Slashdot Mirror
UK Government Loses 15 Million Private Records
bestweasel writes "The BBC reports that a UK Government department has lost discs with details of 15 million benefit recipients, including names, addresses, date of birth and bank accounts. The head of the department involved, HM Revenue & Customs, has resigned and his resignation 'was accepted because discs had been transported in breach of rules governing data protection' so someone thinks it's not a trivial matter. The Chancellor will try to evade responsibility in the House of Commons at 3.30 GMT.
A similar leak of a 'mere' 15,000 records from the same department happened a month or so ago. At that time, they refused to say 'on security grounds' whether the information was encrypted." We just recently talked about Britain's consideration of legal penalties for situations like this. I imagine this incident will weigh on that decision.
Or so says The BBC...
We Build Beautiful Websites
And the government will give itself a nice fat getout clause so that it's immune when it loses everyone's data, but any company or individual outside the government is in trouble.
Just watch and wait.
With a nationwide DNA database? Please. They can't be trusted with anything.
USA stuff gets a USA tag. Lets be fair...
I'd be mighty upset with the Crown right now. Perhaps this will serve as a cautionary example to other countries who are considering going down similar paths as far as lack of privacy is concerned.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
So, they're benefit recipients, are they? Sounds like an unfortunate accident to me.
Hm, must be something in the English-Metric conversion, because TFA says there's 25 million lost.
Anyway, Names and phone addresses aren't really that hard to get, but to have your bank account information compromised must SUCK.
Of course, banks should require more than that to allow a withdrawal. Its a lot easier to put money into an account than to take it out.
15,000 records for the pension provider and now somewhat like a third of all peopl in the UK sent on what appears to be unencrypted discs. When I queried this with Standard Life they said that they had no choice but to accept the data like that and that the Govt refused to encrypt it. This being the same Govt that wants to hold all of our medical records in one national database, along with all of the ID card details. For the US peope reading, the National Insurance number is synonmous with your SSN, although not of quite as much use for fraud. It's still not something that you want to allow out into the wild.
The fact that 25million records were being sent via. post burnt on DVDs should give some idea of the level of technical competency in the public sector. Apparently they were being sent to the Audit Office, but why the Audit Office needed an off line copy of the data, and a complete copy at that, isn't addressed: no doubt some ridiculous bureaucratic idiocy that makes Brazil look sane.
The idea of burning an unencrypted copy of your sensitive data to a DVD and handing it to a random delivery company should horrify even the most incompetent sysadmin or DBA. Apparently no one in HM Customs & Revenue thought anything of it.
These are the sorts of people who want to build a massive database of all our personal details and tie them to ID cards. They tell us the data will be "perfectly safe". I wouldn't trust them to run a mail server.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Don't use number tokens to prove identity. It's the same reason using the same password for all your logins is a bad idea, because once someone knows, everyone knows. The solution isn't more government regulation, it's not tying the concept of identity to a couple commonly known pieces of information like date of birth or SSN.
Oh wow. I wonder who is behind the lost records?
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
Didn't anyone learn ANYTHING from the last 5,000 years of record keeping?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
We've been heading towards the totalitarian Peoples Democratic Republic of (formerly Great) Britain for some time now. This kind of thing is actually encouraging.
In a country where you are watched by security camera most of the day, and can be detained without charge for longer than anywhere on Earth, it is reassuring to note that the UK Government is so incredibly incompetent that there will always be a way to escape. No need for tunnels, gliders, or under the floor of a Trabant -- it should be pretty much possible to just walk through the border with a library card altered in crayon.
Sure glad that this has never happened before...
I wonder how they'll ever figure out how to punish the offenders....
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Whoever uses 15 instead of 25 in the reply will get an instant karma loss.
Insidious AND subtle.
But at least you're not bitter.
-- Only information exists, the rest is just smoke and mirrors.
It was briefly mentioned on Sky News and the BBC that the disks are "password protected". Is this true, if so what's the encryption and password strength? Maybe the data cannot be accessed.
This would make an excellent episode of "Yes Minister" - of course Sir Humphrey would come up with some kind of solution.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Camping on quad since 1996.
The real WTFs here are
Ok, it's probably worse than that though.
How can the public sector cost our country so much and yet be so damn incompetent ?
... one of which is that the bank account monitoring they are talking about, is actually just an excuse to slow transactions down / prevent them, as there are soon to be further bank runs, as fall out from the credit crunch (Northern Rock et al) continues.
There are some other rumors circling
The only way to remedy this sort of thing is a long prison sentence. Put the buggers in with scum drug dealers from the estates.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This is from the bureaucracy that thought putting confidential personal details in a public folder on a web server was secure as long as they didn't tell anyone they were there:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/health/exclusive+junior+doctors+details+exposed+online/469137
and that's currently £6.2bn over budget on implementing a medical record database:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/16/nhsit_budget_overrun/
Why are UK government IT projects always doomed to failure?
"The Chancellor will try to evade responsibility..." In what way could be held responsible? The data was copied and sent in clear breach of the agency's (and the Government's) rules. The last time I checked, it wasn't the Chancellor's responsibility to monitor personally all packages sent by Government agencies. Had the security breach happened due to actions which did NOT breach any rules then I might agree with you, however this is not the case here. Put it this way: If ministerial resignation (and that is what you are implying should happen) is to follow every breach of security then that is a green light to every ne'er-do-well and Tory malcontent working in Government to start posting confidential data left, right and centre.
Not offended old bean, we were more than pleased to get rid
of that bunch of God-bothering homophobic nutjobs. Enjoy the
Turkey.
Toodle pip!
Have your say: I love this comment: "Will they guarantee any losses to people through fraud? They guarantee other risky ventures." Which of course refers to the British Government guarantees to Northern Rock.
Certainly ID cards, which this government pushes with all its might, would have done nothing here since it was not 25m individuals sending they data insecurely but 1 individual with a database and a stamp!
That's nothing. Under the new NHS IT system, health records are sent unencrypted over the open internet, because they never got round to specifying a security standard before it went in. There *should* be heads rolling over this, but everybody's up to their neck in it.
If the head of the organisation has felt it necessary to resign then there must be a whole lot more to be revealed. After all no one in the UK resigns just because they or their department is merely incompetent any more.
At some point, if the UK government gets its way, everyone will have their DNA and fingerprints stored in a central database. How long will it be before some backup hard drive goes missing with all the data?
...I don't think technical competency overall is the core issue, there's a lot of good people there who are there because of job stability, often after being made redundant in the rather insecure world of private sector IT employment.
The real issue is apathy as I know all too well having worked there. When wages are low and managers simply don't care about attempts by these workers to improve and modernise IT systems and procedures then these so-called juniors that are getting the blame are probably so utterly demoralised it's foolish and naive to trust them with so many records in the first place.
As an example, we tried implementing the BS7799 security recommendations including a 5 minute inactivity lockout only to be told to undo the whole lot because some people were annoyed at having to unlock their computer every 5 minutes, when we tried to resist and refuse citing the importance of security we were basically told to do it or face disciplinary action.
The real problem as usual is those at the top being unwilling to run a professional service in the public sector. This is why I feel bad for those juniors who sometimes are often pretty clever people but who are the ones who will likely lose their jobs over this when in fact they were the ones who no doubt tried to push change only to be told by management that they can't implement this change for whatever reason i.e. because it meant management would actually have to do some work and actually know about the field they were employed to manage for for once.
'How can the public sector cost our country so much and yet be so damn incompetent ?'
I think the clue is in the question.
--
Reverse outsourcing: it's the future
"At that time, they refused to say 'on security grounds' whether the information was encrypted."
Which means it wasn't.
Than the Puritans broke away from the Calvinists, our ancestors, people so uptight, the English kicked them out.
How anal do you have to be for the English to go: "Get the fuck out!" "Take your pimp shoes and go!"
Did they look behind the couch?
That's where I always lose things.
They might be there.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
this is not directly inline with what you mentioned, but something i have been thinking about lately is the usefullness of encryption with information this valuable. sure, it needs to be used to mitigate in the event of lost data, but consider this- in many instances, and across industries where personal information is stored or transported, there is an encryption standard. for arguements sake let's say 128 is the standard for many things now, i.e. "the least they are supposed to use". now lets consider the future advances of computing and math. i have a bad feeling that a lot of us are going to outlive the usefullness of these encryption standards. so whats the problem? well, many current encryption standards may be considered weak or trivial in 5-10 years, but if I'm alive my SS#, birthdate, name, and possibly even my bank account number won't change, so the information may still be good. sure you can monitor your credit and whatnot, but really thats just to detect having already been taken advantage of and does not account for medical, employment, criminal, civil, voting, donating, and the like.
The solution isn't more government regulation, it's not tying the concept of identity to a couple commonly known pieces of information like date of birth or SSN.
Oh, no, I think heavy regulation is still in order. Regardless of what personal information is being kept about you, anyone with legitimate access to it has a responsibility to keep it safe.
The problem with your argument is that people simply can't remember lots of unique, strong passwords, which is why despite all these secret words and "memorable" numbers all the financial services use, they'll still talk to you when you've forgotten yours as long as you know a handful of obvious (to you) facts that it's unlikely someone else would guess all at once.
One topical alternative is biometrics, but these have two pretty much unavoidable problems themselves. Firstly, while they inhibit casual abuse, the serious guys will get hold of the data soon enough, and then you can't change your fingerprint or iris scan like you change a password. Secondly, this implies the creation of something like the National Identity Register, which in itself constitutes a far bigger threat to people's safety and quality of life than any individual identity theft or similar criminal hackery.
Personally, I think the future lies in simple measures that combine something you know with some physical object you have. Consider the success of "Chip 'n' Pin" card payments, which have dramatically reduced card fraud. The technology exists to use some sort of smart login to bank systems based on some device where the user enters a simple PIN or password and the device generates a one-time key that the bank can validate; IIRC, some banks have started trials of such technology as a way to make their on-line banking facilities more secure, reasoning that the cost of providing all customers with a physical key generator is less than the ongoing cost of the electronic fraud. The beauty of such systems is that they can use simple, memorable details that people won't just write down, because they form only part of the key and the other part is very strong.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Speaking as a security professional, this is fantastic news. I seriously doubt anyone's data is really at risk (the discs are almost certainly down the back of the metaphorical sofa, not in the hands of Dr Evil.) However it's the sort of incident that wakes people up to the importance of encryption of PID, of having policies, of educating staff on those policies,.. (the latter always seems to get forgotten for some reason.) Anyway, whilst this is undoubtedly a horrible blunder, I must salute the head of HMRC for resigning; and point out that it's nonsensical to blame the political party who happens to be in office at the time the fuck-up comes to light.
It's not going to help ,a hrf="http://www.no2id.org">ID cards, either :)
If they win the World Record of record losing... Did they win or lose the record??
Is they say that the discs were encrypted. Or at least password-protected whatever that means.
Wow...I'm not surprised at all. What fools. In my own code of ethics I'm very very very lenient on just about everything in a "as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else do as you will". Yet, not only is it hurting people, but this is from someone who has made it their work to handle other people's lives in their hands.
Moron.
He should have to pay for what it takes to help these 25 million or 50 million or however many people get their lives back in order.
Himself.
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
As an adult human being, not under the influence of either drugs or socialism, I don't expect the vermin who make up the public sector to be competent at anything other than feathering their own nests at my expense. But this plumbs new depths of incompetence and stupidity. When's the revolution?
Just think, how many of similar 'data losses' have happened in the last 2 years ? and i mean 2 years, not 3, 4, 5 or 6. Discs have been in use since 1995, top level govt. organizations have been using various backup mediums even before then, yet, there is an inexplicable boom of 'record theft/loss' in the last 2 years. in u.s. a few times, in u.k., 2 times.
some sh*t is happening. so many 'coincidence' in a small time period means there are no coincidences involved.
Read radical news here
Just don't move to biometrics.
Then instead of just asking for my wallet the guy mugging me will cut off my thumb and rip out my eye.
I go with the insecure and painless way thanks.
Then again, when have the majority of English been anything but docile authority worshippers
Unlike all those proud independent Yanks, yes, both of them.
Perhaps the next thing we will hear is that we all have to register immediately on the national ID register, in order to avoid being defrauded!
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
"25million times the black market value of each bank detail of ~£100 is a total value of ~£2.5Bn! This should be transported in an encrypted hard disk locked in a safe that is chained to the Chairman of the HMRC in a security truck with an armed escort! Unbelievably it was send as a couple of unencrypted disks by normal mail. I am at a loss as to how HUGE a security breach this is!
AntiCitzen One, City17"
All I can say is Epic Fail!
Oh yeah, and no offen(c/s)e taken!
"As we stand at present, every taxpayer in Britain has something approaching £900 of their money at stake[1] in this small mortgage bank following the £24 billion loan (which excludes the less controversial £18 billion in deposit guarantees). You and Vince Cable need to go learn where money comes from.
It's a bank loan from the central bank. Not a penny of money you have paid in tax has been given to Northern Rock. Not a penny of government borrowing has been given to Northern Rock.
[1]I'm a LibDem supporter and I don't like Fractional Reserve Banking but this is just complete bollocks. Vince clearly has no clue where this money comes from, which I find almost as worrying as the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer also continually refers to this money as "taxpayers money". This 24 billion pounds worth of money and the taxpayer have never crossed paths. Vince is in theory highly qualified as an economist. I'm beginning to wonder just how bad the education at Cambridge and Glasgow Universities really are.
Deleted
Thankyou for responding to my the very generous proposal. The money will be put into your bank accounts very soon, but please to be sending password for this 'zip file' which you have sent. Or please to be sending me the sum of $30 for a shareware for opening this files. I await your happy response with great anticipations and to look forward to putting the monies into bank accounts. Yours, Mr Ongbgudgbu Bungongdgogi
I don't think they are incompetent, I think this is all just rehearsal for the new MR. Bean movie.
The CIA wants to make the personal information of everyone public. At least that's what I get from a previous article and this one.
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/11/204231
It's time for Ron Paul. Cause none of the others are going to do a dang thing about it.
It hurt watching this:
http://ivorytowerz.blogspot.com/2007/11/wolf-blitzer-is-human-rights-more.html
Turning coffee into code.
as in "the post office(tm)" , this was an internal post service run by the courier TNT, no word on what TNT are doing about the loss
Although this is a monumental cock-up, I am not that surprised. HMRC is a recent merge of two big heavyweight Government agencies - Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. If that wasn't hard enough to deal with, during the last year or so, the Government has decided that there are too many civil servants (might well be true) but has simply decided to lay off huge numbers of employees with little consultation of forethought as to how the work would continue under the same pressures and targets. Let's not even talk about the implementation of the IT systems which far from helping automate or compliment the workload, it has generally increased it. I find it hard to believe that in 2007, an agency like HMRC continues to correspond with other Government agencies by courier when we are talking about such sensitive and massive quantities of UK citizen data. Even if it were sent by secure FTP or something, it wouldn't have been very much trouble to do. It's a dark day for everything British.
Why don't governments ever store this shit next to the tax records?
They NEVER seem to lose track of the fact that they get a godawful chunk of my money. They never even forget PART of that.
-Styopa
I'd love to have them lose my records.
However I remember hearing something about their data being so well backed up that even in case of a direct nuclear strike they stated they would only be down for a day or two at most.
I just wish my bank had such a good game plan.
It still takes them 3-9 days to post a check I deposit and have all the money available to me.
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Governments can't keep track of your medical records and we want to trust all health care to them? Who is the idiot who thinks that's OK?
My theory on this?
While this might be an accidental "sharing" of the database... we have many huge and frequent "mistakes" in the US. It might be a way to get all this data into a private industry database that isn't restricted by government rules to track citizens. Kind of like our private industry unaccountable mercenaries like Blackwater.
These database incidents will cease, once everyone has lost their data. Then there will be on more incentive to have these "accidents." Not that this particular accident is anything more than a stolen laptop. It's just that there seems to be a pattern of incompetence and then no downside to those who lose the data. We've had about 25% of the nations data released to private hands accidentally. Wayne Madsen used to have this data for free, but if you want to subscribe, he has been tracking these for years now; http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/categories/20070503
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Move along now, nothing to see here. I'm sure none of those people who potentially have their private data exposed had anything to hide anyway. So it's all fine B-)
sepluv >>> "if they have to send a large database between government departments, I'd imagine it should be done over a secure public-key encrypted VPN. If, secure telecoms channels do not exist between government departments"
From my time in the UK Patent Office (now UKIPO) we had very limited access to a system called GSI, government secure internet. I don't know the level of security it has but a little googling turns up http://www.cne-siar.gov.uk/reports/lpt/200102/local%20government%20secure%20intranet.doc with a bit of info. Included in that doc is this line:
"For example, xGSI, an extra-secure variant of the GSI, has exceptionally strong firewalls and other security arrangements that enable it to handle materials rated by Central government at up to CONFIDENTIAL level."
GSi is warranted by CESG but I can't find anything about particular key types or systems used (not suprisingly). There's certainly details of systems produced with CESG that use PK just to determine the key type to use for an end to end encryption. After my last few minutes of searching I thoroughly expect a visit from MI5 at 5am in the morning!
Really, large organisations like the government should have global file systems (not GFS) in place. DFS, AFS etc.
Deleted
in this case, is it not the fault of the imbecile who burned it onto a CD and posted it, instead of just sending it down the line to the National Audit Office?
In my opinion, it's not the Government's fault at all. Neither is it the fault of the head of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (although he did the honourable thing in resigning). It's the fault of the small-minded twit who sent it in the post rather than electronically (or even delivering it by hand).
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
... it was 15 million. Then the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, made his report to Parliament, and gave the figure of 25 million.
We Build Beautiful Websites
USA the gauntlet has been laid down.
I guess there's no real need to resist ID cards if the data is already out there. Wow - it will include generals, police, MPs! - including Gordon Brown, complete with details of occupation, their children's names, where they live and their bank records.
But just two DVD's to contain 25 million detailed personal information records?
Look... It's not going to help prevent authorized access by keeping it secret.
.... balh blah blah..
If it's not encrypted, when the files are opened it will look like (or something really obvious):
Joe Public DOB: xx-xx-xxxx 12345 Main Street
If it is encrypted it will look like:
982n5o39y8h5014u9m9p!#$`15235098h14n12#$!@3476bwfSFR2387rn@!#12987ksafdkjD
It doesn't take a fucking genious to figure out if a file is encrypted or not. And its not like they are going to told what alog it is encrypted with if it is encrypted. I can see no reason NOT to tell the public if the data is encrypted or not, so the public knows what kind of precautions or steps may be needed to protect their identity.
Not sure about how the HMRC (soon to be re-named yet again!) rolls, but where I work we have no access to encryption tools. The department does use encryption and encryptor cards for a lot of stuff, but only ever in the most banal and useless way possible. Hell, even the flexi system has encryptor cards, I guess at great expense, to stop people from somehow fiddling their in/out times. Of course, that is simply defeated by giving your card to someone else when you leave early if you are that way inclined. MI staff have pretty much full access to the databases via whatever applications they use, but are usually poorly trained and normally only in the job because its a promotion opportunity, not because they have an interest in stats or have any knowledge of the systems. So if someone was told "give me xxx, stick it on a DVD and post it to here" by a manager (also unskilled and there just because it was a promotion opportunity) they would do it without batting an eyelid. Data protection is not a part of any training MI staff receive, so its only the people who give a crap who would question this. And then they would either be ignored, or someone else asked to do the work because the place is full of yes men. Answering someone above you with "No" isn't the way to be promoted, sadly.
I'm absolutely fucking livid about this, I don't have a child, but people I care about do, and even if no one I knew did I'd still be livid.
This is incompetence on an absolutely mon-u-fucking-mental scale.
I can't believe anyone so utterly retarded could be allowed anywhere near such a database.
They should mandate daily reading of slashdot then maybe they'd have picked up a damn clue about data responsibility having at the very least picked up some idea from the smaller scale losses elsewhere worldwide.
what ? truecrypt? hell no, we couldn't use that, it's opensource and thus we can't trust the security, lets just convert it to MSAccess and slap a password on, that'll be fine.
This is why we upgrade encryption standards. Banks used to use DES which was superseded ages ago and was generally done so before the near real time DES cracker came along. Most of the UK/US banks now use at least triple DES, some still use 2DES. This is mainly used for stuff that is realtime sensitive only and it doesn't really matter if it gets forced in six months or six years.
AS you say though this could hang around and be a big deal a long time from now. I'd probably be happy with AES 256 protecting it, maybe AES 192. 20 years time I wouldn't lay odds on someone being able to brute force a 128 bit key though - yes it seems impossible now but....
Of course someone could find out how to factor numbers efficinetly and then all bets are really off. If the Govt really wanted to make things right they would at least re-issue NI numbers on demand to all those requesting them, or since that's likley to be most people just re-issue the lot.
It already makes me angry to find that it took 3 weeks for the loss to be reported to senior management. To then hear that it took a *further* 6 to 10 days for the Met, Info Commissioner, FSA and SOCA to be informed frankly incenses me. *That* would've been the ideal time to urge account holders to monitor for unusual activity.
To add insult to injury, the helpline number which has been set up for those concerned is non-geographic. This means that, depending on your service provider, it's usually not the cheapest call you could make, especially from a mobile through which 0845 numbers are considered premium and thus not eligible to count within free minutes. Organisations using non-geographic numbers also often take a cut of that cost and if this is the case with HMRC, even if the cost is allocated to diverting the call to the "correct" department, it's still unacceptable that HMRC could be charging people to receive advice on what is their mistake.
I regularly receive telephone calls from the HMRC - not mention other benefits agencies - regarding benefits, from staff who require my name, date of birth and those of my son, our address, my national insurance number and even occasionally the names of *former* partners. On every occasion I have politely refused but asked for their extension number so that I could call them back on the number I know to be genuine. Often I've either been told that the caller will lose their job if they don't complete their enquiry or I have been promptly hung up on.
Although it has thankfully turned out to be the HMRC, it's the kind of unprofessional call I come to expect from a pushy, cold-calling salesman, not a government agency. If these CDs have fallen into the wrong hands and worse still, have been copied, I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing such specifically targeted victims of phishing as any success rate within a choice of 7.5 million families could be well worth a fraudster's while.
The slow panic has been setting in for me since I heard that it definitely included our details and although there may be "no evidence the data had gone to criminals" (yet), this isn't exactly a case in which no news is good news.
Spoof emails and phone calls "There are renewed scams requesting personal information."
" Fraudsters are sending out high volumes of emails, some examples can be found on our existing fraud attempts page. Please be aware that although these fraudulent emails may contain the HMRC logo and other details, they are fake and you should never respond to an email which asks for personal information. While we may send you emails from time to time, we would never do so requesting login, bank and credit cards details. If you suspect you have received a fraudulent email please do not follow any links within the email, disclose any details or respond to it. Forward it to us at phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk. We cannot reply on each email we receive, but the information will be used to help reduce online fraud."
We use those in corporate offices and school systems / public offices in America. Internal couriers are nothing new :)
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
...with HRMC's abandoned outsourcing deal with EDS? EDS owes HMRC £71 million, but EDS has so far only managed to pay back a quarter of a million. Could it further have anything to do with HMRC's £2bn replacement deal with CapGemini that promptly tripled to £8bn? Fleeing former Revenue employees are not surprised. "Morale is non-existent. Mistakes happen continuously. Rooms full of unopened post are not uncommon. It doesn't matter if you make mistakes because you won't be held accountable".
There is a BIG difference between... PACK animals (which are hunter killers) and HERD animals, which are prey. Society teaches us to be HERD animals. Humans are the apex predator on this planet. We are indeed PACK animals, but packs associate voluntarily (even the weak), while herds associate because someone wants to eat them all, or someone has already put them inside a pen.
Most of "society" and its tendencies remind me of HERDS, not PACKS. In a pack, the vast majority fight together and can do so. The weak are exterminated or left behind or don't make it past childhood. In HERDS, those who breed and care for the herds make sure the weak grow up (by denying the predators their prey, i.e. the weak, sick or old) through the use of fences (literal or figurative/laws). In HERDS, the young and all stages of live are exterminated whenever those who care for the HERDS cull the ranks, whether to entertain themselves or to feed/clothe/provide for themselves from among the culled.
Those who advertise for "social care" are basically saying that the HERD is where they all belong. The Randian's at least talk a good show about becoming voluntary members in whatever PACK they so desire. To be in a PACK, you pull your own weight. Call it "government by consent", rather than "servitude by pre-natal consent" (which is what social care governments really are, they force you to accept their kindness and extract it back at gun point even if you manage to avoid being a target of their "services" while young.)
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
And who was it that helped Enron?
Ding Ding Ding... it was the government. Corporate documents give the benefit of government backing to a piece of paper, which then protects the corporation from consequences. Short of assassination or lynch mob, the people NEVER get what they should from corporate abuse, because it is so nearly indistinguishable from government abuse. Corporations have the monopoly on power that government backs them up with (it being the original monopolizer of power.)
I have yet to see true freemarkets outside of black markets, but perhaps I'll get to witness them in action above the ground someday, before old age.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Good to see a few folks outside of the usual socialist circles here on slashdot.
:)
Congrats.
Don't worry, the brits that weren't socialist scum and many that were have all left "merry ole England" for greener pastures. Regardless of their socialist propaganda, Brits like their bread buttered, and those government checks barely provide the bread. I've met a whole bunch who came to America so they could BUY the butter
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Over 25 million, actually - not 15 million. BBC down-playing 'spin'? Hmmm.
TELEGRAPH.co.uk
Child data debacle seals Whitehall's demise? -Boris Johnson.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=IPT2JXJAZTMNHQFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/opinion/2007/11/20/do2006.xml
Eu contraire, Boris. Was this an 'authorised accident', twice, or a plot? Take your pick.
The implications are way beyond enormous; making mere ID theft and fraud look like childs-play.
Look at it this way: Now that an entire generation of British citizens have had their identities compromised, what's a little DNA and biometric info on top?
This 'lost' list - when cross-reverenced with the virtually guaranteed next 'leak' of DNA and biometric information will pinpoint the exact location of every 'ready-made' organ donor match in Britain - willing or not, commercially or otherwise. Phew! Everyone 'shares' everything, including body parts, in wondrous NWO corporate socialism?
Perhaps instead, you should seek out and patronize local businesses, maybe even start your own. Most of those huge corpos were little companies long ago, but they got big and forgot, or were bought by huge chartered arms of government (big corps) and then lost the leadership that gave a damn.
... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."
Should it not be up to you whether you live or die? For a bunch of geeks who talk about evolution, you certainly are immune to your own rhetoric... how can you evolve if you haven't the means or the ability? Humanity, is so far the only species of animal that crushes its strong and upholds its weak, and the results are obvious in all facets of society.
I love this quote... even if it is by a classic American, who had several ideas I would rather not agree with.
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
"As with every government, I often find that the most accurate records are the tax records."
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Her Majesty's Customs and Excise department (Created by: Royal Charter - mind you)
was P-R-I-V-A-T-I-S-E-D because the old HMC&E was so useless, corrupt, inefficient and inept!
SEE?
They fixed that for ya!
RR
Anti trust legislation was a way to "throw a bone".
It reminds me of when the government fired on the crowd that demanded another false promise, their WW1 benefit. 1932 Bonus Army in Washington DC. Instead FDR devalued the currency, screwed the vets and ended up making a bundle. This was government scam. Sure they later paid SOME of the benefits but with far less valuable currency. I.E. they paid with money that couldn't buy as much as when it was earned/promised during that first World War.
Of course, you'll continue to defend those who fleece you, in hopes that when they're done, they'll pay some of it back to you. Good luck with that.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Who want you to trust them with your DNA. ... ...
Think about that.
You should now have shit yourself.
carry on.
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
It would be far too difficult to read up or make a comment, instead of meta modding. Joyful stuff. Keep it coming, after all, nothing I've said is false, so why respond when dissent can be silenced by vote :)
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
When they have spent so much tat on networked systems why did they post everything on a couple of DVDs?
It used to be the children's tax relief. Someone decided that it would be "better to pay it to the mothers" rather than just reduce the father's tax bill. (yes they really do think in these sexist terms, as a single dad I had lots of explaining to do before I could claim).
It is also no surprise that government lackies are still defending the ID database - these guys are corrupt.
It gives me no great pleasure to say, "I told you so" about large amounts of data not being safe with government - there is no safeguards that can protect it.
The nodding sheeple keep believing government propaganda about things that are obviously wrong - e.g. ID database or Iraq.
This is not just simply about having confidence in the government - or their competence - though clearly they are lacking in both.
We cannot put trust in future governments to not abuse this data - nor can we put trust in any system.
Data can be robbed, be lost or abused - we cannot give them more personal data - it would be moronic to do so.
BTW: If the disks are found that doesn't mean the data is safe - they may have been copied.
...would the discussion of a data loss incident turn into a debate on the merits of how child benefit work, claims from people in other countries that the benefit must mean half the country is in poverty, and now some poster's petty pronouncements on problems with the metric system.
"... the merits of the child benefit scheme".
Stick to the topic in hand, chaps.
No, you did not just mention RP! Where do you think you are, man? DIGG?
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
The british media loves to make fun of Indian BPO's and call centers all the time.
If this had happenned in an Indian company, we would be talking negatively about the whole country.
This proves that human incompetence is not limited by geographical boundaries.
Every time I write a cheque I hand over my bank details to the recipient.
So why do people worry about these details being available? They aren't secret/confidential anyway.
No records were lost. A COPY of the records was lost. Quite a difference. But it would sound much more boring...
Perhaps you're mixing up Independence day. Studied history recently?
link? or lie?
Why are UK government IT projects always doomed to failure?
They used to have a competent central consultancy service, the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA). This was staffed half-and-half by top techie civil servants and outside consultants on secondment from big companies.
It provided free advice and support to Civil Service projects, and when it was involved the projects did not fail.
It was closed down in the late 80s by lobbyists from the big private consultancies, who argued that it was unfair for them to compete against free consultancy. Ever since then, Civil Service projects have been absmyal.
They could spin this to say "Hey! Is your identity compromised because someone leaked your personal info? To stop this ever happening again, we're going to use unbreakable biometric encryption to identify you! Please come and have your RFID implant"
March 2007
``Records of 6,500 Torbay Council workers were on a CD posted to the
Audit Commission, but which did not arrive.
A second disc, containing staff names, addresses, salary and banking
details, was then sent, and also did not arrive. ''
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/england/devon/6479617.stm
I don't think you have quite grasped what is /not/ being said here.
Review all the messages from GOVERNMENT and see if you can find any statement that 'procedures have been breached'. I don't think they will say this, because -as far as I can detect- they were NOT.
Yes, the stuff under the carpet reads "we actually didn't have any decent procedures in place for this sort of transmission" and that's why someone was so quick to fall on their sword. Normally you can't get someone from the Labour government to resign after being found guilty of child abuse (proverbially), so the quick resignation was a clear sign there was more going on than met the eye.
You know what the most ironic aspect of this all is? HMRC, NAO and Treasury have been since over a decade hooked up to a central network with an extra secure layer on top. They could have just sent it over the wire.
"Stupid" doesn't even BEGIN to cover it.
Insert
In Soviet Russia Data loses you!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2007/11/those_emails_in.html http://blogs.bbc.co.uk/nickrobinson/Informationrelatingtochildbenefitdata.pdf dear god why do I find it so hard to find a good job when there are so many fucking utter incompetents in office.