Those missing CDs - the reward

[bunn]

I am amused to see that they are now offering a reward for those missing child benefit records.

Now is it me, or is that totally missing the point? If those discs turn up now, even if they are found stuffed down the back of a filing cabinet in the same building they came from, then surely the data must be considered compromised. Whether they are found or not, nobody can be sure where they have been in the interim or if they have been copied. Offering a reward for them at this stage - doesn't that demonstrate that the people in charge don't understand the basic concepts?

It's like the 'junior official' defence earlier. Sooner or later, everyone is sloppy or makes a mistake. These things happen, and occasionally, you get bitten on the bum. That's being human.

But blaming the entire fiasco on a 'junior official' - surely that makes the whole thing *worse*, not better? If the bad decision was made by an important busy someone with a high level of access, then you can at least understand how it got made. Tut tut. But if the decision to copy the data, fail to encrypt it, and send it in that way was made by someone junior, that makes the whole organisation and their systems look totally ramshackle.

If the decision was made by someone not very important who didn't really understand what they were doing, *why on earth did they have access*? Why were the systems set up so they could write all that stuff unencrypted to CD? That's not an excuse or a shifting the blame! That's making the whole business look 10x worse!

Oh yes, and that statement, referring to changes in 2006 - "We introduced at that stage more stringent rules. We set out to learn lessons in relation to security,". In 2006? What were you doing before that? That's last year, how long did you have computerised records before you realised that sending them about the place unencrypted with no tracking might be a bad move?

Still, with a bit of luck this blunder will have killed off that totally nuts identity card idea. I really hope so.

Comments

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

No, this makes the ID cards more vital - the information would be useless if we all had ID cards, as there's no way anyone could make use of it.

Assuming, of course, that everyone has an ID card and uses it in every interaction they have with everyone else, and the system allows for flawless and immediate checking of unforgeable IDs by anyone anywhere anytime.

Any problems will only come if the IT people fail to do their jobs properly and so the superbly designed system isn't implemented well, or if the general public somehow get fail to understand it and so it gets mis-used. Neither of which would be the Government's fault.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Unforgeable IDs

hahahaha...

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Plus, can you really see the Government, or whichever consultancy lands the contract, actually spending money on testing the IT that could go to shareholders?

My new passport is still wrapped in its Bacofoil. I expect mockery at the airport tonight.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

The contractors will of course screw it up, but I don't really see how they can possibly do anything else given the specification.

The only way I can see ID card technology really working is if everyone was permanently in a little box with all their bodily fluids wired into it, like in the Matrix. Only, then, of course you wouldn't need a card...

In the far future, I predict that someone will invent hand-written, paper-based photo ID. It will be hailed as a technological marvel: an id system that can only be copied by someone who is physically in contact with the card! How secure we will be!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... it'll be validated by using a unique combination of your physical appearance and odd little facts about yourself, not the big easily stealable ones, but the odd little ones about your family and personality - to create a recognisable profile, using a very sophisticated system called 'someone else who has known you for ages'...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Where are you off to tonight?

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

*holds head in hands and cries*

They just don't get it.


What needs to happen now is some sensible people who have some understanding in the area need to sit down with the relivent MPs and explain some things, like why it is now all pear-shaped, what a pear is, what needs to change to stop it happening again and that what has been done so far is slightly less useful than a bicycle is to a fish. Our MPs aren't experts in this field, they are experts in politics; that is what the civil servents are there for, to provide the specialist expertese as well as the mundane rotating of the cogs.

From what I can tell (from not only this debarcle) is that the fundamental problem is the chaotic nature of the Westminster beaurocracry and the civil servants who "do stuff" within it. Some of those civil servants work very hard I am sure, but they are the teaspoon of wine in the barrel of sewage that is the system and some of their colleagues and managers.

There needs to be a fundamental change in what is done, how it is done, and, probably most importantly, who does it. The people who are the real problem are the ones who are in the position to solve the problem or to preserve their own little empires. These people will always seek to maintain the status quo because to do otherwise will almost certainly get their backsides soundly kicked.

Of course the easy soloution of firing everyone and then rebuilding doesn't work because the general population needs stuff done by central government in the meantime. This means that there can only be a migration from the now to the future, which in turn allows the people who are the problem to remain.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, in science (e.g. cloning, global warming, nanotech) there are only the most rudimentary ways of getting systematic information to MPs. Mainly it's up to whoever lobbies loudest, and even then the data has to be compressed into three sentences, because that's all politicians have time to read. Select committees do good work, but there appears to be no route for incorporating their conclusions or recommendations into government. Presumably it's the same for other areas of expertise. I feel this explains an awful lot about how our country is run (or not). - Neuromancer

[bunn.livejournal.com]

On the few occasions I've written to my current MP I've always had a well thought out and researched response. But then he's a Lib Dem backbencher and presumably has more time and less power!

When I was in Cheshire, I did once write to my then MP about a bit of IT legislation, and got back the most condescending and ignorant response I could imagine. Twit. It very nearly told me straight out not to trouble my little head about Complicated Computers.

Women! Know Your Limits!

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

That's good about your LibDem MP. In general it looks to me as if Parliament seems to function better than Government. Sure there are some good individuals, but what is scary is the complete lack of any system (as far as I can tell). Somewhere recently I read a comment "Gordon Brown finally got his hands on the levers of government only to find that they're not attached to anything", and that image of an imposing but broken structure has stayed with me!

Neuromancer

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

I forgot to say how totally I agree with your original post. You put your finger on exactly the point. It's so worrying to think our masters are so /stupid/ -- how can they not get it??? Neuromancer