infinite ideas machine

All about Janet (all about YOU!)

The Guardian published this cool but disturbing little Flash gizmo a while back, that reveals which agencies hold what information on you - and who they share it with.

Clicking around reveals a few mildly interesting factoids: the Child Support Agency, for example, links to exactly as many other agencies (in the private, as well as the public sector) as the Police National computer - and both are linked to far more than the Passport office.

And who owns the most comprehensive name and address database in Europe?

Television Licensing Tracking! And they're not even public sector...

M$ 'Get the Facts'... ri-i-i-ight

John Lettice in El Reg's, MS, open source, The Facts and the fit-ups, describes (or more accurately, rips apart) one of Microsoft's recent series of UK seminars intended "to help customers better understand the debate surrounding Microsoft and Open Source software".

The spirit of "openness and honesty" (not) demonstrated by Microsoft seems vaguely reminiscent of... current Home Office behaviour. Simplistic arguments, 'evidence' skewed in your own favour and spin up the wazoo!

Microsoft's re-telling of the Newham incident shows a degree of selectivity with the truth that must have even Blunkett reeling in admiration. Buy your way into a contract and then say that you 'won' it on the long term value (TCO) of your product? Pull the other one...

El Reg were able to infiltrate various people into the event(s), so they can at least report on precisely who said what. A boon completely denied to us, the citizens of the UK, despite Home Office protestations that they are 'engaging' with the public in an open consultation process - while, behind closed doors, the industry briefings carry on regardless.

Knowing me, knowing you

Steven Mathieson's article in the Guardian, Knowing me, knowing you, is another of his well-informed pieces on government IT policy. He quotes David Cameron (Conservative MP) who refers to the Govenment's "excuse culture": they've got a whole bunch of problems - such as illegal immigration, serious crime, terrorism - but no real answers, so they offer a National Identity Register-backed ID card scheme as a "cure-all".

When a 'new' controversy arrives in the media (e.g. the Bichard report, regarding the intelligence failures that contributed to the Soham murders) you can bet your bottom dollar that the Home Secretary or Home Office will try to 'work in' a role for ID cards or the NIR - leading to massive 'feature creep' before the things are even implemented, and even more worrying erosions of personal privacy and the presumption of innocence. For example, it is now proposed that allegations be attached to people's records (i.e. stuff that may not even have taken place, let alone been committed by the individual) and that ID cards should in some way be linked to the Criminal Records Bureau.

Are we all, therefore, to be tarred with the same brush as the paedophiles and serious criminals? And do you *really* think that little plastic cards are going to prove a serious impediment to these people?

One of the more worrying aspects of all this is the sheer number of current and upcoming public (and private) sector initiatives designed to track us and our behaviour. Thanks to Steven for the following list:

Citizen Information Project: National Statistics plans a population register of everyone in the UK, providing one place to update details and improving government statistics.

National Identity Register: to be built from scratch for the ID card scheme. To include every UK adult, subject to parliamentary vote, it will include reference numbers for databases such as national insurance and NHS numbers, and biometric measurements.

NHS Care Records Service: the national project has started building a patient database to contain summary medical records for all in England.

Coordinated Online Register of Electors: plans are to merge or link the electoral rolls managed by all UK local authorities.

Local databases of all children in England are being trialled.

The Department for Transport will produce a feasibility study on installing tracking devices in all vehicles this summer, allowing road pricing.

Private sector databases include credit reference agencies, loyalty cards and bank databases of card data.

If they are so interested in knowing me and knowing you, why is it they are not so keen on us knowing what they are doing... and why?!

Hmmm - who are these guys?

ID Data seem to think they are in with a chance of getting the contract for Blunkett's ID cards:

ID Data has made its first move to be seriously considered as a supplier of choice for the UK's National ID Card.

At Intellect's high profile conference* attended by leading Home Office personnel and industry leaders, ID Data presented a challenging solution to the Government's needs for a mass issue of ID cards.

Peter Cox, CEO of ID Data plc, presented the Company's views on how they could assist the Government's plans to implement ID Cards within the UK.

*That'll be the closed industry event that the Home Office attended, the Monday after the Thursday on which they decided not to attend or be represented at the public LSE meeting on ID cards...

I think Atos Origin might have a few things to say about this! After all, it must have cost them quite a pretty penny to take over Schlumberger Sema earlier this year (who themselves had been lobbying hard for the introduction of biometric ID cards, and had by that point been chosen by the Home Office to run the UKPS biometric enrollment trial) and they'll be looking for a return on their investment.

The pity is that this is one of those situations where you want neither David or Goliath to win. It would be a tragedy of the highest order for us to lose our right to privacy, the presumption of innocence and the ability to assert our own identities in the mere pursuit of shareholder value.

Joel and Cory gang up on Microsoft

Joel on Software's How Microsoft Lost the API War argues that the Windows API has "a terminal disease" while Cory Doctorow tries to convince Microsoft Research that DRM systems don't work, are bad for society / business / artists and that "DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT"!

Now I'm no Windows developer, although I did have some experience of developing for a Microsoft 'architecture' (early MSN) in the mid-90s - and, boy, was that fun when, e.g. they updated the component mix less than 48 hours from launch deadline. So I can well believe Joel's assertion that:

Outside developers, who were never particularly happy with the complexity of Windows development, have defected from the Microsoft platform en-masse and are now developing for the web.

en-masse? Definitely some. Probably quite a lot, in fact. But surely not most (existing Windows developers, that is)? M$ is still the largest game in town, and will be - by Joel's own admission - for quite some time to come. Although his later wage comparisons do give an indication that certain skills are now paying a rarity premium.

What's more compelling is his argument that:

...you've got the Windows API, you've got VB, and now you've got .NET, in several language flavors, and don't get too attached to any of that, because we're making Avalon, you see, which will only run on the newest Microsoft operating system, which nobody will have for a loooong time. And personally I still haven't had time to learn .NET very deeply, and we haven't ported Fog Creek's two applications from classic ASP and Visual Basic 6.0 to .NET because there's no return on investment for us. None.

The cracks are beginning to show, especially if this is true:

The big meme at Microsoft these days is: "Microsoft is betting the company on the rich client."

A bet they can't afford to lose, but the only bet they know how to make!

Cory, on the other hand, ends his talk with a startling request...

You know what I would totally buy? A record player that let me play everybody's records. Right now, the closest I can come to that is an open source app called VLC, but it's clunky and buggy and it didn't come pre-installed on my computer.

Sony didn't make a Betamax that only played the movies that Hollywood was willing to permit -- Hollywood asked them to do it, they proposed an early, analog broadcast flag that VCRs could hunt for and respond to by disabling recording. Sony ignored them and made the product they thought their customers wanted.

I'm a Microsoft customer. Like millions of other Microsoft customers, I want a player that plays anything I throw at it, and I think that you are just the company to give it to me.

Yes, this would violate copyright law as it stands, but Microsoft has been making tools of piracy that change copyright law for decades now. Outlook, Exchange and MSN are tools that abet widescale digital infringement.

More significantly, IIS and your caching proxies all make and serve copies of documents without their authors' consent, something that, if it is legal today, is only legal because companies like Microsoft went ahead and did it and dared lawmakers to prosecute.

Microsoft stood up for its customers and for progress, and won so decisively that most people never even realized that there was a fight.

Do it again! This is a company that looks the world's roughest, toughest anti-trust regulators in the eye and laughs. Compared to anti-trust people, copyright lawmakers are pantywaists. You can take them with your arm behind your back.

...and Bill Gates' worst fear: "Because if you don't do it, someone else will."

Penguins on safari

Chris Hilgert strikes again, with the latest in his increasingly bizarre series of penguin-smacking games:

PART 5 FLAMINGO DRIVE

The Yetisports World Tour 2004 comes to Afrika. With the help of flamingos, Yeti undertakes a absolute funny and incredible amusing safari in the African savanna. Underneath giraffes, over elephants and acacias, catapulted high up to the sky by snakes and carried by vultures, the penguin demonstrates clean flying tricks on advanced level.

Enjoy :)

The Home Affairs Committee on ID cards sits again

An updated list (in reverse order) of the uncorrected transcripts of oral evidence, i.e. neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The most recent two hearings also have links to their Parliament Live webcasts, but these are only stored for 14 days from their original transmission so catch 'em while they're there:

15th June 2004 - Chris Pounder (Editor, 'Data Protection and Privacy Practice') and Claire McNab (Vice-President, Press for Change), Dr Vivienne Nathanson (Director of Professional Activities, British Medical Association), Dr John Chisholm CBE (Chairman, General Practitioners Committee, BMA) and Trevor Phillips OBE (Chair, Commission for Racial Equality).

4th May 2004 - David Blunkett (Home Secretary), Desmond Browne (Minister of State for Citizenship and Immigration), Katherine Courtney (Director, Identity Cards Programme) and Stephen Harrison (Head, Identity Card Policy Unit, Home Office).

27th April 2004 - Len Cook (Registrar General for England and Wales) and Denis Roberts (Director for Registration Services, General Register Office) then Charles Clarke (Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills), John Hutton (Minister of State for Health) and Chris Pond (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions).

20th April 2004 - John Harrison (Edentity), Andy Jebson (Cubic Transportation Systems), Richard Haddock (LaserCard Systems Corporation) and Neil Fisher (QinetiQ).

24th February 2004 - Nick Kalisperas (Senior Programme Manager, ID Card Working Group, Intellect), Geoff Llewellyn (Member, ID Card Working Group, Intellect), Ross Anderson (Foundation for Information Policy Research) and Martyn Thomas (UK Computing Research Committee).

10th February 2004 - Martin Hall (Director-General, Finance and Leasing Association), Gerald Vernon-Jackson (Local Government Association) and Jan Berry (Chairman, Police Federation).

3rd February 2004 - Shami Chakrabarti (Director, Liberty), Simon Davies (Director, Privacy International) and Vicky Chapman (Head of Law Reform, the Law Society) then Richard Thomas (Information Commissioner) and Jonathan Bamford (Assistant Information Commissioner, Identity Cards).

11th December 2003 - Nicola Roche (Director, Identity Card Policy Unit), Katherine Courtney (Director, Identity Cards Programme), Stephen Harrison (Head, Identity Card Policy Unit, Home Office).

Give him a sign, Lord

Left click on the pic to check out the No2ID campaign site,
right click to "Save Image..." and pass it on.

Read this book, it's important.

Been reading Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto's 'The Mystery of Capital', in which he tries to and, to my mind, succeeds in explaining why capitalism has worked in the West and been pretty much a complete disaster everywhere else.

de Soto starts from the basic premise that "Capital is the force that raises the productivity of labor and creates the wealth of nations... it is the one thing that the poor countries of the world cannot seem to produce for themselves no matter how eagerly their people engage in all the other activities that characterize a capitalist economy" - which may cause most anti-capitalists to wince / fume / explode, but which (at least at this point in history) does seem to be a fair working assumption. He certainly puts it to good use.

According to de Soto, the big problem in the Third World and former Communist states is that while the poor have plenty of assets - e.g. land, homes, businesses, etc. - these pretty much all sit in the extralegal, informal realm. His team's extensive in-country research points to this being the result of massively accelerated urbanisation and population growth, coupled with the inability and unwillingness of the authorities and their legal systems to adapt to the reality of how people are actually living.

Strikingly, when he has intervened in a country and made it much simpler for people to 'legalise' their businesses, tens of thousands of grey / black economy entrepreneurs have done just that, even though they then become liable to pay taxes on what are, in the main, very low margin operations! As it turns out, the cost of doing business extralegally is often greater than doing so legally - think protection money, high interest loans(harking), bribery, etc.

That's just a brief summary - if you're interested or intrigued, I really recommend you read the book. Now all I want is one that explains China's take on capitalism as clearly...

N.B. I think there are some strong analogies between ownership of physical property and ownership of data ('intellectual property'?) in an Information Society. I furthermore believe that if we don't own in law the data that pertains to us then, in a knowledge economy, we run the risk of becoming 'digitally disenfranchised' - little more than chattels ('good little consumers'!) of the States, banks and corporations that issue, control and trade our identities and personal information.

We're not there yet, thankfully, but there's still a large majority in the West who seem content to sleepwalk into a future that, by design*, looks like it could lack some of the basic human values that we have come to take for granted - like privacy, trust and the presumption of innocence. These are things that, unfortunately, have to be fought for again and again - and sometimes it's the very people that we have elected who try to take them away :(

*State and/or corporate.

The future of Gmail, the future is Gmail?

Now that the initial furore has died down a bit and the price of invites has crashed, SecurityFocus' Mark Rasch (scary photo, Mark!) writes a well-argued piece on The Trouble with Gmail. Just in case you're thinking he's another paranoid nutcase or rabid civil libertarian take note of the fact that he's *actually* a former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit...

"Even though the configuration of the Gmail service minimizes the intrusion into privacy, it represents a disturbing conceptual paradigm - the idea that computer analysis of communications is not a search. This is a dangerous legal precedent which both law enforcement and intelligence agencies will undoubtedly seize upon and extend, to the detriment of our privacy."

Maybe the (conceptual) horse has already bolted - it certainly seems that the competition thinks so, as they fall over themselves to up the storage capacities of their e-mail accounts. Some more successfully than others, of course :)

What interests me in all this, however, is the fact that to many people - especially those who couldn't give a monkeys about PCs - e-mail is the internet, and by giving someone the capacity to store, manage, search, etc. ALL of their digital communications and relationships these companies are effectively now doling out potentially lifelong digital identities.

Did this (potential) add value beyond the mere scarcity of the first Gmail accounts - who knows (what price phil@gmail.com)?

Is it going to create / enable / invite a whole new raft of derivative services - probably (consider Pop Goes the Gmail just for starters)!

Is this the beginning of a shift from Personal Computing to Personal Information (Personal Servers, Mobile Gateways, convergence through synch, etc.)?

You decide.

UPDATED 21/6/04: Irdial Discs points to another couple of Gmail 'tools': Gmail Loader, which allows you to upload existing mail archives to Gmail (to utilise its search facilities); and a rather bizarre Gmail giveaway site, who seem rather proud to have accumulated over 44 million page views but who carry no ads...

Tongue firmly in cheek

24HOURDOTCOM:

Berlin, Germany -- June 14, 2004 -- The dotcom days are with us again as Adam Wern and Eric Wahlforss, two students from the Stockholm School of Economics and the Royal Institute of Technology, descended upon the Wizards of OS Conference in Berlin with the aim of creating a dotcom business from scratch in 24 hours.

The two charismatic Swedes succeeded in putting together a multi-disciplinary international team within a few hours, and went on to implement dozomo.com, a revolutionary entrant into the search engine market.

The service, which acts as a meta-search engine, has ambitious plans to take on the incumbent google.com and believes its innovative technology will help it become the market leader within the coming year.

The business is now being auctioned off on eBay as a form of IPO and reached almost $1000 within a few hours and is expected to skyrocket by the time the auction finishes on Tuesday 1700 GMT.

They made $2026 and seemed to have a lot more fun doing it than some of the sad money-grubbing b******s I knew (of) back in '99! Not sure their meta-search engine's much cop - e.g. you have to type in the name of the engine you want to use as a part of the search - but then how many dotcoms actually built *really* good code, especially on seed / first round funding?

Nice one, guys ;)

1... 2... 3... testing

Duncan's story on out-law.com today, entitled 'A close encounter with biometrics' offers a glimpse of what biometric enrollment - for Passports, Drivers' Licenses and ID cards, to name but three - may involve for us all.

Potentially incorrect readings, an inability to verify or match records due to simple communications failures and technicians who would rather trust a machine than think for themselves - even to assist a willing volunteer!

It is hard to see how this trial (already delayed and shortened because of previous supplier errors) is going to 'prove' anything other than the fact that biometrics are highly inconvenient and time-consuming and that the capture and reading technologies are not even close to reliable enough to ensure the levels of 'infallibility' touted by Mr. Blunkett and his ID card department.

If you see any future Home Office Press Release hailing the 'oustanding success' of the UKPS trial, you'll know for sure that these people simply don't care about us citizens, or even the validity of the citizen-held 'identity tokens' (e.g. biometric passports, ID cards) which they intend to issue and charge us for - it's the database that they want.

(im)Pure and simple.

And if this hypothetical Press Release were to mention 'valuable lessons learned'? How about the fact that, despite the much-touted "80%" public support for ID cards the trial was unable to muster even 7,000 volunteers: the Home Office should learn to ignore polls from companies that have a vested interest in the outcome. [MORI ran both the Detica-commissioned poll and the recruitment process for the UKPS trial]

The only lesson to be learned here, by any truly open-minded individual, is that even state-of-the-art biometric technologies are not up to the job of mass identification. With the 7+% enrollment failure rate currently being experienced on some types of biometric, over 4 million of us would be left without identities through machine error alone. And almost 1 in 10 'verifications' would fail in the real world, with all the attendant consequences...

N.B. those incredibly high 'positive & negative match' figures that you may hear bandied about relate only to what goes on in the database - which should bloody well work 100% of the time, seeing as *all* they are doing is matching sets of bits! They have nothing to do with whether the bits that are being checked (against) are actually yours, or are in the right place under the right name, or are even currently available. And no matter how much the technology improves, this will always remain the case.

Get real - ID cards (the way the Home Office wants to do 'em) just won't work.

Cannabis and crowd control

Paul Kelso's article in the Grauniad yesterday, It's OK to smoke dope, England fans told, reveals an *enlightened* approach to policing:

Lisbon police confirmed yesterday that England fans will not be arrested for puffing on joints on the streets of the Portuguese capital, following a recommendation from the Dutch authorities responsible for policing the English during Euro 2000.

Four years ago England's match in Eindhoven, ironically against Portugal, passed off peacefully as many supporters took advantage of the Netherlands' liberal drugs laws. By contrast the game against Germany in the Belgian town of Charleroi was marred by violence, much of it fuelled by alcohol.

Still illegal over here, but now Class C, with (pain control) trials for Multiple Sclerosis and now arthritis underway - might we see a reconsideration of THC vs. CH3CH2OH?

Where's Blair?

Michael Crick is following up Tuesday's BBC Newsnight programme, which reported on The man who isn't there.

Apparently Tony Blair is persona non grata on his own Party's election literature!

There are rumblings afoot, and even a few questions being asked. But how long is Tony for this world?

Should we beware the 'Major scenario', i.e. the leader of your Party becomes a liability so has to be made to step aside, but this is done in plenty of time for the new leader to settle in to the public consciousness before the next General Election - allowing the Party to continue on regardless, under the delusion that it was 'just' the most extreme act(s and intentions) of their former leader that they have to avoid / disown?

Satire in good form(s)

Check out the UK Department of Social Scrutiny's National ID Application Form.
I particularly liked,

Do you have a partner?

YES: Please send us some of their skin
NO: Please tell us about your pathological
inability to trust others on a seperate sheet

Parts 2, 3 and 4 also available:

About your ethical standpoint.

Your biometric data.

About your Majesty, Ma'am - for the Royal family!

Thanks to Adam for the pointer ;)

3 more eyecatchin' designs...

Guess who's joined the No2ID campaign?
Artwork available on request, as before - you'll need to provide a photo though...

UK Info Watchdog - bark or bite?

The Home Affairs Select Committee on Identity Cards was hearing evidence again this afternoon - the second time around for witnesses previously called on 3rd February, i.e. JUSTICE & The Law Society, Liberty & Privacy International and Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, and his Assistant, Jonathan Bamford. All being well, the uncorrected transcript will be made available within a couple of days as before.

Meanwhile, however, BBC NEWS reports the Watchdog's 'alarm' over ID cards:

Richard Thomas said he had initially greeted the plans with "healthy scepticism" but the details had changed his view to "increasing alarm".

He described the proposed scheme as "unprecedented" in international terms, and "was worried the British plans were more comprehensive and ambitious than any other scheme in the world." Predictably, Blunkett's spokespeople accused Thomas of "grandstanding" - but it is encouraging to hear some sense being spoken (and reported) about the Home Office proposals.

Mr Thomas told the MPs: "This is beginning to represent a really significant sea change in the relationship between state and every individual in this country."

It was now clear the scheme was not just about identity cards but about a national identity register, he said.

"It is not just about citizens having a piece of plastic to identify themselves. It's about the amount, the nature of the information held about every citizen and how that's going to be used in a wide range of activities."

Of course, the Home Office insist they are going to press ahead - quoting their "much wider responsibility to balance civil liberties* with ensuring our security against terrorism, immigration fraud and organised crime."

But hang on - I thought that Blunkett had already acknowledged that ID cards can't prevent terrorism [TheyWorkForYou.com really works!] or illegal immigration & working? And is he now trying to substitute 'organised crime' for 'identity fraud' - given the obvious flakiness of the Home Office's quoted estimates?

"In 2002 the Cabinet Office produced an interesting document following from a study entitled 'Identity Fraud: A Study'. Roger Smith, JUSTICE, argues that this report is much more thoughtful and sceptical in relation to identity cards. It asserts that £1.3 billion is lost due to identity fraud. However, when you analyse the data closely, it dissolves. Customs is worth £250 million loss on the basis of total MTIC fraud between £1.7million - £2.6 billion with a midpoint of £2.15 billion, we can assume that identity fraud is 10% of this figure." - from The Law Society meeting on 22/3/04, 'Identity Cards: Benefit Or Burden?'

*I thought there weren't supposed to be any "civil liberties objection[s] to [ID cards] in the vast majority of quarters" - according to the Prime Minister anyway?

And if this wasn't enough bad news for the beleaguered scheme, in their recent representation to HASC the British Computer Society - as reported by Computer Weekly - warns of their concerns about national ID cards:

"The risk of failure is significantly increased because there does not seem to be any firm and fixed statement of what the system is meant to achieve, what success or failure criteria are imposed and what scope limitations have been imposed."

i.e. if the Government can't properly (or even consistently!) state the aims, intentions and limits of their ID card & NIR system, how the hell do they propose to deliver it? BCS also raise a number of practical flaws - e.g. gathering biometrics from the disabled, dangers of data inaccuracy - and logical vulnerabilities of the scheme, e.g. registering people's identities at 16, rather than at birth.

It certainly begins to look like some of these objections might have teeth!

UPDATED 11/6/04: You can watch a recorded webcast of this Tuesday's Home Affairs Committee meeting on Parliament Live. N.B. previous sessions are also archived.

They Work For Us

Glad I made it to NotCon (delayed somewhat by my trip from Cornwall and a distinct lack of Circle & District line) yesterday and very grateful to Lionel for letting me 'borrow' his badge so I could actually make it in to some of the afternoon sessions at what was a very well attended, even oversubscribed, event.

One of the highlights of the day was the official launch of TheyWorkForYou.com - now in beta test. I'll let them describe the site / service in their own words:

"Everything MPs say in the House of Commons is recorded in a document called Hansard.

TheyWorkForYou.com helps make sense of this vital democratic resource and, crucially, allows you to add your own comments and links to the official transcripts of Parliament."

There are some extremely cool features, including RSS feeds of each MP's statements in Parliament and the fact that the parser and DB driving the site are Open Sourced. Tom Loosemore was actively encouraging people to build their own versions and tools - let the games commence!

I was reminded of the time I met one of the Hansard chaps - at a DTI PAT18 'consultation' in the late 90s - and suggested that BBC Parliament (I was working for the Beeb at the time) and Hansard could get together on the web & digital TV and turn British politics into American football... or a bloodsport! That particular idea was never going to happen, of course, but its great to see that the public will finally be getting access to the sort of resource that the all-too-powerful(?) lobbying groups have been using for years.

Many congratulations and much kudos to the whole team :)

Now if only some of the 'higher-ups' would remember that they are, in fact, Public Servants not our masters...

Not so voluntary after all!

There are a couple of 'classic' quotes in today's Scotsman's article, Identity crisis as ID trial gets brush off:

Professor Alan Marshall, a specialist in human rights based at the University of Strathclyde, claimed the pilot scheme was intended to "soften up" the public to the concept of ID cards.

He said: "What this shows, is there is no overwhelming public appetite for, or recognition of, ID cards as being high on the list of tools to beat terrorism."

"Rather than having a debate on ID cards the government have decided on having a voluntary scheme."

"It would have been helpful for them to have people who supported the scheme being involved in it."

This, on the discovery that less than half the number of people expected and/or required have signed up for the trial - even after all its recent publicity! Patrick Harvie seems to sum things up well:

Green MSP Patrick Harvie, who picketed Home Office minister Des Browne when he arrived in Glasgow to launch the trial, said: "The pilot scheme was set up to learn lessons about how the cards system will run, and they should clearly learn a lesson from the fact that nobody wants it."

"If there are less than 7,000 in the country who want this enough to spare half an hour of their time to find out about it, then how many people can be in favour of it?"

How many indeed?

Even if the general attitude remains 'If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear' the Home Office is going to have an increasingly difficult time equating this with active support for ID cards. Face it folks, no-one really wants to pay for the things - and few who look into it believe that they'll actually do what the Gov't says they will.

Putting 2 and 2 together

John Leyden's report Accenture wins $10bn Homeland Security gig ends with some interesting facts that may well start to hit home later this year:

Since January, visitors to the US from many countries have been fingerprinted or photographed. Under the US Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, countries whose citizens enjoy visa-free travel to the United States must issue passports with biometric identifiers no later than 26 October 2004.

Hmm - might this explain the Home Office's sudden hurry to get biometrics 'working' on UK passports?

Its bad enough that the European Union Commission have (ignoring the votes of the European Parliament!) signed an agreement with the US about the transfer of airline Passenger Name Record data - see Spy Blog and The Practical Nomad for detailed commentary and analysis - but for the US to foist biometrics on us all (even us supposed allies!) as a consequence / requirement of its own shaky 'Homeland Security' agenda?

Seems like the global bully-boy is revealing its own deep-seated insecurities, making threats (we'll fingerprint your citizens) and demands (spend billions on biometric technology - which US firms can supply, of course!) of those it knows will fall into line - with little to no chance of getting the *really* bad boys to comply...

UPDATED 10/6/04: Oops! It looks like an important Congressional committee has voted to strip Accenture (plus Dell, AT&T, Sprint and Raytheon) of their lucrative contract, "because Accenture is a foreign company that uses Bermuda as a tax haven."

NotCon

As recently noted by The Register, this Sunday is NotCon '04.

If, like me, you've been keeping an eye on this event as it evolved you may be gratified to see what a fine line-up the organisers have arranged. In their own words:

BREWSTER KAHLE, board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and founder of astonishing informational resource the Internet Archive, will be joining an equally mind-boggling lineup of speakers at the UK's first NotCon event, a one-day conference intended as some sort of answer to all those cutting-edge technological get-togethers they're always having in the USA.

Also speaking at the event will be top names from the UK's IT community and beyond, from IAN CLARKE (architect of the anonymous peer-to-peer network Freenet) to science fiction author and Creative Commons activist CORY DOCTOROW. The day will also mark the official unveiling of the latest grass-roots "e-democracy" project from the people behind acclaimed political involvement sites FAXYOURMP.COM and PUBLICWHIP.ORG.UK.

And that's on top of some practical (and some slightly less practical) demonstrations of social software, MP3 remixing, a debate on how weblogs can actually make a difference in the real world, a beginner's guide to "urban exploration", and how to tell the time using only a prawn sandwich and an old BBC Micro. Plus of course wireless internet access, and a bar, and the kind of people who actually ask for them in that order.

At only £4 per head (£3 concessions, including webloggers) on the door, I really don't know what's stopping you coming to Imperial College Union, Beit Quad, Prince Consort Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2BB this Sunday June 6th, from 11am to 7pm. I'll be trekking all the way up from Cornwall - Happy Birthday, Fi! - to catch what I can.

See (some of) you there :)

Steal this image

Click on the pic to check out the No2ID campaign site.