Hello Kafka, My Old Friend

[caddyman]

Further jollity follows the Government and its attempt to catalogue and file the population of the UK. It’s been flying under the news radar the past few months, but preparations are continuing for the introduction of hugely expensive and largely unwanted biometric ID cards in the next couple of years.

The first step in this programme, allegedly intended to make identity theft harder, is the introduction of chipped passports. You will have one if you have renewed in the past two or three years and you will definitely have one next time you renew. They were introduced in the wake of 9/11 to help make it close to impossible for the bad guys to cross international borders.

Marvellous. Fantastic.

Now, whatever the reasoning behind the need for this technology in passports (and, to be frank, I have less of a problem with those than I do with ID cards simply because I can choose not to have a passport if I wish) it has always bothered me that a government that is supposed to serve the people rather than monitor every individual fart wants to spend vast amounts of our money on something that few people want or believe will make a difference. Anyway, I have grumbled about all this before; the point is, that the Government cheerfully tells us that it will work and that once we have ID cards, life will be a bowl of cherries, global warming will reverse, petrol will be free and Utopia will be achieved.

You recall seeing in the news that 3,000 blank passports had been stolen, but the Passport Agency told us not to worry, because they were worthless since no-one could forge them? Here’s a little reminder – note how suddenly they are worth £2.5 million on the black market, incidentally, well now The Times has published a report on how they have managed to clone the 'fakeproof' e-passport in minutes using over the counter software and a £40 card reader.

New microchipped passports designed to be foolproof against identity theft can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports.

I don't feel lied to at all. The technology is necessary and fool proof. It will work and we will all eat rose petal salad and fart perfume. The Government says so.

Comments

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

It defeats me that anyone ever seriously thinks something can't be forged. Of course it can.

[pauln.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that comment Friend Brian.

Please report for duty at the recycling vats.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

"the Passport Agency told us not to worry, because they were worthless since no-one could forge them?"

Like anyone believed that anyway, do they think we are stupid, any security that can put up by technology can be broken by technology, if they could make them then the ever ingenious criminal community can subvert them.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

This is why huge databases are an appalling idea and ID cards must be stopped by any means necessary.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

The other question is how much did we pay overpaid computer 'experts' to create this shite and all the other IT projects currently be worked on.

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

My mate madwelshwizard has BEES! Under his garden! You like bees.

[fen-wolfchile.livejournal.com]

See the random furtle in operation

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

I just had a thought!

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

I believe Tanya just asked me about that - unless this is a complete coincidence : )

[oldnick.livejournal.com]

Don't blame the IT experts for this.

Like all government projects the government commissions the work, and makes the decisions to pay people to do it. They (or rather their directed civil servants) set the terms of reference for the IT experts to work on.

The IT industry has been criticising this project more than any other - but you can't expert them to refuse to carry out paying work when it is offered, especially when non government funded work is currently in a significant slump.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Yes I can. I can be mad with the government *and* the IT industry. No I don't realistically expect people to turn down the work but I don't have to like it and I can complain about people making money off the back of the governments idiocy...and anyway the companies involved do get to negotiate when arranging contracts so it's not like their involvement is blind and totally at the whim of the government ? Do IT companies *not* make unrealistic bids for contracts, do they *not* try and get the terms mose financially beneficial to them ?

[fen-wolfchile.livejournal.com]

Yes, everythings going to be great, Tony Blair siad it before and mr Brown has said it now.


I'm so excited about the future of this country I'm tempted to move somewhere else so I can watch from a safe distance, should be quite a show :)

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

*Splutters into coffee*

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

I agree with every word ! And as if this wasn't ludicrous enough we're going to give anoter £3bn to those poor shareholders and their bank Northern Rock.

When it comes to IT, PFI or Private Sector Partnership our Government seems to have $h!t for brains - and gets shafted every time, while the private sector rakes in Group 4 Security Van loads of my narfing tax.

I could stomach that if they didn't then try to persuade us that we had $h!t for brains too, and that we didn't realy understand the issue at hand. Yes we do understand , call a frickin election and we'll show you just how clear our understanding of the issue is.....


pauln Fencingsculptor reporting for recycling vats. Is it ok If I read my book on the cold war by John Lewis Gaddis while waiting in line ?

[oldnick.livejournal.com]

I wonder.

If it was called "Southern Chalk" and the massive mortgage defaulters were the children and cleaners of Surrey stockbrokers, would the government have just thrown in £3bn to buy their votes?

Or is it just that the people affected by Northern Rock live in their constituencies?

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Obviously, it's the same reason we just committed to Aircraft carriers we don't need rather than giving more cash to the Army for infantry equipment because of where they'll be built.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

It's incredible isn't it, the contracts they negotiate are staggering dumb(those school food ones, 30 year contracts, are you NUTS) and the companies get them know if they screw up the government will have to pick up the pieces and they still probably end up getting paid off, it is simply THEFT.

As for the recnt advice from that HSBC tw*t that the government should somehow support the risk in mortgages to kickstart the housing market because having p*ssed around for years taking risks and printing money the banks have decided to take their ball home because they are now making only sickening profit as oppose to obscenely sickening profit. The scum, they spend all their time trying to bend everything to be more to their hardcore capitalist liking but go crying to governments when they take a throughly deserved and self-inflicted beating - live and die by your principles.

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

Yeah Aircraft carriers equipped with flippin Eurofighters which were obsolete before they left the drawing board, let alone the shenanigins that occured once they started assembling the blooming bits...manufactured as they were by 3 billion different manufactures.... and arriving 15 years late. Farkin wonder they didn't get Southern Trains to make ‘em

Criminey what a Charlie Foxtrot that was/is !

It's bad enough having to watch my taxes handed out to oxygen-thieving underbelly of society without, handing what's left to HUGE Corporations on private sector.

Revolution people !...Tis the only way.... Who's with me ?!

Well, Revolution or continue shouting at the Today Programme Interviewers and interviewees in equal measure...

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

"It's bad enough having to watch my taxes handed out to oxygen-thieving underbelly of society without, handing what's left to HUGE Corporations on private sector."

Indeed, it's galling that the people who on the one hand desperately want to deregulate everything are the biggest whiners when things don't go there way. If you add up what these thieveing gits nick from each of us you could afford to give free money to every insane group/cause you could think of and still have money left over to buy everyone a Wii and a Fish and Chip tea. It staggers me that people never see this, it's seemingly more acceptable for a bank to steal from you than some workshy muppet. I've actually heard people justifying this in news articles, it's kind of a 'boys will be boys' argument, apparently we shouldn't be surprised or upset when globalised corporations rip us off because, well what else should we expect. Like vipers, apparently we should have known they were poisonous when we got into bed with them, so in a way it's *our* fault, we deserve it. Grrrrrr

[romney.livejournal.com]

...as someone who worked on the **r*F*ght*r program before moving to a job at the tw*t's bank, I resemble these remarks...

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

..but did it resemble an efficent muti-role fighter ? (what with the wings not fitting, and Airfix going bust ...and UHU running out of glue)


*runs away ....and pretends that anything I've worked on in 17 years has ever been even as remotely interesting as the Typhoo Fighter*

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

The Typhoo fighter?

Regardless of its combat capabilities, it is very refreshing when you are tired.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

I love hearing about the Govt and science (ie what is explained to me in small monosyllabic terms that I can understand) - I remember a friend getting somewhat hacked off with Dobbo (when he was Health Secretary) proudly telling everyone we could replicate blood.

That passports have to be upgraded to a certain level to fit an international standard - that I can deal with, it's the assertions that this makes them super-duper safe against copying, that bugs me.

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

HURRAH for good ranting. *applauds*

OOOH A NEW RANT-TARGET

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

OH DON'T EVEN GET US STARTED ON YOU!

Where exactly were you Baggy when the US housing-market collapsed, hmmmmmm.

(I'm contributing to two ranty threads at the same time, it's tiring!)

Re: OOOH A NEW RANT-TARGET

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

We was at Rigolettos with you boss!

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I like to see myself as a facilitator in these matters!

[agentinfinity.livejournal.com]

Seconded. It has cheered me up.

[fredlums.livejournal.com]

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-blockkill-RFID-chip

[thalinoviel.livejournal.com]

I think the fundamental problem with ID is that policy makers are still working on the fallacious model that terrorists aren't legitimate citizens and don't want people to know who they are. ID cards, chipped passports and the rest of it won't actually tackle the problem of terrorism at all. If they did I might mind the undermining of my civil liberties less.

Oh, and passports? why make your own fakes when it's so easy to get the passport office to make one for you?

[ladkyis.livejournal.com]

The reason the Nazis could pick off the Jews and the gypsies of Germany and Hungary was because the population as a whole had to fill in forms for ID cards. All the records were gathered together by the SS and the people rounded up.
This always colours my thoughts on ID cards. The other thing is Why do they think that terrorists won't have ID cards so will be easy to pick out. It's the same people that decided that we have to put from address on all letters to Canada and USA. If you don't it is treated like a letter bomb. This is because terrorists don't have a return address - and won't think to make one up.
PAH! Governments! I hope all their chickens die!

People who know me will know that this is the worst curse anyone can have placed upon them