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US forces today announced an end to their siege of Falluja, saying they will pull out immediately to allow a newly-created, Iraqi security force to secure the city. The new force, known as the Falluja Protective Army, will consist of up to 1,100 Iraqi soldiers led by a former general from the military of Saddam Hussein and will begin moving into the city tomorrow. Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne said the agreement was reached late last night between US officials and Falluja police and civilian representatives. "The plan is that the whole of Falluja will be under the control of the FPA," Lt Col Byrne told the Associated Press. Under the new agreement, marines will pull back from their positions in and around Falluja, while the FPA forms a new cordon around it and then moves into the city. According to one report, marines in the city's southern industrial area have already begun packing up gear and loading heavy trucks today after receiving orders to withdraw. Lt Col Byrne identified the commander of the FPA as General Salah, a former division commander under Saddam. The force will be made up of former Iraqi soldiers and police and be subordinate to the marine 1st Expeditionary Force. [....] http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1206015,00.html muhahahahahhahah! (que DR evil laugh!)

If I Was In London

I would most certainly be attending The Nearness Of Doings That Be Things. The Audience AlkaSeltzer in Water anecdote posted here not too long ago is enough to convince me of its sonic if not performic (and therefore monetary) worth. That and the Kill The King re-issue I recently picked up (and the resulting evening privy to views of an altered human future; decisions made for, by and about machines; sounds lulling, learing, pushing and following).

In 2002, Tsutomu Matsumoto and his team at the University of Yokohama in Japan developed a much more sophisticated technique. He copied fingerprints left on drinking glasses and turned them into thin gelatine coatings that, when affixed to the fingertips, fooled 80% of fingerprint readers. Although it was effective, Clive Reedman, chairman of the International Association for Biometrics, says: "At the end of the day, why not just hit the old lady over the head at the cashpoint rather than go through all that?" He is cornered rat of course. Inetersting that he thinks violence is preferable to forgery. He might as well ask "why not just get greased up and swim the channel rather than take the trouble to forge a passport and board a ferry?". Utterly stupid, completely unconvincing. "Going through all that", when the glass belongs to a millionaire, is....worth it. And of course, since everyone believes the biometric snake oil that the peddlers of this system are selling, it will be impossible to refute false transactions.

spam? or blogdial post? you decide. Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 09:52:04 +0800 From: Pako To: jkmeier@midway.uchicago.edu, jpokeefe@midway.uchicago.edu, nlbenjam@midway.uchicago.edu, salcoser@midway.uchicago.edu, sall@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: multiple 0r_g@zm mutinies umpire [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Inverness kitchen believably immunities chancellor playmate outline excessive buffeted Guiana views broadens resistible doctrinal clamored vital waned ampere centenary midnights longhand struggled unwisest cheered Swarthout have amazing s\/e\/x up to 20 times per day providers Pascal Bryce alleles Flynn middlemen nylon sunny flavored waxen shortcuts disciple Baghdad chiller gathered amalgamate forgetful fighter hoppers escalating clumsily deficiency curiosity creaky dentistry great-offerz [dot] info / 1v3 [dot] html <--- t0 be 0p t-0ut syndicate grayness bedeviling forge aftermath accompany hampers speckle Lilliput lottery codeine centers feverishly pedagogic blankets hurry lumps extremity bespeak sentinel trappers milkmaids disks Patti cannot revocable merest enormity Jukes easygoing

no editing facility in the top window. Click on the triangle to the left of the draft tick box. If the text box ever dissapears (and it will), use the up/down keys to scroll it back.

Some blogs are whimsical and deal with "soft" subjects. Others, though, are cutting edge in delivering information and opinion. As a result, some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable. Still, a panel of folks who work in the U.S. intelligence field - some of them spies or former spies - discussed this month at a conference in Washington the idea of tracking blogs. "News and intelligence is about listening with a critical ear, and blogs are just another conversation to listen to and evaluate. They also are closer to (some situations) and may serve as early alerts," [....] Shoot the Pres|dent! Yahoo News

BluePhoneMenu is a small application that adds Caller ID functionality to your menu bar and desktop using your Bluetooth enabled phone. BluePhoneMenu does not need to sync with your address book or run any complex tasks. Simply add BluePhoneMenu to your startup items and it will wait for a call from any Bluetooth phone you have paired. You can also monitor signal strength, battery power and many other properties all from the menu bar. [...] http://www.reelintelligence.com/BluePhoneMenu/

"The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to New Hampshire, where they may work within the political system to reduce the size and scope of government. The success of the Free State Project would likely entail reductions in burdensome taxation and regulation, reforms in state and local law, an end to federal mandates, and a restoration of constitutional federalism, demonstrating the benefits of liberty to the rest of the nation and the world." http://www.freestateproject.org/index.jsp

Before you buy any CD, you need to check it against two websites: to see if its broken http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/bad/ then check to see if its an RIAA label or shell label: http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/ If it passes muster on both sites, then you can buy it. What was the artist and label Dav? You are perfectly and legally entitled to hunt it down on Soulseek.

I KNEW it would be you!!!

http://www.ryano.net/iraq/?61925

Great sound and image, Chris. But your links should be this: clip 1 [7,930kb]
clip 2 [7,909kb]
clip 3 [7,932kb] ...a gorgeous fluffy cloud day here in NYC...

I need a sexy acronym, like the PATRIOT of the infamous and evil patriot act to describe the system; sadly, that 1-1000 fried my brain (that and the Brakspears at lunch) hmmmm I wonder who could come up with the coolest one?

The Irdial Digitally Signed Passport Plan meme is spreading. Spread faster dammit!

http://www.agunn.com/index.shtml

By the way, the EU should enact a permanent moratorium on biometric passports and ID cards, as EU policy. In this way, we can be sure that they wont be forced on us. They cant be against the sending of personal data to the usa, but FOR the creation of a database that will for certain rsynced with an underground building in Virginia. Failing that, a "no" vote to the constitution and a speedy exit from Europe would be the next best thing.

1-1000 When you see a lightning strike, you can estimate how far away the impact was by counting from the instant you see a flash to the second that you hear the thunder. Sound moves through the air at 330m/s, and on average saying "one one thousand, two one thousand... (n) one thousand" allows you to count seconds accurately without a watch. Multiply the n you get to by 330 and you get a number of how far the strike was from you. Rapidly decreasing (n), run for cover, yor gunna git zapped! Increasing (n), its safe to get the putter out again. Thats where "a 1-1000" comes from; its the lightning strike before the one thats going to fry you and turn you into a telepath!

I just got blasted by a 1-1000 strike!

Rollin & tumblin!

DAMN YOU CHRIS!

I almost had a herat yeas hearat attack laughing at that!

The Iraqi Flag Design Under Saddam Hussein New Iraqi Flag Proposed by The Flag of the State of Israel BAGHDAD, April 26 -- It was supposed to be the perfect symbol for a new and unified Iraq: an Islamic crescent on a field of pure white, with two blue stripes representing the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and a third yellow stripe to symbolize the country's Kurdish minority. But the new national flag, presented Monday after an artistic competition sponsored by the Iraqi Governing Council, appears to have met with widespread public disapproval here -- in part because of its design and in part because of the increasing unpopularity of the U.S.-appointed council. In interviews in several Baghdad neighborhoods, a variety of residents expressed strong negative reactions to the flag, which was reproduced in most daily newspapers. In particular, people objected to the pale blue color of the crescent and stripes, saying it was identical to the dominant color in the flag of Israel, a Jewish state. "When I saw it in the newspaper, I felt very sad," said Muthana Khalil, 50, a supermarket owner in Saadoun, a commercial area in central Baghdad. "The flags of other Arab countries are red and green and black. Why did they put in these colors that are the same as Israel? Why was the public opinion not consulted?" [...] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43438-2004Apr26.html The public opinion was not consulted because the public opinion doesnt count in Iraq, ASSWIPE!

The most recent opinion poll shows a large majority in favour of a card but also indicated nearly 60% changing their minds if they would have to pay for the card � which they would. It also indicates over 50% having little faith in the Government�s ability to manage such a large data base. This is what the pollsters call �soft support� and whilst we in no way underestimate the difficult task facing us we remain convinced that this proposal can be defeated, as similar proposals in the past have been. [...] Liberty At last, the first signs of fighting talk!

9. The government briefing suggests - like the EU - that an important reason for biometric ID/passports is that the USA demands that you cannot go there unless you have one. If people want to go to the USA - a fraction of those who travel abroad - then they will have to consent to be possibly interrogated and have their fingerprints taken and it could be argued that this is their choice. http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/apr/18uk-id-cards.htm

DRAFT ID CARDS BILL IS FLAWED - LIB DEMS LAUNCH 10-POINT REJECTION OF SCHEME 26/04/2004 Commenting on the publication of the draft ID cards Bill, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Mark Oaten said: "The Home Secretary is leading us towards an expensive and flawed piece of plastic. This will do little to tackle terrorism and the �3bn would be better spent on more intelligence and policing. Costs are bound to escalate if expensive equipment is going to be installed in every post office, hospital and benefits office throughout the land. "The government promised the public a voluntary scheme in the first instance. It is now clear that anyone who applies for a passport or driving license during the 'voluntary' period will be added to the ID cards register whether they like it or not. This Bill would bring us within a hair's breadth of compulsory identity cards. "The Bill may not give the police new powers, but it will give them a powerful new tool for checking a suspect's identity and immigration status. The potential for racial discrimination in policing and in public services like health and benefits is massive. "David Blunkett's defence of his big idea is muddled and his arguments do not stand up to scrutiny. It is time for politicians and the public to wake up to the dangers of this scheme, both to our pockets and our civil liberties. The Conservatives in particular must make up their minds, because a cross-party coalition could defeat the government in the Lords." [...] 5. Our personal data will be shared without our consent. Everyone will be given a unique number to identify them which will be encoded on the card. Other databases (for example store loyalty cards or medical records) will start to identify people using their unique number. Knowing the number could therefore allow someone to retrieve sensitive information about that individual from any number of other sources. The potential for cross-referencing databases will be of great value to private companies in profiling consumers. 7. It will not prevent illegal working. The Home Office wants to make it compulsory for people to present their card when applying for a job in the UK, and claims that this will prevent illegal working. But employers in industries with high levels of illegal labour are already required to check identity documents. The problem is that the Home Office doesn't inspect them to make sure they are following the rules. There were only 2 prosecutions for employing an illegal worker in 2002. The fact that illegal immigrants will not be able to get ID cards will not change anything as long as there are unscrupulous employers and lax Home Office enforcement. 8. It will not help to fight crime or terrorism. The police do not generally have a problem identifying people they arrest: the problem is in catching the criminals in the first place. The Metropolitan police have stated that with the exception of identity fraud, they know of no evidence to show that ID cards will reduce crime. ID cards would not present an obstacle to most terrorists either. The terrorists who attacked New York on September 11th 2001 and Madrid on March 11th 2004carried valid identity cards. Knowing someone's identity does not necessarily help you to predict how they are going to behave. 9. We do not have a written constitution. This means the government can get away with expanding the uses of the card and lowering the safeguards on data sharing. The relationship between the state and the citizen is not properly defined in law. Every other country that has a system of compulsory identity cards also has a written constitution. We will be passing a law on the understanding that this government will not use the system to spy on its citizens or restrict civil liberties - even if that were is true, can we be so trusting of future governments? [...] Liberal Democrats I have two words for you "Proportional Representation".

Someone clever wrote: NO ! NO ! NO! - this turns the ID card into a potential Genocide or Apartheid Card. How easy would it be to produce an address based arrest or vigilante hate list of everybody with "Mohammed" in their name ? There is no justification for including Address information on the ID Card or on the central database. Apart from the thousands of people of no fixed abode, the �1000 fine for not having "accurate and up to date" information in the system is evil. [...] I like it.

[...] This is surely recklessly ambitious. More so because Blunkett still shows little sign of having a sound grasp of the actual capabilities of ID systems. This morning, for example, he told Today that ID cards "couldn't solve Madrid [the bombings] because nobody has biotechnology today." In the cases of both 9/11 and Madrid the attackers appear to have had valid ID, so biometric valid ID is neither here nor there, but despite having had this put to him by numerous interviewers Blunkett seems unable to stop presenting biometrics as some kind of magic. He went on to explain the situation of countries who didn't have biometric ID: "Those without biometrics will be known as the easiest touch. That's why we need to be ahead." The logic of this situation, that those countries where it is easier to obtain ID can be used by terrorists to establish valid ID which can then be used to visit and bomb the UK, seems to elude him. The Home Office does have schemes for biometric ID for non-UK passport holders in the UK, and is already fingeprinting asylum seekers and some visa applicants, but the scheme as announced today actually rules out biometrics for visitors who are staying less than three months. Which would seem to suggest that terrorists on an awayday are entirely immune to the ?3.1 billion biometric checking regime. The roadmap as presented by Blunkett yesterday is as follows. Following the publication of the draft there will be "further consultation including opening up technical issues and inviting a development partner from the private sector", then a full bill will be introduced in the autumn session. Biometric passports will appear within three years, and "as we're putting this on a clean database this will not be forgeable." Foreign nationals will be brought into the scheme "as quickly as possible" and "we're hoping people will want voluntarily to renew their passport early" (not at those prices mate, so we can expect some special incentive discounts on the ?73 for a passport), "so within seven years we will start to move to the position where people across the population have got an ID card." The Home Office itself today published a target of 80 per cent of the economically active population by 2013. Privacy International described the scheme as "draconian and dangerous," pointing out that the draft gave the Home Secretary wide powers to disclose identity-related information to a range of authorities, including police, Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise, can order a person to register for an ID card, and can even have them registered against their will if the necessary data is already known. A range of new offences including failure to notify of a damaged or defective card, and failure to report a change of address, is also introduced. The Home Secretary (i.e. Blunkett) "has the power to make Orders to change almost every element of the proposed system." It is, says Privacy International director Simon Davies, "a disgrace to democracy." The Register Astonishing isnt it?

My reaction to the preface of the Draft ID cards Bill released for consultation:

We have a tradition of living in a free and open society and we are used to taking people at face value, trusting them to be who they say they are.

Living in a free and open society is not a “Tradition” it is our birthright, and our fundamental and absolute right. It is not something that can be taken away by a Home Secretary who has a fetish for control. It is not something that can be given to another country. The birthright of all British children belongs to the present and future generations. It is a sacred, fragile and precious thing. We cannot let a single generation of milk blooded lap dogs give it away in an era of wild and foolish ideological experimentalism.

Recent events have brought home how, in today?s rapidly changing world, the need for trust and confidence actually require us to move beyond this and take the opportunity of new biometric technology which allows for a completely new level of verifying identity.

We cannot “move beyond” our fundamental rights. No matter how much the world changes, we cannot, on a permanent basis, throw away our fundamental rights. If anything, as technology reveals to us more and more opportunities, we should be enshrining and solidifying our new rights, such as the right to telephone privacy, which only became real with the invention of the telephone, and which is the natural extension of the right to privacy in your letters. The government, in its proper role of the servant, has no business creating a system of this nature, whose sole purpose is to gain absolute control of the good people of the United Kingdom. If this proposal were honest, if its goal was to fight terrorism, it would be first of all explained why it was needed, and how specially, it would achieve its goal. It would also be limited in its scope and duration. What we have been presented with is an open ended scheme that has no demonstrable ability to solve the problems for which it is being created.

The threat of global terrorism, the ease with which large numbers of people now travel around the world, and the proliferation of identity fraud make secure identification more vital than ever.

This is a lie. The “threat of global terrorism” could be ended in a day if the USA and the UK would stop interfering in the affairs of the Middle East. This reasonable request would put an end to Islamic extremism forever, and this is the stated truce offered to the USA and the UK by the representative and spokesman for this international resistance. I call it this because reasonable people understand that the jihadists are in every way identical to Americans and the British. They are desperate men, pushed beyond human tolerance to the point where death is better than life. These people are educated and serious. If they could make political progress simply by debate and the vote, they would do so. The facts are that for generations, the international political process has failed them through the blatantly unfair and one sided control of the UN by a handful of states. No reasonable human being, American or Englishman would consign his heirs to perpetual enslavement; this is why the original Americans became terrorists and freed themselves from the yoke of the British. This is why the original Israelis used terror bombs to free themselves. The “threat of global terrorism” has been literally manufactured by the USA and the UK governments. When shown a way out, they have refused to take it. This is the proof.

We all need greater certainty about whether people are who they say they are - whether travelling, or in business, or in ensuring that free public services are accessed only by those who are entitled.

This is a lie. We have been doing very well, without any measures of this type - experiencing unprecedented economic growth and freedom without these measures. We do not need these measures. No country that has had the misfortune of introducing them has experienced greater prosperity than the countries that have not; in fact, the exact opposite is true; the US and UK economies are 1^st and 4^th in the world, precisely because they are free. The Soviet Union fell in no small part because of the absolute control of identity imposed by the state. The once beleaguered black South Africans experienced biblical levels of suffering as a direct effect of state controlled identity. The fact of the matter is state control of identity damages populations; it saps their freedom at a fundamental level, renders them partially inert and ultimately harms economic prosperity.

Not only that, but we are right to expect greater security and protection of our own identity. That is why there has been a steadily growing interest in the introduction of identity cards in the United Kingdom ? and a growing recognition that, rather than threatening our vital freedoms, they would actually help preserve them.

This is completely illogical. The protection of your identity can be done without a state implemented identity card. The system of the type being proposed by David Blunkett is designed to share your information all over the world. This has nothing to do with protecting your identity, and has everything to do with controlling your movements both of your person and of your money. If David Blunkett was truly interested in securing the identity of the British public, he would allow individuals and the state to develop their own systems that suit the needs of each situation. Your bank can require certain forms of ID and it might offer you a service where it issues you with a bank ID. You can either choose to accept it or reject it. There are ways that secure passports can be created that do not rely on a centralized database, but which are just as secure as the system propose d in this draft bill. David Blunkett is not interested in these counter proposals for new passports because they do not offer him what he desires; absolute control over your entire life, via a unique identifying number tied to your fingerprints, retina scans and facial profile. The fact of the matter is, the control of identity is the sole preserve of the public and the market, and is not the business of the state.

Following a public consultation, I announced in November the Government?s decision to build a base for a compulsory national identity cards scheme.

That public consultation was a sham. The overwhelming majority of respondents were opposed to the introduction of an ID card scheme, and the opposition was eloquent and technically literate. The opposing views were simply ignored because David Blunkett wants to introduce ID cards, no matter what the British public want, no matter if they will work to solve the problems that he says he is pushing them through for.

I made clear then that we would proceed by incremental steps, building first on existing, widely held voluntary identity documents, and only taking a final decision later to move to compulsion.

The reason why this is being done in incremental steps is because the British people need to be pummeled into submission. A human being by its nature can become adjusted to any situation; David Blunkett, by saying he is doing this in incremental steps, what he really means is that the British people need to be conditioned until they accept ID cards.

Eventually everyone lawfully resident in the UK would be required to register for a card ? but there would be no compulsion to carry the card or to produce it

This is completely absurd on first examination, but the fact is that when the police and all the services in the country, including chemists banks and any private enterprise have terminal access to ID reading machines ( a fingerprint reader) connected via the ubiquitous internet to the government ID database the physical card will be an irrelevance. Your ID can be checked at any time by the compulsion to look into a police eye scanner, or fingerprint reader. Refusal to do so will have to be made a crime of course, and without reading the bill I am willing to bet that this provision is in there. If it is not, then it will be quickly added. The fact is, we do not need physical cards in this new biometric ID system your body itself is the card.

without good reason. This move to compulsion would only happen once the initial stage of the scheme had proved to be successful and following a further debate and the approval of both Houses of Parliament.

This is why everyone must refuse to accept both biometric passports and these ID cards. It is the only way that they system can be made to fail. The only way it can work to control the British public is if a tipping point of enrolled people is reached. Everyone must refuse point blank to enroll in this system. It will then die of its own accord, if not by legislation.

Although the process will build on existing documents, such as passports and driving licences, we need a clear additional legal framework before we can introduce a national identity cards scheme.

And in here will be the removal of your rights to opt out or refuse to be enrolled in the system.

The next step is therefore to publish, for consultation, our proposals for legislation in the draft Identity Cards Bill. That is the purpose of this document. I want us to be able to test and refine these proposals before legislation is introduced finally into Parliament.

Who is “us”? and judjing from the last consultation excersise, Blunkett, Shlumberger Sema and his yes men will ignore the opposing views and push ahead anyway, just as they did with Iraq.

Their absurd, undemocratic polls via which they justify this awful card scheme (80% of 1000 people asked saying yes to ID cards to reduce immigration fraud, a clearly weighted question) is being touted as the definitive proof that the British Public want ID cards. These people are manipulators murderers and liars and they cannot be trusted with a bottle of tap water much less the administration of a system like this, which should not be created in the first instance.

The Cold War against the Soviet Union was not a war for freedom. It was a war to see who would create and control the World Soviet System. All the egregious and evil devices, ID cards, mass surveillance, financial slavery are all being introduced incrementally in the west, to finally replicate law for law, the former Soviet Union. We all know that the propaganda machine is already well in place :]

I am inviting general views as well as specific drafting comments on our legislative proposals.

So that you can ignore them, yet say that you heard them. If we are lucky.

In particular, I am looking forward to receiving comments from the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee which has been undertaking an inquiry on Identity Cards and is set to carry out pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Identity Cards Bill. We will take full account of all the comments we receive before going ahead with the legislation.

This is a lie.

I want everyone who is living lawfully in the UK to be able to assert his or her true identity and to protect that identity against fraud, as well as protecting their freedoms against new threats from global terrorism and organised crime.

We can all do this without you David Blunkett. We can assert our true identity with all the organizations that we interact with, we can protect ourselves against identity fraud, and we certainly will protect our freedoms against the new threat that you and you blind, hair brained ID card represents.

The scheme we are building will do this ? but I want to work with all interested parties to make sure we get it right.

The scheme you are building ? or trying to build - will not do this. That is a lie. You do not want to work with all interested parties. That is a lie. You will not get it right, because the whole proposal is wrong. That is the truth.

Freeing the Mind : Free Software and the Death of Proprietary Culture The result, as everyone in this room is aware, is that twelve-year-olds do a better job of distributing music than the music companies. The truth is spoken. The good fight fought.

Read it and weep! Or much better yet (a triplet dont you know), pledge to disobey.

The way they spent their time was measured in pounds (either as reward, or cost) and even the value of their dwellings was measured in pounds (regardless of size). There were fetish representations in the form of notes and coins, but these had no value other than that bestowed upon them by society, and beyond a certain value even their representation lost its worth". This is the Sci-Fi "future without money" idea, which personally, I believe will certainly happen. Money (you already know what I thing about this) is the absolute center of every activitiy on the earth where men are interacting. Those who know this and who are trying to get away from it are reacting against it, and everyone else is in thrall to it. Some people put forward ideas where "unliving" objects display all of the characteristics of large living organisms; the car, for example, fits into that model. Our every space has been changed to fit in with the car; in a sense, it is moulding the world to make it a better place for cars to freely run. Or is it oil that is an intelligent living thing (which was the central theme of the X-Files "Black Oil subplot), or is it a combination of Oil, Money and the combustion engine inside a car that is the complicated large scale intelligent organisim using mankind as a slave to re make the world to its own ends? Either way, money has to die, its as simple as that. Quite how this is going to be done and when I am not sure, but sure I am that it will come to pass.

The newest verb to be added to the English language: "Skype" in use: "Skype me", "I'll Skype you", "I'm Skyping". etcetera.

Disobedience in Japan!

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?ed20020810a1.htm http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20020808a1.htm http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020805a5.htm http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020803a4.htm http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020802a4.htm http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020709b1.htm http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fd20020609pb.htm http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fb20001017a1.htm http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn19990611a2.htm

Lies and Secrets, part 2

The days after the official launch of Japan's national ID network by Gohsuke Takama Tokyo, Aug 13, 2002 The Day of Official Launch On Aug 5, Japan's government officially forced to activate the controversial Basic Resident Registers Network, or so called Jukinet among Japanese, without having privacy protection laws enacted, although the network has been up technically since Jul 22. On the day of launch, 6 municipal governments disconnected. Suginami-ward of Tokyo (510,000 population), city of Kokubunji (110,000), and town of Yamatsuri in Fukushima prefecture (7,300), city of Yokohama (3,450,000) took disobedience. Towns of Futami (5,800) and Obata (18,300) in Mie pref. waited for several days to participate. That day, the computers for the Basic Resident Registers Network at Suginami-ward were kept off. City of Kokubunji had a ceremony of shutting down machines at 9:00 am. Yamatsuri-cho even turned off the system before on the day of testing started Jul 22. http://nationalid.hantai.jp/

If the police are issued with mobile ID scanners how soon will it be before one is stolen and used by someone impersonating an venerable officer of the law? Thats a great question. If I were designing the system, it would firstly run on Linux. Then each peace officer would have to log in with their fingerprint on the mobile unit to unlock it for service. If it gets stolen, requests from the unit could be denied. There is always a technical solution to these types of problem; what no one is saying is the true nature of this ID scheme: Just because we can do it it doesnt necessarily follow that we should do it. These biometric cards open up a closable pandoras box of abuse and problems. Since the box is closable, its not the end of the world if the system is introduced and then defeated in 5 years, but what is totally un-recoverable is the massive cost of the excersise.

Mistaken Identity; Exploring the Relationship Between National Identity Cards & the Prevention of Terrorism April 2004

Summary . While a link between identity cards and anti-terrorism is frequently suggested, the connection appears to be largely intuitive. Almost no empirical research has been undertaken to clearly establish how identity tokens can be used as a means of preventing terrorism. . The presence of an identity card is not recognised by analysts as a meaningful or significant component in anti-terrorism strategies. Five criteria are generally used to assess and benchmark the level of terrorist threat within a particular country: motivation of terrorists, the presence of terror groups, the scale and frequency of past attacks, efficacy of the groups in carrying out attacks, and prevention - how many attacks have been thwarted by the country. The detailed analysis of information in the public domain in this study has produced no evidence to establish a connection between identity cards and successful anti-terrorism measures. Terrorists have traditionally moved across borders using tourist visas (such as those who were involved in the US terrorist attacks), or they are domicile and are equipped with legitimate identification cards (such as those who carried out the Madrid bombings). . Of the 25 countries that have been most adversely affected by terrorism since 1986, eighty per cent have national identity cards, one third of which incorporate biometrics. This research was unable to uncover any instance where the presence of an identity card system in those countries was seen as a significant deterrent to terrorist activity. . Almost two thirds of known terrorists operate under their true identity. The remainder use a variety of techniques to forge or impersonate identities. It is possible that the existence of a high integrity identity card would provide a measure of improved legitimacy for these people. . Of the ten most frequently employed methods terrorists use to enter or operate within a country, only one would potentially be combated by a national identity card. Most terrorists enter a country on tourist visas which because of their popularity are subject to low-level scrutiny. . At a theoretical level, a national identity card as outlined by the UK government could only assist anti-terrorism efforts if it was used by a terrorist who was eligible and willing to register for one, if the person was using their true identity, and if intelligence data could be connected to that identity. Only a small fraction of the ninety million crossings into the UK each year are supported by comprehensive security and identity checks. http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/idcard/uk/id-terrorism.pdf

Police will be able to order eye scans under ID card plan

By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent Independent 26 April 2004 Police will have powers to stop and check people against a national biometric database under plans for a compulsory identity card scheme to be unveiled today. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, confirmed that police would be able to compare people against national fingerprint or iris records even if they did not carry the controversial document. The draft Bill will outline plans to introduce biometric data on passports in three years' time, with a compulsory scheme introduced by 2013... http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=515294 This means that if you refuse, you will be taken to a police station and forcibly scanned. You will then be put on the system permamently, and marked as a non-cooperative person. This information will then be shared all over the world. To be forcibly scanned in this way, against your will, is a complete violation of your rights.

"I believe that the requirement of an internal passport is more objectionable than an external passport, and that citizens ought to be allowed to move about freely without running the risk of being accosted by a policeman or anyone else, and asked to produce proof of identity" Aneurin Bevan MP, 1947, from the government benches in the House of Commons "We do not want to be stopped in the street by any person anywhere and to be forced to produce a card. If that kind of thing begins, we shall be afraid of people meeting us and asking for our cards. One thing that we do respect in this country is our freedom from being challenged on every occasion to produce something to prove that we are certain persons" John Tinker MP "The argument advanced on second reading - I conceive it to be the main argument for the retention of these troublesome documents - was that as long as rationing persists they are necessary. I do not believe it. We were told in the House the other day that there are 20,000 deserters still at large. How have these 20,000 persons contrived to equip themselves with food and clothing? Ex hypothesi they cannot be possessed of valid honest identity cards, but that has not prevented them from sustaining themselves with food and clothing themselves with raiment without these documents. Therefore, as a deterrent to the evasion of the rationing arrangements the case is proved that they are of little or, at the best, of speculative value." W S Morrison MP http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/jul/26ukid.htm

LORD GODDARD, Willcock v. Muckle, 26 June 1951. Decision that led to Parliament's repeal of National ID card in 1952, "it is obvious that the police now, as a matter of routine, demand the production of national registration indemnity cards whenever they stop or interrogate a motorist for whatever cause. Of course, if they are looking for a stolen car or have reason to believe that a particular motorist is engaged in committing a crime, that is one thing, but to demand a national registration identity card from all and sundry, for instance, from a lady who may leave her car outside a shop longer than she should, or some trivial matter of that sort, is wholly unreasonable. This Act was passed for security purposes, and not for the purposes for which, apparently, it is now sought to be used. To use Acts of Parliament, passed for particular purposes during war, in times when the war is past, except that technically a state of war exists, tends to turn law-abiding subjects into lawbreakers, which is a most undesirable state of affairs. Further, in this country we have always prided ourselves on the good feeling that exists between the police and the public and such action tends to make the people resentful of the acts of the police and inclines them to obstruct the police instead of to assist them [...] Once more, for your consideration, a voice from the era when Britian was Britain!

Anger over identity cards

March 3, 2004 05:00 TOP councillor Harold Mangar today pledged to never carry an identity card � even if it becomes compulsory. And he received backing for his stand against the controversial cards from an unlikely source � Suffolk's chief constable. Their comments came just two weeks after Home Secretary David Blunkett launched the first trials of identity cards. Mr Mangar � who is an executive member on the borough council, former chairman of the county council and is a member of Suffolk Police Authority � felt the introduction of identity cards would be like introducing a system like apartheid into this country. "I will never carry one, they were used in South Africa against black people. "As a black man I am disturbed by what my government is doing," he told a meeting of the Ipswich and Suffolk Council for Racial Equality (ISCRE). Concerns about the proposed cards were also raised by Chief Constable Alastair McWhirter. He said: "There is a concern that our first reaction will be to ask for identity cards rather than deal with the incident we are called for." [....] Evening Star My emphasis.

ID card plan fails grade

Huge amount spent on idea By MARIA MCCLINTOCK, OTTAWA BUREAU OTTAWA -- The federal government has quietly dropped the controversial idea of developing a national ID card equipped with biometrics despite spending hundreds of thousands on the project, Sun Media has learned. The Commons immigration committee spent almost a year studying the issue and travelling the country consulting Canadians. It also went to Europe in During its two-week European tour, the committee wanted to see similar cards in use, but discovered none of the countries it visited actually had national ID cards in use. Immigration committee chairman Sarkis Assadourian told Sun Media the committee has no intention of producing its final report on the card because it's now studying the issue of foreign credentials. "We were quite active and we prepared an interim report on (the national ID card and biometrics), but now we're focussing on the foreign credentials because national ID goes into security, it's not immigration anymore,"Assadourian said. [...] http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/CalgarySun/News/2004/04/09/414457.html All together now: O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all thy sons command. With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The True North strong and free! From far and wide, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

http://home.wi.rr.com/davef/iraq.htm

without your 'presence' Which means that people can engage in criminal activities in your identity, soiling it permanently, since it will be impossible to erase your records and start from fresh. Being permanently locked to one number is pure evil, and if people think that identity theft is bad now, the nature of trust in IDs will be such that the difficulty and trouble caused by misuse of these cards by criminals will be orders of magnitude greater than what it is now, on the rare occasions that it happens.

I went to get some isopropyl alchohol from a Boots chemists one day. The jackass behind the counter refused to sell me a bottle, because in his words, "I believe you are going to drink it". If ID cards are introduced, Boots and the like are going to set up databases of purchases against ID cards presented. They will then be able to refuse to sell you something because, "you have bought too much of it this month"; and dont think that you can go to another chemist to get around Boots; all chemists will, by their own design or through legislation, belong to a group sharing and contributing to a single database of all purchases made and and the cards presented at the time of purchase in all chemists nationwide. They will use this to control what you buy, and to study your behaviour. Just like the medicine cabinet in THX1138. Dont believe for one second that this will be restricted to pharmacies. Last week I saw a man in Tescos, pushing a shopping trolley full of packets of all bran, being told tha he was not allowed to buy that many boxes at one time. He could buy ten, and if he wanted more than ten, he would have to make a special order, which would take thee days to process. You fill in the blanks. These cards will be used to control what you buy. Its appaling. Then there is the matter of anyone with some bucks being able to see all the medicines you have ever bought, and then to extrapolate what illness you have bee suffering from. Great to craft insurance policies dont you think? Great to find out if new employees have problems with painkillers...or a nasty STD.

"This isn't some sort of fetish. This is about recognising the massive change that's taken place in the world." The world has not changed at all. This is a lie. What needs to be done is what the blind man cannot see, even though it is right in front of his face. Give up trying to control the whole world in conjunction with the USA. As we have seen, all attacks against the spanish have been forswarn by the Shia. Pull your troops out, stop interfering in the business of others and then no one will attack you again. A truce was offered to you but you rejected it. You obviously DESIRE war, and if there has been any change in the world it is this - western polititians desire conflict. Mr Blunkett said the cards would stop terrorists from using multiple identities, which would help prevent attacks. This is a lie. The one does not flow from the other. Blunkitt knows this, and he is lying when he says it, and he knows he is lying. "That's what will be potentially possible and this will ensure that they can't have multiple identities." This is a lie. see below. "We'll be able to ensure that through true identity we can avoid clandestine entry and clandestine working." This is a lie. Spain has universal compulsory ID and 800,000 illegal workers. "This is about true identity: Being known, being checkable... in order to know who's in the country, what they're entitled to, and whether they're up to no good." My true identity is not one that is prescribed by the state. I do not have to be checkable by the state at any time of the day, where ever I am. ID cards will not tell you who is in the country. It will not tell you what you are entitled to, because a card does not convey your rights to you. And certainly, most importantly, no card can tell you wether a person is up to no good or not. A card that could do that would be able to read your mind. Even a blind man knows that cant be done with a biometric scan. A card that could do that would be a mind fuck card silly rabbit! BBC dishes out the propaganda Government sources say that under the new proposals, carrying false identity papers will become a specific offence for the first time, with offenders facing up to 10 years in jail. I have the absolute right to take my photograph and print it on a card along with any text that I choose to create. Any law that stops me from doing that violates my rights as a free person.

The clever ones out in force: The problem is this. First we have the cards issued, and everything is nice and fluffy. No you don't have to carry it with you etc. etc. How long before it's compulsory to carry the card? How long before everyone's DNA is required and index linked to the card ID? How long before it's illegal to not carry the card at all times? Who can demand to see it? ("Papers please.") and when can it be asked for? ("Why are you out at this time of night? Papers please.") How long before they are index linked to the IMEI of your mobile phone and periodic logs of your location taken and an easy to access system provided to civil servants? How long before banks are required to log all your financial transactions provided in an easy to access system provided to civil servants? How long before all your telephone, SMS, email and web access logs are indexed to your card and provided in an easy to access system to civil servants? (Note to Americans - all of the above is already logged by law under the RIPA Act and the government will be making available to bodies such as the Food Standards Agency and the local council). How long before someone starts a side development to chip children (to protect them from all those pesky paedophiles) and integrate this with location technology to allow parents to see where they are at any time? How long before it becomes law to have children chipped at birth? (don't forget the paedophiles!) How long before it's illegal to remove the chips? How long before someone gets the "bright idea" that they can be used instead of those pesky ID cards? How long before we are treated like nothing more than cattle? Either read Orwell's novel 1984 [online-literature.com] or bone up on database admin - both should leave you feeling concerned. Slashdot again!

Someone clever said There are many downsides to ID cards. One attraction for Blunket is having fingerprints from everyone. Then it becomes easier to arrest people where you have a crime scene with a fingerprint. Except it doesn't. Currently fingerprints are a major weapon in crime. If fingerprint evidence gets compromised, then a major weapon is lost. One scenario is as follows. The DB is hacked. This is certain to happen. Even the UK government cannot keep people's heath records private. There were 200,000 known cases last year of medical records being fraudulantly obtained. Secondly, the fingerprints get turned into gummy prints. Total cost less than 100 for the materials, plus photshop or an equivalent program. Now you leave Tony Blairs fingerprints etc all over a crime scene. When the Crime scene lot arrive, they have a very strong audit trail. They don't analyse the prints until later. It is very difficult to hide the fact you found Tony Blairs prints at the scene of crime. Particularly if the lawyer is tipped off to get the records of all possible matches from the prosecution. The end result, fingerprint evidence is discreditied. A major weapon is lost. Every defence lawyer when presented with fingerprint evidence would bring up the case time and time again. Slashdot

If anyone's interested I'm on the pgp ldap. ???

Have we mentioned that for a biometric passport to work your details must be accessible remotely from another country? Under the current system, yes, but using my system no. In the distributed system using public key cryptography, only the public key of the passport signing authority needs to be distributed to every passport reading terminal. will be exempted from having to show their faces If this is the case, they any Christian that has a religious objection to being numbered in this system can opt out of the ID card, if not, it is a clear case of religious discrimination, since there is one rule for Muslims and another for Christians. Christians are well known for their understanding of numbers as expressed in the Holy Bible.

In Greece, a largely Orthodox country, Christians have protested against the introduction of European passports with magnetic strips. And now in Russia, where theories about the threat of a Western "global government" abound, fears of the bar code have found fertile ground.

From here. I say that its high time the anti-ID card lobby in Australia, one of the coalition members, gets behind the anti-ID movement here and demonstrates how these measures are defeated in a democracy; by civil disobedience.

Straw leads bid to wreck Blunkett ID card scheme

David Cracknell, Political EditorCABINET opponents of identity cards have succeeded in wresting concessions that could prevent them from becoming compulsory, leaked cabinet papers have revealed. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, is leading the bid to scupper plans by the Home Office to make it compulsory to carry a card. He and several colleagues have managed to put a triple block on the scheme ahead of its launch tomorrow. First, it will never be mandatory to carry a card and, second, it will require a future vote in the Commons before police can require a member of the public to produce one[...] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1086784,00.html "tell your sister you were right about me"

Brandon: As if there weren't already enough reasons to laugh at Nickelback

Old records saved by particle physics Scanner could help music archives preserve sounds of yesteryear. 21 April 2004 MICHAEL HOPKIN Particle physicists in California are swapping bosons for basslines in a bid to breathe fresh life into the earliest sound recordings. A technique developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory allows researchers to create digital copies of old records without damaging the fragile discs. The technique uses a light sensor, originally designed to track the paths of subatomic particles such as bosons, to capture images of the record's groove. A computer then uses these to reconstruct the recording, filtering out any background noise to produce a blemish-free digital version. The researchers have already created a copy of Marian Anderson's 1947 rendition of "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen", minus the scratches, pops and hisses. Old records saved by particle physics: Scanner could help music archives preserve sounds of yesteryear.

When you buy or sell something of great value, the state is involved. You have a certificate issued to you by the state to prove that you own a car, motorcycle or house, yaht...you name it. Now, the state is going to produce a new type of document to prove that they own you. Without it, you will not be able to function in your own space, the public space, you will not be able to exchange goods and services with your fellow citizens without the approval and or oversight of the state. That, by any definition, is ownership. How could you possibly tolerate that? The Australians didnt tolerate it:

Resisting ID Cards (Victory Down Under!) In 1987 the Australians managed to stop their government from introducing a national identify card system. Massive opposition to the plans in Australia reached the point of open civil disobedience. Australian understood that the introduction of such a scheme would reduce freedoms and increase the powers of authorities. Indeed �freedom� would come to mean the freedoms granted by the card. As news of the specifics of the ID card legislation spread, the campaign strengthened. If you had a job but no ID card it would be a $20000 offence for your employer to pay you. It would be an $20000 offence to hire a cardless person. Without an ID card you could not get access to a pre-existing bank account. Cardless people could not buy or rent their own home or land ($5000 penalty). Non-accidental destruction of an ID card = $5000 or 2 years in prison. Failure to report loss of ID card within 21 days = $500. Failure to produce your ID card on demand to the Tax Office = $20000. In the face of mass public protests and civil disobedience, the government eventually scrapped the ID card proposal.

From here. One of two things are going to have to happen; either the cards are defeated before the machinery is in place, OR the scheme is destroyed Wilcock style after the public wakes up to how bad they are.

Compulsory ID cards are nothing new in the UK. They were issued to all British civilians during World War II. That is until one ordinary man said no. Clarence Willcock, a 54-year-old dry cleaner from suburban north London, must rank as one of the unlikeliest Davids ever to take on a Goliath. Mr Willcock was stopped on December 7 1950 while driving his car along Ballard's Lane by uniformed police constable Harold Muckle, who demanded to see the motorist's identity card. Mr Willcock refused. Pc Muckle told him to produce the compulsory card at the local station with 48 hours. "I will not produce it at any police station," Mr Willcock replied. With this act of defiance, Mr Willcock brought crashing down a giant bureaucracy which had, since the outbreak of World War II in 1939, forced an identity card on every civilian in the UK - man, woman and child. When Willcock v Muckle eventually reached the High Court in 1951, Lord Chief Justice Goddard said the continuation of the wartime ID card scheme was an "annoyance" to much of the public and "tended to turn law-abiding subjects into law breakers". [...] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3129302.stm

post it

ID card trials to start next week

Another one of the BBC's uncritical artcles The plans are designed to tackle identity fraud, which costs Britain an estimated ?1.3bn each year. Will you PLEASE decide which lie you are going to tell, and then stick to it?? He (blunkett) said the biometric system proposed would end multiple identities and give a boost to the fight against terrorism and organised crime. Cards won?t end multiple identities; this is nonsense. What they may do, is stick one false identity to you permanently; a false identity given to you by the state. It is not the job of the state to assign you an identity, any more than it is the job of the state to give you a name when you are born. Your identity is your private business. You are within your rights to change your identity whenever you please. Having a number assigned to you, no matter what it is derived from, is a form of slavery. The government has said it sees ID cards as a weapon against terrorism. Which lie was that again? Look at the stats: 2008: 80% of economically active population will carry some form of biometric identity document As everyone with a brain cell knows, this is about absolute control of "economically active" citizens. They will use this scheme to have complete knowledge and control over everything you spend and everywhere you go. Your travel card, cash cards, loyalty cards, SIM cards and every other card that you need will have to be purchased and or registered for with your ID card present. This means that even if all of these functions are not embedded into your card, they will all be associated - forever - with the unique state identity number stamped upon you by the state. Since all of the transactions, phone calls movements and shopping that you do will be stored on databases that will be accessible by the state, they will be able to create a fine grained picture of your every movement and activity. Now when we say "the state" we mean anyone with access to a terminal. There will be a class of person, meaning anyone that works for either your local council or the government, who will be able to know anything about you in an instant. As we all know, these people can be bought for very little money. This database will be leaky. People are already doing this. Those with friends in the Police service regularly use off the record searches to vet potential tenants and such. This happens every day. Imagine someone being able, via your driving license and the nationwide network of license scanning "traffic" control cameras, to see a detailed list of everywhere you have driven since you started driving. This is doable. There will be an unlimited number of mirror databases of the state database, throughout the world, made out of private sources of information (and leaked state data), where members of the public will be able to find out the most intimate details about your life for a small price. This will be done easily, since all the publicly owned databases like the ones created and controlled by the issuers of loyalty cards, SIM cards, and any other account where you are compelled to show your ID before you are given a service, will be routinely shared for marketing purposes. The data protection act is toothless in terms of the protection it claims gives the public; companies dont obey it here, and outside of the UK it is completely irrelevant. The sole reason why this is easy to do is the fact that a single unique identifier will be tied to everything that you do. Once someone has your number, they can find out anything about you. What is even worse about this ID scheme is that your photo is an integral part of the identity. By using your name and confirming what you look like, no one will need your number to derive your identity. They will only need to confirm what you look like, then the bad magic will happen. Consider this; using photo fit techniques, it will be possible to see someone in the street, give a rough outline of what they look like, and then match this photo against the legal or extralegal database. Once you find a match, that person?s whole life will be revealed to you in an instant, for only a few dollars. But I digress. Estimated cost of ?3.1bn this of course, is the least of the cost. Consortium of companies in UKPS trials led by SchlumbergerSema include NEC, Identix, Iridian The usual suspects. The real suspects. None of the above will be able to prevent crime. It will however, make it easy for your life to be exposed to anyone that merely asks. You will not be able to watch TV without someone (everyone) knowing what you have watched (your Sky box reports what you have been watching; in future they will not sign you up without a UKID.) You will not be able to send or receive email without everyone knowing what the two ends of the message were. Take a look at some of the online forms from the USA; many of them have a required field for the Social Security Number, and of course you will not be able to open an account without presenting your UKID. There are some terrible things that will happen if the British sheepishly accept ID cards. If you loose your ID card, you are in big trouble. Just ask anyone who lives in a state where they are required what this means. There is a more terrible thing that will certainly happen in the future; the government may suspend your identity for any number of spurious reasons. That means that you will not be able to cross any borders, will be unable to use your bank account, will not be able to purchase any service - basically, your life will be stopped. If you dont think that the government will do this then you are a complete fool. Finally, they say that 80% of people want ID cards. This is irrelevant. The majority of people didn?t want to occupy Iraq, and it went ahead anyway, so any poll about this should be discounted. This poll in particular should be discounted because there has been no campaign of information targeted at the public to educate them about what this really means. It is impossible that any rational person would willingly accept this Soviet style control over their lives. It is not necessary to roll out the "They all voted for Hitler too" routine is it. Oh well, I've just done it. I would be most interested in hearing what the duplicitous and previously total embodiment of evil Tory party has to say about this after they take power in the next election. The only moral action they can take is to totally scrap the whole plan, including biometric passports. Either way, someone has to produce some grapefruits, otherwise, everything that I have written above will come to pass.

There is something very, very interesting about HDTV: when you watch an HDTV rip, the quality of the file is much grater than that of a TV rip yet the file size is the same. You can see the details of hairs on people, grains inside smoke, extremely pure colors and an astonishing absence of artifacts. Using the thinking of TV execs, this spells B-I-G--T-R-U-B-B-L-E. Anyone with broadband can now watch true DVD quality TV from sub 650 meg files. No wonder the broadcast flag is such an important battle; if HDTV comes out without it, millions more people will be able to watch programmes than originally planned; a complete DISASTER for TV programme makers. I did say "Using the thinking of TV execs" didnt I??! :o http://toronto.citytv.com/events/hdtv/

Home Office holds secret ID-card talks

By Marie Woolf ,Political Correspondent 20 April 2004 A top-secret military research firm that produces weaponry and "electronic warfare" systems for the Army is in talks with the Home Office about a blueprint for ID cards. QinetiQ, a hi-tech organisation which used to be part of Porton Down, the chemical and biological centre, has drawn up plans for a pocket-sized card that could reveal hundreds of facts about an individual through a "bar code" similar to those on products in supermarkets. [...] Yahoo says: What is QinetiQ? The Strategic Defence Review undertaken by MoD in 1998 recommended a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement as the best means of maximising the strategic value and operational cost effectiveness of the United Kingdom's defence research capabilities. Accordingly, QinetiQ has been structured to facilitate involvement by the private sector. It comprises the greater part of DERA, the British Government's "Defence Evaluation and Research Agency". Until July 2001, DERA was an agency of the UK Ministry of Defence, incorporating the bulk of the MoD's non-nuclear research, technology and test and evaluation establishments. It then split into two organisations, DSTL and QinetiQ Group plc. DSTL remains part of the MOD and continues to handle the most sensitive areas of research. Carlyle and QinetiQ Since Carlyle began its venture capital activities in 1987, it has built up a wealth of experience in overseeing the development of corporations of all sizes in order to increase shareholder value. Glenn Youngkin's role on the QinetiQ Board will be to monitor the performance of the company against agreed business objectives,which the management team are responsible for implementing. He will also draw on Carlyle's global experience to provide strategic input at Board-level on how QinetiQ can best continue its transition successfully from the public to the private sector. Carlyle supports QinetiQ's plan to develop its non-MoD business by commercialising technologies first developed for the defence industry into applications for a much broader range of sectors. Carlyle employs more than 60 investment professionals, who are dedicated to investing in technology through the firm's venture capital funds in Asia, Europe and the US. This team will be in a strong position to provide QinetiQ with contacts across the globe that can be called upon for advice in the technology field. We hope that access to a global network will help QinetiQ's commercial development and are pleased to make this additional resource available across the company. [...] The Carlyle Group This group drags the world into war without end, and when its not busy doing that, it fleeces and tags the sheeple for pocketmoney.

http://turbulence.org/Works/sodeoka/

JohnKerryIsADoucheBagButImVotingForHimAnyway.com

Love is pain

The Myth Of The 100-Year CD-Rom

The Independent -Are we putting too much faith in the ubiquitous "recordable CD", or CD-R? It is undeniably one of the most useful means of storage around, offering an inexpensive way to save digital photographs, music and files and costing less than 50 pence per disc. If you check the claims made by some manufacturers of popular CD-R brands, you will see that some make bold claims indeed. Typical boasts include: "100-years archival life", "guaranteed archival lifespan of more than 100 years" and "one million read cycles". One company even says data can be stored "swiftly and permanently", leaving you free to bequeath those backups of your letter to the electricity company to your great-great-grandchildren. But an investigation by a Dutch personal computer magazine, PC Active, has shown that some CD-Rs are unreadable in as little as two years, because the dyes in the CD's recording layer fade. These dyes replace the aluminium "pits" of a music CD or CD-Rom, and the laser uses that layer to distinguish 0s from 1s. When the CD is written, the writing laser "burns" the dye, which becomes dark, to represent a "1" while a "0" will be left blank so that if the dye fades, there's no difference; it's just a long string of nothing to the playback laser. So have you already lost those irreplaceable pictures you committed to the silver disc? PC Active suggests we should forget CD-Rs as a durable medium, after its own testing found some with unreadable data after just two years. [...] http://www.rense.com/general52/themythofthe100year.htm Ahem. Or should I say Amen? I only wish that my predictions about the great British public were so accurate!

The Sect of Homokaasu - The Rasterbator

"When that shooting happened at a JCC in California, a parent came in and said, `Thank God you have [the swipe cards],'" Judith Katz said. In the mid-1990s Norman Katz attended a computer show that introduced biometrics (the measurement of characteristics of living organisms) and changed his thinking about security access. He liked the idea that body parts such as a hand, finger or the iris of an eye could be tapped for a computerized identification program. "When he said he wanted to develop a fingerprint ID, I thought he was nuts," Judith Katz said. "It sounded like science fiction. We were already using swipe cards, which everyone liked. But he said that biometrics would be the thing that businesses would be using in a few years." Initial parent reaction was mixed. Many, including Glaser, echoed Judith Katz's first response: Why switch? "I thought the swipe card was very effective," said Glaser, a working mother who started using the center just after Billy's brother, Robbie, was born seven years ago. "It was blank, so there was no identification on it except your serial number, and each person had a different serial number. When they switched to fingerprints, at first I wondered, Why change? I think change always makes people nervous. But I adjusted fast." Glaser also feels more secure with the fingerprint method. "Now I like it better than the swipe card," she said. "With the swipe card, even though there is no identification on it, I was a little nervous because there were other cards out there." Disadvantage of cards That other cards were "out there" convinced Judith Katz, and the parents, that change was necessary. "Some said, What do you want to do this for? I told them, `You could give someone else your swipe card, but you can't give them your fingerprint,'" she said. "When they tried it, they thought it was wonderful." PSO/Illinois' Childcare Association President Suzanne Logan is counting on a similar response from parents at her child-care center, Kangaroo Korner in Forest Park, which is planning to convert from swipe card to Count Me In's fingerprint monitor. "The swipe system works quite well, but parents sometimes lose their cards," Logan said. "Also, if it's on a keychain and dad takes that car with the keys, mom doesn't have the card. With fingerprint ID, it can't happen. It's always with them." The fingerprint monitor costs less than the swipe version, said Neal Katz, vice president. "Biometrics is the way to go," he said, explaining that fingerprint monitors start at $800, compared with the swipe system's cost of about $1,300. [...] Chicago Tribune

Until now, Americans have always said no to being forced to show "Your papers, please!" on demand. But since the catastrophe of September 11, polls say as many as 87 percent of us may be willing to submit to a nationwide, biometric ID system. At first the cards wouldn't be mandatory. But even in the "voluntary" system, anyone who "chose" not to present a national ID card and submit to biometric scans on demand would be subject to invasive body searches at airports and extensive, humiliating, time-consuming questioning at checkpoints about his identity, plans, motives, and activities. Everyone without approved ID would, in short, be treated as a criminal suspect. If the system became legally mandatory, those refusing to cooperate could also be arrested, jailed and fined. The American Association of Motor Vehicles Authority announced in November 2001 that it was "working closely" with the new Office of Homeland Security to implement a mandatory biometric system through state licensing agencies - and this system would be mandatory. Why is this a problem? The United States isn't Nazi Germany -- which used a computerized national ID system to round up Jews and other "undesirables" and send them to slave labor and death. So what's the big deal? The very big deal is "mission creep." When Social Security numbers were introduced in the 1930's, the system was "voluntary." Citizens who worried about the biblical number of the Beast (Rev. 13: 16-18) or more mundane forms of tyranny were assured that, by law, the Social Security number would never � ever -- be used for ID. [...] One of many Google results... And so on. All of this falls on deaf ears aparently. How many dystopian futures do they need to be shown before they understand that they are the subject of the play.

The mismatch between what the government's been saying and what the people believe is all too clear. General ignorance about what ID cards can actually do has worked in the government's favour in the isolation of the civil liberties lobby, but that ignorance could now work against it - dare Blunkett switch horses back into a squalid and fraudulent sales pitch that leans heavily on the race card? Detica itself seems slightly bemused by the public's views on the capabilities of ID cards. Although it does a good bit of IT consultancy work for the government and is currently engaged in some government ID card related projects, it's a technical consultancy with real depth, as opposed to a bunch of Blairite survey-wonks, so when The Register spoke to Detica this morning we found we didn't need to take the crucifix and silver bullets out of our bag - these people know what they're talking about. Detica Head of Security and Risk David Porter agreed that the public was largely wrong in its view that ID cards would stop illegal immigration, and pointed out that the system is only going to be as good as the registration process. If this doesn't work properly, "then all of the biometrics in the world is not going to save you." And overall, although 94 per cent of people are aware of the ID card scheme, "two thirds have little or know knowledge of how it will work." This of course is not something the government has actually explained yet, so Porter is unable to comment on what the real cost is likely to be. Critics, however, have suggested it could be considerably higher than the government's promised ?35 per head, and this level itself is a problem, as 48 per cent of people think the cards should be free, and only 19 per cent are prepared to pay over ?25. The public's apparent enthusiasm for biometrics is also a surprise, and suggests to Porter that the unpleasant association of inky fingerprinting with the word 'offender' no longer exists to any great degree. At around 50 per cent, almost as many people think the ID should be a fingerprint as do a photograph, while 40 per cent think an iris scan is fine, and around 35 per cent are keen on "DNA details stored on your card". They've clearly got the wrong impression of how you're going to have your DNA read, says Porter, but the point to be taken on board here is that the public is nothing like as conservative about the use of biometrics as was generally thought. [...] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/22/id_cards/ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-1083346,00.html Well. There has been a complete failure to convey the facts about ID cards, since clearly not one sheeple has grasped what ID cards will mean to them in practice. On the 60th anniversary of the Normandy operation, the populaiton shows that all those people literally threw away their lives for nothing, save the world domination of the English language over German. Once again, we see that money is the only thing people today care about; they will accept an ID card, without knowing anything about it, as long as they dont have to pay for it. Only saints care about people with so little regard for their lives; all saints pleas line up to care for the British public if you please. You can bet that the vote for the european constitution will be "yes" also. All of this, without impurification of the bodily fluids by mass fluoridation. Now thats a feat! Still, in a world where Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa (and anyone looking at this Internet web page from the past that has not fainted will attest that this fact is unbelievable) anything is possible. After reading this poll, after the last year of simply astonishing evil, one could be forgiven for thinking that "its getting worse".

I just set up a gmail account. PGP encrypted mail appearing in Gmail does not have any adverts displayed next to it.

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