Slashdot Mirror
UK Politician Criticised For Using Hotmail
nk497 writes "The UK justice secretary Jack Straw has been criticised for using Hotmail as his official government email account after he apparently fell foul of a Nigerian spammer in a phishing attack. A security researcher said using such an account not only left the government in security trouble, but meant any emails sent could not be necessarily accessed via the Freedom of Information Act."
Justice Secretary Jack Straw's email account has been hacked by internet fraudsters who sent out messages to hundreds of his contacts which claimed he was stranded in Nigeria and needed 3,000 dollars to fly home.
I would think if a government minister was really stranded somewhere in Africa, they would contact the nearest British embassy, which would surely know their whereabouts anyway, and the embassy would get them home easily. There are dangers on the internet; this is not one of them.
Since when has Jack Straw been very interested in Freedom of Information? Under his Home-secretaryship Britain has become a surveillance state.
This name alone is so creepy. Orwellian use of word "Freedom".
839*929
Now i know most of that was mostly personal use but if i remember correctly they had the contacts to her aides and a drafted letter to the Calif governor.
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_inbox_2008
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
I've been using gmail and gmx for at least a decade, yet I would be (rightfully!) fired if I was to send and receive sensitive corporate data through these addresses, at least if I can't provide some sort of good reason AND good encryption to make sure that it is at least halfway decently protected from prying eyes.
And that's not Joe Shmoe of Backwater Inc with data nobody might be interested in, it's the Justice Secretary. You might get an idea what kind of email reaches his desk, and why it might be interesting to have it
a) secure from curious people and
b) available for an audit in case something stinks
This person is an elected official. Essentially, the mails he receives and sends (related to his office, of course, not his private communication) are property of the voters of the United Kingdom. It's time that people realize again that their officials are supposed to work for them, not for themselves.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"There is a balance to be struck between openness and maintaining aspects of our structure of democratic government,"
Sorry, I thought the whole point of democracy was that we get to decide that balance, not those in power? His decision flies in the very face of democracy.
Er, so, what if I disagree with you about how that balance should be struck? You want these documents to be released, but I don't. Why does your opinion outweigh mine, if you are so keen on democracy?
That may be exactly why he uses it...
1. Actually, from my experience, I've seen actually intelligent people fall to such scams once greed clouds their judgment. E.g., I failed to convince an otherwise extremely intelligent woman -- and for bonus points, usually she was the one selling snake oil to gullible PHBs -- to not "invest" in a pyramid scam. She understood exponents perfectly, but there was no getting her to accept that she is not in the first ranks who'll get their payoff, and/or that there aren't enough suckers any more to fill more than the first ranks of such a scheme.
At some point wishful thinking takes over any other kind of reason. They _want_ it to be true so hard, that basically cognitive dissonance rebuilds their mental model to something where they can win.
That's how the brain works: when you have two conflicting pieces of your mental model, it has to be resolved to something internally consistent one way or the other. And it's extremely uncomfortable while not yet resolved. All animals seem to work that way. What's different in humans is that you can essentially have a piece of the model that's so important to you that it can't be displaced, so something else has to go. Basically you _can_ distort your mental model as far as needed for any kind of wishful thinking, if you wish hard enough, and being intelligent or perceptive has nothing to do with it.
Among other things, that's why once someone started on such a path, it's harder than ever to quit. Accepting "ok, I've been a dolt, the Nigerian prince doesn't exist, I'll never see that money again" means basically a loss of self-respect, so it's a big no. So something else in that mental model has to be changed to support the idea that you're smart after all, too smart to be fooled in fact, and you only make smart investments. Hence the already lost money becomes a smart investment to be continued.
If anything, having such immovable ideas about oneself makes it easier to happen. If you're too convinced that you're too smart to be fooled, that just creates the setup for defending a dumb decision against all evidence.
2. Actually it seems to me like it's a test of honesty. As the saying goes, "you can't scam an honest person." Virtually all scams, from pyramid schemes to Nigerian advance fee scams to "Soapy" Smith's soap-with-banknotes scam to everything else, have the same common denominator: the "mark" thought he's getting some undeserved money at someone else's expense.
E.g., most people actually understand a pyramid scheme and that it will run out of marks soon very well, but they think they can join in early enough to be a part of the scammers not of the losers. E.g., I doubt that anyone in the Nigerian advanced fee scam was actually planning to dutifully give the widow's/orphan's/whatever money once it's in their account. And at any rate they were willing to break some laws and do shady stuff. So even if (ad absurdum) it were just for the promised fee, it's still a wannabe crook willing to break or bend the law for money. E.g., stock tip scams work on people who think that they can move fast enough to sell when it peaks and basically be a part of the scammers instead of the victims. E.g., the dolts who bought the Eiffel Tower from Victor Lustig thought they can give a bribe to get the rights to that metal at substantial discount, i.e., that they can use corruption to scam the state. Etc.
So basically it's just a honesty test. If you can say "no, that wouldn't be right", you can't be scammed. If you go, basically, "OMG, it's a one in a lifetime occasion to scam someone out of their money" then congrats, it's your own dishonesty that pwns you.
From there, again, being too convinced that you're too smart to be scammed is just making it actually easier. Those guys who bought the Eiffel Tower too were convinced that they're too smart to be fooled, savvy, good judges of caracter, etc, and know a genuine corrupt government official when they see one. The ones who think they understand exponents or the stock market too well to possibly be wrong about anything, just use that to support and defend the decision to jump on a pyramid scam or stock tip scam respectively, once greed started to cloud their judgment. Etc.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
in theory this is what the politicians are for, we elect them so that they can say, 'we were chosen by the people, so any action we take is that which the people want' which saves having 65M people argueing over what to do, but they do still get a say by informing their MP of their ideas/opinions etc which the MP then takes into account when s/he goes off to visit parliment.
Of course this is all in theory...and we all know how it rerally works out
I'm not sure what your point is really. I never said my opinion outweighs yours but in this particular context no one has been given the choice anyway so even if I had said that then it's still be irrelevant. Of course, if you're defending his action then it's actually you who is effectively saying your opinion is more important than anyone who disagrees, because you're suggesting that anyone opposing your view should be ignored which is effectively what Straw has done.
But there's also the argument to be made that the FOIA was implemented as a democratic action which was voted on by all of cur elected representatives and as such defying such a democractically created act automatically goes against democracy if the defiance of that act was performed by a single person or small group of people, rather than as a result of the majority opinion of the people or their representatives.
But I'm not even sure you understand the point of a democracy, it's not about what a single individual wants, it's to enable each individual to have their say and the result being based on what the majority wants so even ignoring all the above what you want doesn't really matter if what you want is an absolute minority opinion. I believe where everyone can have, act on and enforce their opinion as you seem to be pursuing with your focus of the ideas of individuals you would have anarchy, not democracy.
When a national politician does it I can only imagine he's got something to hide.
Business is Business and at the level of mr. Straw this is even more important.
Even though I am well aware that many government institutions are only recently discovering the net as an integral part of society the various levels of government have since many years the ability to run their own mail servers, including all the extra security you'd expect.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
There's a decent possibility that the Liberal Democrats will hold the balance of power this time though as whilst Conservatives will almost certainly be the majority party, they wont have a big enough majority to do whatever they want by outnumbering the other two parties put together like Labour currently does.
Of course, on evil things Labour and the Tories may end up just banding together and ignoring the Lib Dems altogether but taking ID cards for example- right now Labour can go ahead and vote for them regardless of what the opposition thinks but in the scenario described above and if it was the Tories proposing the law and Labour opposed it just as the Tories oppose ID cards then the Lib Dems could side with the opposition to overthrow it.
It's not ideal still but at least it'd be a whole lot better than now where one party can push their entire agenda regardless of what the Tories and Lib Dems put together think. Right now for the Lib Dems and Tories to defeat a Labour proposal they need to manage to get support from some of Labour as well so it only works for as long as Labour's proposal is so bad that even half their own party wont support it, but seeing as most their party do support ID cards then we're talking about something pretty damn bad!
This is why I hope people that are considering voting Lib Dem do so, not because there's any hope of them getting power, but because there is at least hope of them holding the balance of power which is a major step forward on the last couple of decades. This is going to be a really important election for people to learn to vote for the party they want rather than voting tactically to avoid the party they don't want (which inevitably ends up in the situation we have now!).
Are you some sort of idiot ?
You can keep your current personal e-mail address to speak to your family and friends but if you are discussing the government business you are paid to do then you use the offical government account.
It's really not that hard.
"Not at all. I'm not arguing for an unprecedented release of what has always been confidential and secret information."
But this is the whole point of the problem with the veto. The ICO ruled that it wasn't material fit to be protected as confidential and secret, it never actually was fit to have that label.
"If you want to change something in our democracy, then vote for it. You are welcome to express your opinions about what should be done, and persuade others to take it seriously enough to sway their vote, and perhaps be persuasive enough to change the minds of the politicians, that's all fair game in a free speech democracy."
We already did and got what's called the Freedom of Information Act, and that's what's being defied here by a single minister covering his own arse.
"I'm just saying that it isn't necessarily un-democratic for cabinet meeting discussions to stay secret until all those involved have left office,"
Until they've left office? So you're basically saying even if say, for example, a minister decides to pursue and illegal war that leaves hundreds of thousands dead who otherwise wouldn't be there should be no come back and no repercussions until it's pretty much too late? You do realise you're effectively advocating ministers to be able to do what they want no matter how wrong and be allowed to cover it up until it's far too late to act right? The whole reason FOIA exists is to ensure people spending our money - tax payers money are accountable for what they do with it. If they decide to spend it on waging a war that serves their self interests and not in fact the interests of the population you really don't think citizens should have a way to find out?
Again you seem to be forgetting ministers are there to serve the people and not vice versa, if they are serving us then we have the right to know how well they are serving us. We have the official secrets act for things that could expose undercover investigations and so on which is one of those things we can't really do much about, anything outside of that that isn't personal or private information but is instead public information exists for this purpose. What Straw has done is removed all accountability for something which has been determined internationally as illegal. You may suggest international rulings are irrelevant to national happenings but that's not the case, these events were international not national events- we can't take action internationally and ignore reaction internationally. The fact is, the decisions made in those meetings were wrong, lives both foreign and British and billions of tax payers money was wasted and the people responsible need to be brought to account for it. We need to know how or why those decisions were made, if not only so the mistake isn't repeated.
A) Public forum so anyone can respond to everyone and vice-versa.
B) Your post he was responding to is out of scope making whatever argument you are trying to make moot to the topic at hand.
C) It is the Internet. Most people attack other people's intelligence, particularly when their victim is wrong. Try to not let it get to you. At this point more people do it out of habit than anything else.
Fact of the matter is if it was his personal e-mail used for personal things no one would give a damn. Fact of the matter is this guy was using it for *official* government business. I don't know the laws in the UK, but in the USA that's a big no-no. A bigger no-no than actually gets enforced but then that's the USA for you; the Congress Critters and other politicians rarely get punished as they are supposed to unless its a hot button issue.