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No offence meant, but that article had no mention of the 2010's announcing of the DWP. All links are links to Wikipedia (only one is an actual link to a source, the last link to https://engage.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/major-projects-authority/ ). I'm sorry that is no journalism.
At least you could use some time to write some background with some actual sources.

You betcha. The Government Service Design Manual comes from GDS, a part of the Cabinet Office. GDS also created GOV.UK - the new single domain for the UK government. The GOV.UK stack is almost entirely open-source software, which can be found on Github under the Open Government License.

Are you trolling? You're trolling right? Because, pretty much everything you say is the exact opposite of what this article is about. The previous system was the costly one, this is about reducing cost. The companies are hardly random (read the list!) The requirements and processes seem to be well thought out, at least from what I've gathered from the RSDOPS

. (Really about 35 pages worth of pretty clear explanation and 10 you can skip.)

I mean, if you want to criticize Paypal, there are plenty of good reasons to do it. If you want to criticize the UK government, there are lots of valid reasons for that too. Just pick one of the dozens of good choices instead of ignoring TFA completely.

The UK is currently in the process of developing & deploying a network for government agencies to use called the PSN (public services network). It's sort of a replacement for the GSI. It runs on IPv4, most likely using the DWP address space discussed here.

Pretty much all the UK telcos & several global network manufacturers are involved with the PSN so it's a real missed opportunity that they didn't go with IPv6 for it.

Quite. I raised exactly that point in February. I hope that my government does not give my data to the US government.

If you live in Europe and have a bank account they already have.

Quite. I raised exactly that point in February. I hope that my government does not give my data to the US government.

Hi,

The main UK Government Website is built in the open, using open-source tools where possible:

Code: https://github.com/alphagov
Blog Post: http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govuk-launch-colophon/

Disclaimer: I work for them ;o)

--
ZG-Rules

Microsoft has people working in the UK and the USA...

Maybe, but the Microsoft people working in the UK are largely employed to market products and lie to governments and standards bodies.

http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/05/how-microsoft-fought-true-open-standards-v/index.htm
http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html

Note that you have until June 4 2012 to counter some of this Microsoft propaganda.

Within the Government Digital Service we are already demonstrating how collaboration between departments, along with a clear focus on the user, delivers better public services for less. Open Standards are crucial for sharing information across government boundaries and to deliver a common platform and systems that more easily interconnect. Open standards are vital for progressing this work and I encourage you to share your views in this consultation.

Francis Maude MP- Minister for the Cabinet Office
http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/openstandards/

The "Social media guidance" document on which this is based is an interesting read: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/social-media-guidance

The one positive out of this, is the reaction of the Cabinet Office deputy CIO, Liam Maxwell. When he heard about the problem, he confronted Hopkirk, then having heard his account fired him for not declaring his conflict of interest, binned the responses he had facilitated, and extended the consultation. It seems we have one civil servant who is determined that this consultation will be held fairly. So all our UK readers now have another 5 weeks to get their responses in: http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/openstandards/. The UK Open Source Consortium (http://www.opensourceconsortium.org/) has additional information.

They have a Minister of Intellectual Property? Does he work in the same building as the Ministry of Silly Walks?

Wait, this is for real?

Here's the list of ministers.

But if you find the words amusing I think you'll have more fun with "Assistant Government Whip", or "Lords Chief Whip". This is what happens when you're country has had a parliament for approaching 800 years. You have a Secretary of the Treasury, we have a Chancellor of the Exchequer :-)

The sample is my year group. With about 100 it's small enough that I knew all of them to some extent and I know what they went on to do.

I attended lectures in the first term, then I realised I wasn't at school and didn't have to so I stopped. I spent one day a week working, didn't revise for my finals and got a first. You can believe it or not, but that's true.

In 2008, 88 Oxford graduates were accepted onto the civil service fast track programme. In 2009/10 (close enough) Oxford had 10421 undergraduates. Assuming most are on three year courses that works out at about 2.5% of Oxford students accepted. One out of one hundred in my year is not unreasonable. I am quite surprised to find that 27% applied, but I suppose the unsuccessful didn't boast about it.

What are you basing your grumblings on?

Umm ... the UK is no longer IN Iraq - what would the demands be?

Well, let's look through the coalition document to see what the main plans relating to war are:

We will take forward our shared resolve to safeguard the UK’s national security and support our Armed Forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Notice the lack of, "We consider that the war in Iraq was wrong and we will implement policies to stop us going into another such war"? Notice the very opposite of, "Afghanistan is another Iraq and we need to withdraw"?

There is no acknowledgement whatever that Iraq was, to the pre-government LDs, one of the most odious aspects of the Labour government. There is no indication that the (lack of) policy and law which allowed Iraq to happen needs fixing. Government doesn't fight wars, but it does send troops to war, so one of the LD's primary responsibilities would be to stop that sort of thing from happening again.

They have - by mandating that appropriate controls are implemented, including full disk encryption. See http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/spf/sp4_isa.aspx - specifically requirement #40.

Truecrypt is not a product tested and approved by http://www.cesg.gov.uk/ so it can't be used for UK government business. If someone is willing to pony up the accreditation fees, and it passes, then it can be used.

These new UK gov regulations are interesting - they make specific nominated individuals in every government organisation personally responsible for data security - with penalties including fines and prison. Unsurprisingly, data security is now very heavily implemented and monitored.

This is correct; I also have reason to have some understanding of correct handling and storage procedures for materials covered by the GPMS and those laptops should be encrypted. If not then someone will be facing a shitstorm for it.

Hello,

In the United Kingdom, the Cabinet Office published a short strategy paper on using Twitter. I found it to be quite good, and while it obviously is Twitter-centric, the ideas are applicable to a other social networking sites. The document can be downloaded from http://blogs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/digitalengagement/post/2009/07/21/Template-Twitter-strategy-for-Government-Departments.aspx .

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

It looks like violent crimes are down over the last 15 years:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/10/it_is_an_almighty_embarrassmen.html

But, the 10 years before that seem to have seen a huge climb, such that it is only back down to roughly the original levels of ~|25 years ago:
http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/policy_review/security/key_facts.asp

This has nothing to do with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. If some ne'er-do-well has stolen the hard drive, RIPA is not going to entitle them to the key to decrypt it, nor does it make encrypting it in the first place illegal! CESG ( http://www.cesg.gov.uk/ ) assesses a wide variety of cryptographic products as to their suitability for handling protectiveloy marked information, and some of these are restricted to HMG use only!

The paper forms for Developed Vetting themselves are marked "RESTRICTED STAFF (when completed)". See http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/spf/faqs.aspx for information about protectively marked assets, and the DV forms themselves at http://www.hmgcc.gov.uk/clearance.aspx.

Link: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/upload/assets/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/publications/reports/border_review.pdf. Search for "Freight Targeting System".

From the report (emphasis mine):

Microchips for mentally ill planned in shake-up
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2007/01/17/ncrime17.xml

'Radical measures for tackling crime - ranging from monitoring the behaviour of the mentally ill with radio chips to hormone injections for sex offenders -- are to be considered by the Government in a wide-ranging policy review ordered by Tony Blair.'

The whole briefing document is at http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/policy_review/docu ments/crime.pdf (PDF document)

Knowing this lot you can be sure they'll start selling it to other parts of the population - after all if you can do it for the mentally ill you can do it to anyone. I can imagine the sales pitch;

Say mum and dad the Home Office is offering to chip your kids. Just think how horrible it will be if little Johnny got lost in the city; but now there's no need to worry, one little chip and any policeman will know his home address and return Johnny to you safe and well. Peace of mind? Priceless.

Grandad. How's that diabetes? Wouldn't it be terrible if you fell into a coma and were unable to tell A&E about your other medical conditions? One little injection and we'll know everything. The best in health care? Priceless.

Illegal immigrants - how can we be tougher? We're going to chip all legal migrants. If you're an employer you'll want to know all your employees are legal, that's easy with one of our Home Office certified RFID scanners. No chip? no place! Acceptable xenophobia? Priceless.

And so on...