than claim, which is a bigger topic and TB was against it.)

The whole business model, particularly the split between public, private or both remains unanswered, not least becasue it is logically impossible to do all the things already promised at the same time. If the government system is any good and free then why compete and what is the expected ROI? Doesn't the NHS already have an adequate system? A lot of clever and motivated people have spent time on trying to find a way forward since 2010, looking at technology, the law, liability, commerical models, EU interoperability, diversity, equality, children, tourists, inward investment, privacy, security, multi-lingual.....

It isn't explained why this 'random' sample is waiting until the end of the consultation but then not using its results. But at least it's not arranged like the Verify roadshow in Birmingham where the answers-without-time-for-questions session was held after the closure of the consultation.

Maybe they should have a reading list: The Crosby report, the NAO reports, ....

Security contractor blew the whistle on support crew's viral indifference

Re: Lazy by design.

Simlar observed in the civil service, although once it was clear that nothing was being done with the output there was a nice routine that would take the diary at the end of the week and randomly fill in the timesheet to be compatible with it. The 'digital' version of the flexi-time form had been created so mindlessly that it still included the exhortation to read the notes on the back of the form.

Starmer's digital ID reboot raises same old questions as its Blair-era ancestor

Re: What's all the fuss?

By the time this arrives smartphones will be in museums as we will all have to look through our rose-tinted 'smart' glasses activated by retinal scans. Sadly, there seems to be a conflation of the much needed infrastructure for accountability, with a focus on a silly way to do it, aligned with a reluctance to consider the economics, not to mention the enthusiasm for consultations without reading the extensive literature available on the subject - just as it was for last spring's consultation on computer evidence. Perhaps 'digital ' needs to be sorted out before worrying about 'online'.

Flaw in UK's corporate registry let directors rummage through rival records

Re: "Companies House takes its responsibility to protect the data entrusted to us..."

They have companies paid millions to take the blame. e.g. (from accountingweb)

Salus Cyber - Companies House's Cyber Security Delivery Partner

Version 1 Solutions Ltd - Companies House's Strategic Delivery Partner

FDM Group - provide "software development services" to Companies House

It all seemed like "business" as usual until the fnal

"...to make sure that our services continue to merit the trust placed in them."

It isn't a matter of trust; there's an obligation and the choice is to do it yourself or get an agent to do it for you.

Age verification isn't sage verification when it's inside operating systems

Re: Only remotely possible and secure if

What is being looked at is labelled with and to an internationally consistent age-related standard. Since that's not going to happen, what's the benefit in always knowing the age of the viewer?

Lloyds Banking Group apps play mix-and-match with customer transactions

Re: Room, Check; Elephant, check!

The MInister has made it clear: “I have asked the team to make sure it [ID] is at least equivalent to banking-level security, with banking apps."

Rt Hon Darren Jones MP Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister

https://github.com/UKHomeOffice/passports-prototype-v2 was only 7 to 10 years ago, when they understood the difference between digital and online.

Whitehall can't cost digital ID until it decides how to build it

Re: The first question.

What makes it hard to provide serious comment on are notes such as

"For clarity, references in this section to consent are not intended to be read as references to consent as defined under the UK GDPR."

without an indication of what it is supposed to read as. It sounds as if a Minister has promised something that GDPR recital 43 explains is not allowed.

Many other Humpty-Dumpty words ring alarm bells. Surely they can't be too young to remember 'robust' from Post Office Horizon?

How do 'the highest standards of security' come with just 'medium' assurance?

And then there are some numbers to confuse the numerate:

GOV.UK One Login allows people to prove their identity once before using that digital identity to access more than 122 services across government." https://home.account.gov.uk/services-using-one-login has only 53.

UK digital ID brief quietly moves to new minister after resignation

By February?

The consultation was originally supposed to be by the end of last year. Of course it would make sense to do this after the still-awaited analysis and response to the consultation on digital evidence [Computer Evidence in Criminal Proceedings (Jan-Apr 2025)], although the questions there suggested that those asking them were not familiar with the published literature on the topic, e.g. https://uolpress.co.uk/book/electronic-evidence-and-electronic-signatures/ and twenty years of https://journals.sas.ac.uk/deeslr

The new https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/2026/cambridge-launches-digital-identity-regulatory-initiative/ doesn't include the UK in the list of systems worth studying. If English law is to retain its place in international trade it really does need to cope with this new-fangled internet.

Brit dual nationals grounded by border digitization drive

Re: unsure whether she would be able to return to the UK

The ETA need has been widely published, but the exception for dual citizens was not. It looks like a mistake as a result of digitization, with failed 'agility' when the issue was spotted. For an Australian to be asked to renounce Irish citizenship to enter the UK (because they might be found to overstay as a visitor when entitled to stay anyway) is utterly daft. Unfortunately, the Home Office is able to point out that it brings UK into line with what Australia demands (for Ireland read New Zealand). Perhaps the Australians could explain why they did this?

Britain's Ministry of Defence signs on the dotted line with Palantir

Re: The exact opposite of what everyone else in Europe is doing

Prompt and efficient pruning of those not performing acceptably (as viewed by the party) hardly seems to be an affliction.

"not drawing on information available to him from working for the government to provide his new employer with an unfair advantage over competitors" seems irrelevant if no competitors were allowed.

UK digital ID goes in-house, government swears it isn't an ID card

Re: In House Project

That would mean NCSC marking its own homework. The DV is fundamentally about confidentiality: access to classified information. There was a protective marking system 1995-2015), and the techncal part of that would have covered all national systems, but the personnel policy was never updated by the Security Serice to cover threats to integrity and availability. Pick a department that is used to dealing with the public: DWP or even MoD (who do schools, housing, medical, travel as well as shooting things).

Re: ID cards, meh!

This used to be a strange US requirement for dual citizens, but then Australia adopted it, so perhaps no surprise (but no excuse) for UK to do it in return. It smells of the result a badly designed online/digital system rather than a policy decision. At least the Barnaby Joyce nonsense around dual citizenship for elected office doesn't arise in the UK. Note also the name of the FCDO: Australians are commonwealth, not foreign.

Trump promises nuclear datacenter permits in 3 weeks, calls Greenland 'big beautiful ice'

Re: TACO time

It was never obvious why there were tariffs against penguins (because US import figures showed millions from an island where nobody had been for 10 years) but not Greenland. But now it's now Iceland, which the US DID give back. IIRC it was invaded by the UK in May 1940, supplemented by Canadians, then essentially handed over to the US to manage in June 1941 - a a good while before the US was at war. US military agreed to leave within 6 months of the end of the war; they left in 2006.

UK urged to unplug from US tech giants as digital sovereignty fears grow

Jerry's last words on that thread in 2014 were:

Once the policy has been fully implemented, PDFs should not be used for collection of data in the way you describe (“completion of forms”).

So why have I just been using pdf P87, R185 and all those other forms from the school of "let us spread this over so many pages in large font for you to print out, sign and return by non-reply-paid-post"?

Capita tells civil servants to wait for chatbots to fix pension portal woes

The PO part of miscarriage has at least been recognised as such; the underlying problem with the way the law works with digital evidence is still with us, and the discrimination encouraged by this and the last government to make landlords and employers favour those with unverifiable digital credentials (their own, someone else's or made up) may turn out to have the PO as just the warm-up act. HMLR's enthusiasm for digital certificates replacing witnesses was bad enough before AI was fashionable.

As for 'jailed pensioners', colleagues facing real hardship because their pensions have not started when they should have done might not be identified as pensioners.

UK calls up Armed Forces veterans for digital ID soft launch

Re: onelogin

Red team gets in undetected would seem quite serious.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366623991/Security-tests-reveal-serious-vulnerability-in-governments-One-Login-digital-ID-system

But the tech claims here are more worrying.

Whatever hoops have to be gone trough to get the 'card' it's just a flash-past that could be made by photoshop of probably AI. I cannot rely on your phone, so it doesn't matter what form of security theatre is involved - but from the glacial pace and esoteric style it might be Noh.

As currently presented this is an UNverifiable credential, so for the relying party it's less secure than a nice card with a hologram. There is no checking mechanism.

That doesn't line up with any decent 'trust framework'.

Starting with an unnecessary date of birth is an immediate fail on privacy by design. And were is the impact assessment?

Digitally verifiable credential have been around for a while. Passport NFC has been for a couple of decades (but technically not government), and DVLA got rid of the counterpart paper licence by providing a suitable token: https://www.gov.uk/view-driving-licence

It does not offer discounts or anything else, just potential assistance in getting the relevant credential - railcard or whatever.

Digital ID, same place, different time: In this timeline, the result might surprise us

Re: A second form of photo ID would be practical for many

A passport is not a right and it's not government as it comes under royal prerogative (as Harry found out when daddy didn't like 'princess' instead of Miss). It can be withdrawn by the courts (eg football hooligans), whereas even convicted fraudsters need a way to pay tax. The number of fraudulently obtained genuine passports is significant.

A GB (sic) Driving (sic) licence (sic) controls the activity, not the person, and is not available to everyone for a variety of reasons. That could be changed, as it has been for the Driver's license in many US states, but surely it would make more sense for the settled status system that is required for (non-Irish) EU residents to be available to all residents (over 13/16/18..)?

The widespread abuse of the Driving licence for purposes for which it was not intended comes from the lack of anything else, with the inbuilt indirect discrimination againt those without ignored because it's said to the user's choice. But the whole thing is backwards because it is the relying party that needs to do the check, not the person asserting the attribute.

UK to roll out mandatory digital ID for right to work by 2029

Re: Awesome...

There's no mandatory retirement age any more, indeed mostly illegal to exclude on age grounds, and being a pensioner does not stop the need to work, often part-time. (And nice not having to pay National Insurance.) Some old keyboard warriors would not trust our fat fingers to do anything important on a small phone with a sensitive touch-screen, but we increasingly need to hire in help, and becoming a legal employer is just too difficult and expensive (holiday and sick pay, pension, NI and PAYE monthly online).

Re: Gov: So - well drop the cards...

Seems more likely to increase the amount of work done illegally by those entitled to work by adding to difficulty (and cost) of being an employer, especially individuals needing part-time carers or helpers. There are also many categories where nobody seems sure if OK to work online: those in prison, Brits resident abroad, under 16s.

And no intent to have a system seems to reflect a plan to have at least three. Another for NHS, another for benefits. Sounds like a serious waste of money, and no mention of sorting out the eye-watering costs of ineffective AML. (A presentation to parliament a whiole ago indicated the 90% of benefit fraudsters were not hiding their identity, so ID can't fix more than 10% and might facilitate rather more if as insecure as one.login which has escaped mention. FBI also testified that the 911 bombers were not hiding their identities.)

It does seem that few honest people are aware of the opportunities for coercion and blackmail that ID cards offer, but perhaps that's only an issue for the sectiosn of society that we don't care about?

Since the Estonians always get mentioned, why not look at what they did (and the bumps on the way): provide a way for Estonian companies to go all-digital without blocking inward investment (with e-residency for non-resident non-national who might be shareholders, directors, or taxpayers), and for the public sector to provide digitally in a system where benefit payment is based on entitlement not claim.

Why a new consultation when we haven't seen the resuts from the last one? (Answer: that was parliamentary, this is government.)

Re: Gov: So - well drop the cards...

So why is he still in the Lords? (Same question for about 400 others.)

Why blow up satellites when you can just hack them?

Re: Have worked on several "bespoke" satellite ground control and on-board systems

or was it JOVEAL: JOe's VErsion of ALgol?

America's cyber defenses are being dismantled from the inside

to lose something you have to have it in the first place.

Signalgate chats vanish from CIA chief phone

Re: Hum

Foggy Bottom? Bottom is not the word that usually comes with licking.

Microsoft lists seven habits of highly effective Windows 11 users

Re: My hot tip

Maybe someone will publish a cross-grade to switch our working systems from W10 to Ubuntu LTS or something less bloated? (In case you ask, I needed Windows for full 'silverlight' to work from home, but for most people it's just too much trouble to get a Linux laptop since Dell stopped providing it on the low level ones.)

Trump tariffs to make prices great – a gain

Loopholes

There are no penguins in Greenland, nor in Diego Garcia. If the algorithm isn't stochastic parroting by IA, what have they done in Nuuk to avoid tariffs?

HP deliberately adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls

HMRC

The monolithic gov.uk big font simple language never gives confidence that your slightly unusual case is convered as you follow up and down or around until you've completed a circuit, having has to use an outside seach engine that can handle AND not just OR. It's also their mistakes that need to be sorted, which online just doesn't (e.g one computer is working on 52 weeks another on 53 and 4-6 weeks to get from one to the other). It would be good to have a press zero to skip the pious crud about using the wonderous online as you wouldn't be using the phone if you didn't have to. We don't know if there is a 15 minute wait, but I find the staff as helpful as they can be, even if most of the time it's not this number (given online or on the letter that has arrived in the post) that deals with this aspect, and they can't transfer the call but here's the next number to ring and be told the same tales plus assurance that this is not the number for whatever is the currently fashionable problem that too many people are ringing about.

The biggest microcode attack in our history is underway

Re: Enough rope?

It seems that once you have been granted a pardon then the self-incrimination exemptions no longer apply. That could make things much more interesting.

UK tax collector's phone service 'deliberately' bad to push users online, say MPs

Re: Never blame on evil...

Seems you haven't had to deal with DWP. Whilst faster at answering than HMRC, it always seems that you have selected the wrong number or option despite that being the one given in their letter. The helpful person is unable to transfer the call to the right queue, but does have the number you need, so you start again with the recorded encouragement to use online (when only phoning because online hasn't worked for anything complicated), erroneous information on timing, plus an extra minute of don't call us about any of the following topics...

UK sleep experts say it's time to kill daylight saving for good

Technically the Irish are good Europeans and have GMT+1 as standard, but go back an hour in winter (IWT Irish winter time), thus keeping in time with the UK all year.

Windows 11 migration? Upgrade engine revs up, enterprises have no choice

Re: Big if

So when will there be a system upgrade available for home users (without games) to go from Windows 10 to, say, Ubuntu?

Google cuts ties with Entrust in Chrome over trust issues

Re: It's Widespread - even HMG

https://assets.applytosupply.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud-13/documents/709217/287037250953500-service-definition-document-2022-05-17-1441.pdf

End-to-end encryption may be the bane of cops, but they can't close that Pandora's Box

Re: And good does not always triumph.

Do you have any evidence for this claim?

Council claims database pain forced it to drop apostrophes from street names

Re: Does anywhere in Wales have accented letters?

Malaŵi isn't in Wales, but..

In Cambridge there's St. Bene't's Church

We never agreed to only buy HP ink, say printer owners

Paper next

My HP dates from when it played nicely with linux, but it was a surprise to find that they are now offering a paper subscription too since they know how many sheets have been used, and so for 'just' £1.99 a month you can get...knotted.

NHS England published heavily redacted Palantir contract as festivities began

Re: poor redaction

But why redact it anywhere? Unless Docusign will give you the document if you can quote it, what information does it or could it give away? Perhaps it's just someone told to redact the signature and not quite understanding that a digital signature is not the same as a scan of a wet one.

Redaction?

Can anyone explain why the DocuSign Identifier is redacted on most (but not all) pages, e.g. page 9 or page 40? Although not simply black on black, this redaction seems to have been done manually given that it does appear where large amounts of the body text are missing and there's also one case in Doc1 on page 64 where the final E of the header is not redacted.

Why is the page number 26 redacted? (It comes between 25 and 27.)

More generally, how do you verify the digital signature on a redacted document?

BT misses deadline for removing Huawei from network core

Re: So...

The reports of sloppy development also mentioned that finding this in the equipment they had looked at did not mean it wasn't in that of other suppliers. Note also that the UK was not in the vanguard of bans (just a limit on coverage), indeed HMG only acted when the US export controls on China made it impossible to get repairs, upgrades and fixes.

UK convinces nations to sign Bletchley Declaration in bid for AI safety

Re: It's simple really.

Alongside these opportunities, AI also poses significant risks, including in those domains of daily life. To that end,.... (i.e. posing significant risks?)

we resolve to intensify and sustain our cooperation, (i.e. be seen to do something, but not sure what)

All actors have a role to play... (yes, Equity rules. Surprisingly Euro-English)

development-orientated approaches (makes a change from customer)

We encourage all relevant actors to provide context-appropriate transparency and accountability on their plans to measure, monitor and mitigate potentially harmful capabilities and the associated effects that may emerge, in particular to prevent misuse and issues of control, and the amplification of other risks. (The light peppering of commas is always interesting in international paperwork, and a pain for translators. That last comma means amplification doesn't go with prevent - it seems to be provide... accountability...but is certainly unreadable on first pass)

scientific and evidence-based (tautology?)

The countries represented were:

Australia

....

European Union (no, it's not a country, but the footnote indicates

international organisations acting in accordance with their legislative or executive competences.

So which is the other such organisation?)