Thursday, Nov 22, 2007
Banana Britain
FT.com: Storm worsens over UK Revenue’s data loss
If you still believe in "economic stability", "no more boom ..." and the rest of the spin, welcome to the western hemisphere's favourite recently-discovered banana republic.
Rampant HPI, debt out of control, a run on a bank, massive and ineffective public sector, faked statistics and staggering incompetence from a government that would like to know everything about you and watch your every move.
What happens when the ID card database winds up in the hands of some jihad-oid death brigade? Thanks guys - "the innocent have nothing to fear"?
Posted by dohousescrashinthewoods @ 06:47 AM (1163 views) Add Comment
26 Comments
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1. Orwell said...
"...it emerged that senior managers refused to make the data more secure because it would have been too expensive..."
24 billion pounds too expensive?
Ha hahahahaha I think I've just soiled myself...
2. voiceofreason said...
It seems that we will have to endure a period of higher general levels of incompetence in general.
The mis-handling of the Northern Wreck issue.
The incompetence in the civil service.
Incompetence in football management :-)
The news flow has a kind of "Life on Mars" quality.
Welcome back to the "Sick Man of Europe", it's been a long time....
3. Night said...
This whole things seems like it's been blown out of all proportion by an increasingly sensationalist media. What has actually happened is two CD's have got lost in the post. They said on Radio 4 last night that the National Audit Office (who were sent the CD's) were in the process of relocating offices when the CD's went missing. Some muppet has probably just binned them not realising what they were.
Consider how unlikely it is that this information is in the hands of a fraudster. Assuming the discs were actually posted, that means that somewhere along the line Mr Postman has decided to steal the information. He has done this because he is running a little operation on the side stealing personal information and reselling it to fraudsters. Perhaps he is a fraudster himself. Chances of this? Unlikely, but definately within the realms of possibility.
So in his day to day role of being a postman he opens some packages to see if they contain any personal information. To do this without getting caught, he'd have to limit the number he opens each day. How unbelievably lucky would he have to be to open THAT package?!
Any why would he then see two CD's and decide that this was what he was looking for?
Do we really then think that he has the expertise required to break the password protected files and have the necessary software to extract the data?
And even if that did happen, the bank would still repay anyone who lost money!
4. tyrellcorporation said...
The Mask (aka Teflon Tony) has slipped to reveal some useless commies at the controls of UK PLC! It's what we always expected but TB kept hidden from view.
5. harold said...
"[Do] you still believe in "economic stability", "no more boom ..." and the rest of the spin"
like
"What happens when the ID card database winds up in the hands of some jihad-oid death brigade?"
Come on, give me a break - this is the sort of comment one would expect from a US neo-con, i.e., an extremist.
6. tyrellcorporation said...
Harold. Jihad means holy war, any organisation which calls itself jihadist is in essence a militarised faction - death brigade seems like a reasonable description, if a little 'colourful'
...returning to the point of the opening paragraph from DHCITW. ID cards are a disaster waiting to happen, at vast expense. Does the Labour party seriously believe that insurgents in the UK will carry valid ID cards - it's laughable in the extreme.
7. inbreda said...
What do you mean Harold?
Do you seriously feel comfortable giving ALL your personal details, perhaps including DNA, to the government so they can keep it all in a database? What would it achieve? How much would it cost? How many minutes before they accidentally lost it in the post?
8. seanb303 said...
http://www.no2id.net/index.php
9. tyrellcorporation said...
Apparently your DNA can now be forceably taken from you for the slightest misdemeanors now. Driving at 34mph in a 30mph limit is enough for the State to take your DNA and hold it ad infinitum. There are no powers for the individual to have it destroyed. The Government are also engaged in covertly building a DNA database from newly born children - under New Labour you are a suspect as you drop from the womb! We also now have the largest DNA database in the World and are the most watched nation on Earth.
10. cyril said...
tyrell, I heard they were targeting problem children before they were born
11. little professor said...
Tyrell - it's worse than that. You can have your DNA taken even if you haven't committed any crime - you just need to be arrested on suspicion of commiting a crime and your DNA will be taken and stored permanently, whether you are convicted or even charged or not.
12. waitingfor hpc said...
Time to march on London and get rid of this sad lot of loosers running our country.
13. tyrellcorporation said...
Those who think we are living in a free country are deluding themselves. Sadly people seem dangerously apathetic. When you or your children are suddenly and inexplicably refused life insurance you know someone somewhere has leaked your DNA profile (probably for profit). The opportunity for corruption with an ID card scheme is mind boggling, especially in the UK where we have half a million 'unknowns' entering the country each year and drifting below the radar (until they pop up, as recently, at the Home Office!).
14. Utterlee said...
"Time to march on London and get rid of this sad lot of loosers running our country."
Problem is we've only really got the option to replace them with another shambolic old lot. I can't really imagine Team Cameron giving us a substantially different government from Labour. It might be hard to imagine it being any worse, but that doesn't mean it can't be.
We may as well be living in a One Party State for all the choice we've got.
15. down wave said...
Is this or is this not Gordon Browns psychological Profile?
Profiling The Deep-Self Of Politicians. = http://www.setbb.com/apforum/viewtopic.php?t=66&mforum=apforum
16. harold said...
This seems to have opened up an interesting discussion with respect to government and civil liberties/rights. Personally, I am totally against big government, and that includes DNA screening and ID cards. Would an ID card prevent illegal immigration or a would-be terrorist: No. Would ID cards be used to keep a watchful eye on law-abiding citizens: Yes. In short, I believe in the liberty of the individual, and see many aspects of the state as malign (including non-accountable shadow-states like MI5). TR, with respect I see terms like "jihad-oid death brigade" as Islamophobic, i.e., antithetical to the concept that we are all individuals. Saying that "jihad" just refers to "holy war" is like saying "anti-Semitic" just refers to a dislike of anyone of Middle-Eastern origin.
17. george monsoon said...
If you refuse to give a DNA sample, can you be held down and have a swab taken by force?
If I ever find myself in the position of being caught with a bald tyre or missing brake light, I will refuse to give a DNA sample.
18. planning4acrash said...
Waiting 4 hpc.
I agree in principle, but what a bunch of t*ssŁers in opposition ready to drink drive the sinking ship into the harbour walls!! Beware what you ask for, you may just get it!!!!!
19. denzil said...
Planning4acrash said:
>>but what a bunch of t*ssŁers in opposition ready to drink drive the sinking ship into the harbour walls!! Beware what you ask for, you may just get it!!!!!
I have reached the conclusion that nothing can be as bad as Labour. Brown's Cabinet are little more than a hand-picked bunch of "Yes Prime Minister" types who collectively represent the weakest cabinet for decades. Darling is a genuine walking talking disaster, Balls is little more than Brown's poodle and the rest of their faces one would struggle to put a name to if questioned in the street.
Cameron is ripping Brown apart in PM question to the point where Brown is very nearly losing his rag and embarrassing himself like a silly spoilt boy at junior school.
A struggle to imagine a couple more years of this government. Quite simply it is one catastrophe after another. Brown claims to have created economic stability but in reality the waters he traversed as chancellor were the calmest for decades.
20. Tom101 said...
Coalition governance and proportional representation. Things get done much slower under this system (see Norway) but it's more secure.
Either this or we wait for the right conditions (only missing unemployment) and veer to the right..... I'm sure there are plenty of candidates in the shadows waiting to dictate their views.
Our politics isn't evolving with our times. I cannot elaborate more without being deemed politically incorrect.
21. crash bandicoot said...
You can see why he wanted an election last month, and if it wasn't for those "pesky (Northern Rock) kids" he'd have got away with it.
22. Lierbag said...
If you accept that the 'threat' from terrorism has been hyped up beyond belief (e.g. the imaginary Ricin Labs/Old Trafford bombing plots, which the government used as a precursor to the invasion of Iraq - and which were in themselves, strictly speaking, 'terrorism'), then you have to ask yourself; 'why are we going to all these extraordinary lengths to monitor/control the movements of the citizenry, when during the entire, and genuine, war with the IRA, the most severe incursions on personal liberty were to ask us to check out suspicious shopping bags, and to put up with having wastebins removed from public places?
If, like me, you accept that the abiding objective of the Iraq invasion was to secure its oil, and a foothold in the last of the globe's major oil-producing areas, then it follows that the state must be currently setting in place all the security measures for some other reason than the threat of terrorism - which it could easily have avoided altogether (had it followed the warnings of its own intelligence agencies) by remaining neutral.
Re-reading the 'Hirsch Report' (available on wikipedia) you may note that the US has been warned that without having made ameliorative steps towards a post-oil society, and at least 20 years before the advent of peak oil, it's probably facing the prospect of severe societal breakdown.
Having experienced the near-anarchy of the Fuel Blockades of 2001, with the country just 8 days from total collapse, the UK government is well aware of the threats facing it - not just from whingeing truckers and farmhands - but from an entire population thrown into third-world living conditions, as a result of its failure to prepare for the approaching seismic shift from cheap energy - and the possibilities of wealth creation it's so far provided.
The CCTV cameras; increasingly para-military policing; and biometric ID cards are all being touted as protective measures against the threat of terrorism - and are quietly becoming a part of our daily lives - but are actually there to keep order once the curfews and breadlines have to be imposed - in about five years time.
23. tyrellcorporation said...
George. Yes it happens regularly now. The police will hold you down by force and extract a DNA sample (mouth swab) even if you refuse to give it. I have a personal friend who this happened to a few months ago. Once taken it can't be destroyed - you are nobbled!
24. Planning4acrash said...
Denzil, I agree that Brown is badly, but look at who they put forward for the London Mayor!! Boris is the best they can do. Look beyond the Cameron Facade and all there is is division and same old. Something is rotten to the core about Labour. At least this crisis has a global cause, unlike the 1992 ERM debacle, which was entirely of the Conservative's making.
25. george monsoon said...
Its officially a police state.
26. Stevie Dee said...
There is no jihad, there is no terrorist threat. (yawn - yawn) It is just propaganda. The neo-socialists which have colluded with Osama Bin Bush to create this hype are well on their way now to coming unstuck. Like with any heist, it is case of just seeing who breaks first, and then everything comes out.
There won't be any ID cards, because these individuals will be living in the Caymans drinking Margerita's and smoking a Cuban, after they have spent or squandered all the money. As for ID fraud, the banks deal with online fraud on a massive scale everyday, the internet brought HPC, but as the great philosopher Obe-Wan-Kanobe once said "it brought us the darkside too" i.e. Phishing, etc, etc.
Anyone for some "hand-drawn Ł50 notes"? I'm on my fifth one!