Arcoarena

The government have announced a plan to allow people to comment online about their public services. This seems like a sensible idea, an easy way to feedback constructive comments in order to improve public services. Well done the government. Except….

The flaw in this plan could very well be the general public as David Mitchell points out in his Observer column.  The related point to this post is that I’ve found out I’m not the only one who’s been forced to stop reading BBC News’ “Have Your Say” boards, and Mr Mitchell links to the excellent ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com, a collection of some of the most ignorant, racist nonsense that sadly seems to fill the HYS boards, with introductions that are probably just as offensive.

So, the correct way to complain. Well, I’m sure the Open Rights Group have a few ideas. I’ve signed up to their news feed and get depressed on a regular basis. The most recent post was about the introduction of e-borders, the scheme to collect passenger information for everyone entering and leaving the UK. The information required will be Name, DoB, Passport number. The UK Boarder Agency also says “We will also collect other passenger information, for example details of reservations and payment.”.

So to re-cap; Name, address, credit card number and the government’s previous record of data protection……nope can’t see any problem here

It’s good to see a news story or two where someone is trying to inject sense into the proceedings.

I personally hate the idea of a DNA database as, I believe, it would lead to more false convictions. Look at the McCanns at the moment (I’m not saying anything about their guilt or otherwise) but people get the slightest sniff of DNA evidence and are ready to convict, when it isn’t necessarily the case.

The liquid ban itself it merely annoying. I feel it symbolises the kind of knee-jerk, everyone’s a terrorist culture that appears to be going on at the moment (at least in the media).

Well it looks like the smoking ban might actually happen and as long as pubs continue to serve food rather than stopping and allowing people to smoke I’m happy.

Breakfast news (BBC, natch) had a pro and an anti smoking people on and the pro-smoking bloke seemed a bit silly

On whether it’s fair to subject bar workers to smoke he said
“Well they’ve got a choice”
Interviewer: “What of being unemployed”
Man: “Oh don’t be silly, they could get a different job in a non-smoking pub”

But of course on the suggestion that smokers will still have a choice of going outside for a smoke he said
“That’s not much of a choice is it”

Quite, my heart bleeds for him.

The BBC ran another comments page on the smoking ban and my favourite post is below

“Having a smoking section in a pub or restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.” Mike, London

Hmmm. More controversial than I thought. I have to admit that I’m not saying that ‘Chip and Pin is the best thing ever to happen and we should all be jolly grateful to those lovely banking chappies, Amen’. But I think it’s an improvement in most cases. After all the old cards didn’t have the chip which I (am led to) believe is more secure, and with the old cards if someone has your pin they can still take a lot of money. Part of it is about realising what debit cards actaully do. They are to (almost) all extents and purposes a big wad of cash that we carry round in our pockets.

One last thing is that someone on the BBC website did point out something rather cunning. Write a PIN on the back of all your cards. Just make sure it’s not the right one. Hopefully it’ll get rejected and swallowed by the cash machine when someone attempts to use it.

In other news (literally) it took me 15 minutes this morning to realise that it was Sian Williams presenting breakfast news and not Natasha Kaplinksy. Why do they have to put people that look that similar on at that time in the morning?

ID theft has been in the news because apparently people are throwing out too much sensitive information.

I was reading the comments on the BBC website (yes this is another post to bitch about people saying stupid stuff) and someone stated that

‘Readers should be worried – with chip and pin. Until the machines for entering the pin number are more private, it’s too easy to see what someone is doing and spot their pin number. All that needs to do then is mug them and get the card. Not very secure, to my mind.‘

Why do people keep saying this? Surely before chip and pin all someone had to do is mug me and forge my signature which is written on the back of the card! Now that chip and pin is here they actually have to see me tapping my pin in (or threaten me enough). At least if I drop it in the street people can’t use it with only the information written on it.

Now to stop me having to continually write bitter posts about people saying stupid stuff will someone please invent an open authenication system, that will be adopted by all websites. Onto this authenication system I want a system called ‘eSlap’. This will allow bitter and twisted people to directly contact people and point out their stupidity. This isn’t needed for this site of course (you all know my email)

Some of my least favourite Labour policies appear to have hit (admittedly minor) problems.

Firstly a teenager is challenging curfews. And quite right too. I don’t see the point of branding all under 16’s as yobs or even potential yobs. It’s stupid, I’m sure that at 15 I wasn’t at home by 9pm and I don’t see why these kids should be either. A case of using a hammer to crack a nut I feel.

The second one is likely to be solved quicker and more easily than the first unfortunately. Some ID scanning techniques have hit teething troubles. It does make you wonder, especially since the sucess rates quoted in the article seem quite low if you want to start applying this to 60 million people. What happens if some of the biometrics don’t work, or if I gain or lose a lot of weight and my face shape changes. Does this cause a problem? Will Yo-yo dieters accross the country be unable to open bank accounts and locked up for presenting false information? One of my main worries about ID cards is that something that will work in 99.9% of case will fail for 60 thousand people. I seriously hope that the Government is planning for all the possible problems that occur.

My other main worry about ID cards is infact related to success rates. The government is planning to allow other agencies to access information. I’m guessing that one of these will be the Police. I’m also guessing that over 60 Million people it’s possible that the Police could come knocking on my door saying my fingerprints might match those at a crime scene, since I’m sure they don’t get complete matches due to smudging anyway.

Charles Clarke has also concerned me recently by stating that they had ‘listened to peoples concerns’. I don’t think I want to see what happens when they don’t.

This is going to make no sense to anyone who doesn’t like Pinky and the Brain

But…..

There’s a Conservative Election Poster Generator thanks to Stuart Langridge. I created this

Have a go yourself. It’s quite fun.

….even though I know they’ll get in because:
a- the majority of people don’t think the Lib Dems could hack it
b- I seriously don’t think the Tories are thinking what I’m thinking (not unless they are seriously self-deprecating)

El Reg appears to have written about one of my problems. Remember ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Well how’s that going to work when the police start searching a fingerprint database with 56 million entries? I’d be concerned even with DNA which has less of a chance of falsely matching.

I don’t have a problem with ID cards. I wouldn’t even be too miffed if it became mandatory to carry them. After all the Passport office has my photo and my address etc. I have a problem with all the other stuff they are trying to hide behind an ID card (fingerprint databases and other biometric nonsense).

That’s what I don’t like about the current government and David Blunkett encompassed most of it, sadly Charles Clarke appears to be taking on his mantle now that Blunkett’s gone. The terror bill stuff is rubbish too. I don’t think that 911 (or the possibility of similar attacks) is an excuse for half the stuff that’s happened in the past 4 years even if the government want us to beleive it’s required.

Anyhow – rant over.

From the Debate section of the times website

Fox hunting, smacking, smoking. What next? a ban on …… Four wheel drives?……. Martin Treanor, Hadleigh

Now there’s a good idea! Or maybe a licencing, you’re only allowed a 4×4 if you actually do spend atleast 50% of your working day knee deep in excrement.