Snooper's Charter Down but Not Out

As I mentioned back in October, the Joint Parliamentary Committee that has been considering the Draft Communications Data Bill, aka Snooper's Charter, seemed to be doing a rather splendid job. It asked witnesses extremely perceptive questions, and seemed unwilling simply to accept the UK government's line that we needed these draconian powers because "terrorism"...

On Open Enterprise blog.

Your Number is Up...

...and it's £2.2 trillion:

The gap between what the Government expects to spend and what it actually brings in has risen five-fold, from £120 billion to £608 billion in the space of six months.

At that rate, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, it will take 23 years to return government borrowing to anything like normal levels – Gordon Brown’s famous “golden rule”.

And of course, every year you borrow keeps adding to what you owe. Right now, the Government calculates that it owes a total of £2.2 trillion – about £144,000 per household. The figure has trebled since the bank bail-outs. Some traders are beginning to wonder if Britain can actually pay its debts. If they start pulling out, then we really are bust.

Tell me again why we can afford to spend £19 billion on ID cards and associated super-duper databases...?

DNA Database Breached in New Zealand

Yesterday, I wrote about how the UK ID database has been breached even before it formally exists; now here's another tale that shows what the problem with all such super-duper databases is:

Police are investigating a claim an Environmental Science and Research worker made an "inappropriate disclosure" from the DNA databank.

ESR said yesterday a criminal investigation had started. "A staff member has been suspended pending the outcome of the police and internal investigations," a spokeswoman said.

Which means that *every* database, ultimately, has a weak link: people. So all these assurances of cast-iron, unbreakable security are worthless, for the simple reason that these databases are designed to be used by people, not all of whom are trustworthy or unblackmailable....

The Retreat from ID Cards Has Begun

This is significant:

Senior cabinet ministers are privately discussing a plan to scrap the Government's £5bn identity cards programme as part of cuts to public spending, The Independent has learnt.

Once such people start talking about it, even the most timorous will soon pluck up the courage to express their views; quickly we'll reach a classic tipping point when the majority hold the view that ID cards make no sense from any point of view.

But there are always some who remain prisoners of their delusions:

Your article of 28 April on ID cards is simply wrong on two fundamental points. The Government is committed to introducing ID cards.

Er, why would that be Jacqui?

ID cards will provide the public with a single, simple and secure way for individuals to prove their identity and safeguard their personal details – protecting the community against crime, illegal immigration, and terrorism.

Oh, I see. Why don't we just look at those, eh?

a single, simple and secure way for individuals to prove their identity

Well, no, it won't do that unless ID cards become compulsory for *every* occasion when I have to prove who I am. Now, that may be coming, but until then I'm still going to need to prove who I am by logging in to online services, or showing my library card. Is she really suggesting that the ID card replace *all* of those? If not, it will simply *add* to all of the other proofs that I need. ID cards only make sense if they satisfy a vital new need to prove who we are - for example, when stopped by the police in the street....

safeguard their personal details

How on earth does a centralised database "safeguard my details"? The ID card certainly doesn't - it's just a bit of plastic with a chip in; and as anyone who's been in computing for more than a couple of months knows, bringing data together in any way makes it less secure, not more. So what on earth is she rabbiting on about?

And as for

protecting the community against crime, illegal immigration, and terrorism

these were all debunked ages ago as the UK government desperately shopped around for some kind of justification for ID cards. It won't stop illegal immigration and it certainly won't stop "terrorism".

It hard sometimes to work out whether Ms Smith actually believes the nonsense she spouts, or just believes we're stupid enough to believe her. Either way, news that her colleagues are rapidly placing clear water between themselves and her deranged ideas on this one is welcome indeed. (Via OurKingdom.)

The State of the Database State

A recurrent theme in these posts – and throughout Computerworld UK – has been the rise of vast, unnecessary and ultimately doomed databases in the UK.

But those stories have been largely sporadic and anecdotal; what has been lacking has been a consolidated, coherent and compelling analysis of what is going on in this area – what is wrong, and how we can fix it.

That analysis has just arrived in the form of the Database State report, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation from the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR).

On Open Enterprise blog.

UK Government *Is* Experian

William Heath on the Experian scandal:

Experian has a “Mosaic” view of the world which involves grabbing as much data as possible and then crudely lumping people into blocks, rather like a fly looking at the world through compound eyes. The danger is they flog this to Whitehall departments and local authorities which rely on this computerised kaleidoscope to make decisions that affect people’s lives.

It's actually worse than that. The "mosaic" view is already deeply embedded within the UK government's mindset: that's why they keep on setting up these huge, unworkable database projects, and then propose linking them together.

It's not a matter of Labour peers allegedly being corrupted by Experian; the problem is that the UK government has gradually *become* Experian.

Last Chance to See: Modern Liberty...

The Convention on Modern Liberty was launched last night. I may be foolishly optimistic, but I do feel that this is our best hope of stopping the techno-surveillance state that is being created today in the UK.

The speech made by co-director Anthony Barnett has just been published, and it's a good summary of the perils facing liberty, and the questions that need to be addressed before we can come up with a way to halt this madness:

something does seem to be going on behind the theatre of parliament and government. Both Henry and Helena have referred to the constant stream of measures, violations, outrages even, which have little popular support. There is a connection between the spread of uncontrolled surveillance, detention without trial, the right of bailiffs to enter homes and seize property without a warrant, the ongoing, across the board destruction of our liberties.

We don’t have a name for it yet. NO2ID – and big thanks to Phil Booth its National Coordinator especially for his work on the Convention - have developed the term I use and find helpful, ‘The Database State’. This may describe it. But where is the motivation? What’s the driver pushing it onwards?

Is it a governing class who, since it supported the Iraq War, knows that the people are wiser than they are (a crucial moment this) and, in its bad faith, wants to secure its control by whatever means it can?

Is it a hardened grouping in the Home Office whose attitude is that if you stand upright and call yourself a “citizen” you immediately become a suspect - to be pre-emptively invigilated and controlled?

Is it corporate lobbying eager for the juicy deals – after all, if you have the contract on a whole country to make its ID cards or support their software and technology just think of the cashflow.

Or is part of what is happening simply a permission from a public that has not woken up to what is going on?

How these questions are answered is just as important as the answers. The answers need not be spoken in fearful whispers and anxiety. They need to be rooted in confident public debate. This is what this Convention on Modern Liberty is all about.

The Convention itself takes place on 29 28 February; you can buy a ticket here.

I shall be going, and I urge everyone else who cares about liberty and who can make to come too. We need to support this as fully as we can; if we don't, I fear it may be our last chance for a very long time.

The Super-Stupid Super-Snooping Database Idea

This is just a jokette, right?

The private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database that will keep track of everyone's calls, emails, texts and internet use under a key option contained in a consultation paper to be published next month by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary.

I mean, not content with attempting to put into place a total surveillance system, old Jacqui now seriously wants to out-source it? Which will effectively means that it can be owned by anyone - including a foreign entity - that buys the company with the contract.

I can see the political advantages of doing so - "oh no, *we* didn't lose all your intimate data, blame the company" - but this is stupidity squared.

Jackboot Jacqui Strikes Again

Our dear Home Secretary decides to ignore what we proles think again:

His warning follows an admission yesterday by Jacqui Smith that the technical work on creating a giant centralised database of all email, text, phone and web traffic will go ahead, despite the fact that ministers have decided to delay the legislation needed to set it up and instead put the proposal out to consultation.

Democracy? I've heard of it.

Labour's Data Delusion

There is a common misconception in Labour's love of super-duper databases: that more data is better. In fact, as any fule kno, what you want is the right data. Here's a great comment that unpicks that delusion in the context of its insane ContactPoint scheme:

There was no shortage of information about Victoria. There was a chronic lack of wisdom and judgement in interpreting the information that was already available. Victoria’s case demonstrates just how difficult it can be to pick up on abuse. It would be far better to concentrate the limited resources available on retention of experienced child and family practitioners and on thorough investigation of children already known to social services, rather than flooding an over-stretched system with low-level data about every child (up to 50% of the child population) who might need services.

Madness Begets Madness

This is where the madness of authoritarianism leads:

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.

The move is targeted at monitoring the owners of Britain’s estimated 40m prepaid mobile phones. They can be purchased with cash by customers who do not wish to give their names, addresses or credit card details.

This is another reason why the super-duper snooper database is madness: to make it even vaguely workable, the government must try to plug all these loopholes. But plugging one - pay-as-you-go mobiles - only highlights the next. In this case, it's pay-as-you-go mobiles from *abroad*. The logic of the super-duper snooper database means that people will be forced to register every mobile as they come into the UK. But this will simply create a black market for used mobile phones, so then the UK government will have to make *those* illegal. And then people will turn to encrypted VoiP, so that will be made illegal, and so on, and so forth.

Why don't they just implant chips in us at birth at be done with it?

Why We Need More Spam

Jerry Fishenden is not somebody you'd expect me to see eye-to-eye with much:

Jerry Fishenden is Microsoft UK's lead technology advisor, strategist and spokesman. Since being appointed to the role in 2004, Jerry has been responsible for helping to guide Microsoft's vision for how technology can transform the way we learn, live, work and play. He plays a key role in an international team of technology officers who work closely with Craig Mundie, Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer. Jerry's popular blog on issues of technology and policy can be found at http://ntouk.com.

But he's put up an excellent analysis of all that's wrong with the UK Government's proposed super-snooping database that's all-the-stronger for being much more moderate in tone than mine often are:

I remain unconvinced that we should be using technology to progressively build a panopticon here in the UK. Technology has a huge upside that we should be using positively, not allowing its more toxic potential to erode our long cherished liberties.

But what really caught my attention was the following point about weaknesses in the plan:

scale and volume: at Microsoft, last time I looked we were having to deal with some 3 billion spam emails a day through our Hotmail/Windows Live Mail service. Let alone the volume of legitimate emails. The Independent states that about one trillion emails and more than 60 billion text messages will be sent in Britain this year, and that most homes and offices now have a computer, with an estimated 20 million broadband connections. That's a serious volume of data and a serious data centre or data centres we're potentially talking about - let about the analytics then required to make sense of that data.

Yes, of course: what we need to do is *increase* the volume of spam, say, a thousand-fold - easy enough to do if you sign up for a few obviously dodgy Web sites, and reply to a few spam messages with your address. That would be inconvenient for us, but not a problem given the efficiency of spam filters these days (Gmail catches about 99.5% of the spam that I receive). But multiplying the quantity of information that the UK Government's super-snooping database would need to hold by a factor of one thousand would really cause the rivets to pop. And once databases scale up to cope with that, we just turn up the spam volume a little more.

Perhaps the same approach could be applied to Web browsing: you could write an add-in for Firefox that pulls in thousands of random pages from the Internet every day (text only). This, again, would add enormously to the storage requirements of any database, and make finding stuff much harder.

If the UK Government wants to live by technology abuse, then let it die by technology abuse. Alternatively, it might try actually listening to what people like Fishenden and countless other IT experts say about how unworkable this scheme is, and work *with* us rather *against* us on this matter....