Posts by Disgusted of Cheltenham

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?)

UK voter data within reach of miscreants who hacked Electoral Commission

Re: Ubiquity

The focus on just a single technology remains a bad idea, although cards could be part of the mix as the Irish have deftly done: allowing one of the two forms for the passport allows that travel document to look and feel like an ID card and offers the functionality without igniting panic. A compulsory unique physical token offers scope blackmail and control (e.g. over wives and daughters) that may not have been a significant issue when the German Ausweis was introduced (in the same year the UK wartime ID card was scrapped).

Re: Ubiquity

Instead of adopting the Australian system of ensuring that everyone gets a chance to vote, our politicians have been keen to increase the participation rate in elections. So instead of the ‘head of household’ registering everyone, the onus was on people to do it themselves; those with no intention of voting would not bother, so the rate would go up. Not appearing can be a problem for credit reference, but still it was optional until the House of Lords (with unusual ignorance) stepped in with an amendment to put a civil penalty (i.e. fine that couldn’t turn you into a news item by being jailed for failure to pay) for those not registering when asked to by a registration officer.

If there was any thinking behind this it may have been in relation to jury service, where you stand a chance of being called for each place in which you appear on the register. Some small business owners would rather not take this risk and thus be encouraged not to vote. (They might also not want to walk near the court to avoid “praying a tales”.) It’s time we threw out the electoral roll, with all its accumulated out of date but explicit data protection oddities, and had a jury status list for all residents, with uniqueness, preferably by extending the settled status register to include everyone.

Meanwhile what will happen if what is being called ID is needed for postal vote? Getting a civil penalty for not having it is not acceptable.

Whilst not remotely surprised by the attack, and just waiting for the same on one.login, the response that we should "remain vigilant for unauthorised use or release of [their] personal data" is spectacularly unhelpful. What, exactly, should we do, especialy now we can't play the trick of adjusting the postcode (before they were used - last two digits showed where it was copied from it you were careful to note which digits you gave to whom)?

UK.gov bans TikTok from its devices as a 'precaution' over spying fears

Re: Wrong decision

https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/social-media-how-to-use-it-safely is, rightly, published and not specific to MPs, officials, nor any other group of folks who would prefer not to be ignored.

60% of Germany's 5G network is Huawei, says Chinese embassy

Re: Proof???

GCHQ's early published comments on Huawei kit gave specific examples of very sloppy and insecure programming, but also noted that this did not mean it was worse than that from any other source since the others had not been scrutinised to the same level of detail. For more recent see https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/hcsec-ob-report

It's worth recalling that the UK ban came in response to the US/Trump controls which would make it impossible to repair the infrastructure.

Why ChatGPT should be considered a malevolent AI – and be destroyed

Doesn't this count as libel?

At least under the Australian definition of publishing this would sound like libel - and should start a lawyer feeding frenzy over 'intent'.

(To first approximation the dead do not have data protection rights either, so maybe missing evidence for 7 years counts as a presumption of decease?)

Traffic lights worldwide set to change after Swedish engineer saw red over getting a ticket

Re: How many engineers does it take to change a light?

Once upon a time the Swedish lights had amber+green before green, but they had to change to comply with the Common Market. For a really clever system, badly implemented, look to Quebec, where the shape of the light can be used by the colour-blind: Square red, triangle amber, circle green. It would have been much safer to have a red circle to avoid the rest of the world's red circles being mistaken for go. Presumably zero engineers involved in that choice of light change.

Careful now, UK court ruling says email signature blocks can sign binding contracts

Re: The law on signatures

See also Stephen Mason's work, freely available from

http://ials.sas.ac.uk/about/about-us/people/stephen-mason

Brussels changes its mind AGAIN on .EU domains: Euro citizens in post-Brexit Britain can keep them after all

Bananas

It was the EEC long before the EU that made special provision for 'dollar' bananas. This bit of history shouldn't be assumed to be a lie just because it was pre-internet:

https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/treaty_establishing_the_eec_protocol_on_the_tariff_quota_for_imports_of_bananas_rome_25_march_1957-en-3bcfd762-ac40-422d-90a3-1bef6b69d255.html

Red flag: Verify to be marked 'undeliverable' by gov projects watchdog

Since half the people who try can't get in, how would compulsory help? Those are a cumulative 5m accounts, not people; whatever the position on fraud (which we are told is both out of control and none detected), it's designed so one person can have many, and no doubt some of those with providers who have gone will have taken out a second one, not to mention those who try to put in a tax return 366 days after the previous one.

Australia has lots of good ideas, like compulsory opportunity to vote so there's no intimidation to keep people away and no opportunity to masquerade as someone who will not turn up. (They even invented the secret ballot.) In this case, better to look to NZ or Canada. 'Platforms', we are told, have canonical registers; Verify doesn't. Much better either to have a proper distributed Jury service status register or to make the compulsory EU resident's database optionally available for UK citizens.

We knew it was coming: Bureaucratic cockup triggers '6-month' delay of age verification block on porno in the UK

Re: "the holdup is due to DCMS having failed to notify the European Commission in time"

The 50th was on a Monday, and what would have been the first May 1 bank holiday to be on May 1 was switched to Monday 8th. Perhaps you should put 100th in the diary now; banks may be a thing of the past by then, but I imagine we'll still want the holidays.

1234 5678 901 - is a string of random numbers

It may be an arbitrary choice, but it doesn't look remotely random.

UK taxman falls foul of GDPR, agrees to wipe 5 million voice recordings used to make biometric IDs

Why does it always take so long to fix?

It was obvious from when this was turned on that it was not being done with consent or any other legal basis, so how in their world of agile development did the issue not get noted, considered, and resolved rather than needing such effort to accept it was a mistake? It's not as if there's some political mandate like Universal credit under which jobsworths can hide. Of course most of us only need to phone then because we have a slightly more complicated case than the simplified big-font online information covers; this enforced attempt at enrolment came after the usual annoying exhortation to use w w w dot gov dot uk forward slash ... which not only adds to the delay and frustration of the caller but makes it harder for those answering the pre-grumpified 'customers'. I don't see any costings for taxpayer's wasted time, but, like a quarter of an hour each for 6 million failed attempts to use Verify , it starts to add up.

Edtech will save our schools from cuts and spare our teachers from burnout, booms UK.gov

Re: What schools are for

But there are a few things that could be done. Teaching touch-typing, for example.

UK.gov's Verify has 'significantly' missed every target, groans spending watchdog

Re: Estonia

The Estonians have kindly provided their service to anyone else who wants it, and in English...

https://e-resident.gov.ee/

On the first day of Christmas, Microsoft gave to me... an emergency out-of-band security patch for IE

Re: Really?

And how else do you use an employer's system that calls for silverlight?

Cambridge Analytica dismantled for good? Nope: It just changed its name to Emerdata

Re: Suggestion for a new name

Just Merde.

UK's Department of Fun seeks data strategy head – experience not needed

Re: a salary of up to £65,535

Surely you would want a bit more?