I finally got around to activating my new credit card this morning that I had received a few weeks ago.
I put it off as I really do hate these phone calls and I've done it quite a few times in the past as I transfer balances around to new cards in order to take advantage of the 0% balance transfer rates.
It is a good security procedure but more and more the card companies are using it as an opportunity to flog their overpriced payment protection policies. So sure enough having sat there on hold for five minutes waiting until they could connect me to an operator I was then told it would take five minutes to activate my card.
Bollocks does it!
It takes a fraction of a second to activate the card and then five minutes of sales pitch. But I can't blame them as I do the same at my place of work but then I really believe in the product I'm selling. LOL
Present curbs are too light, Met chief to tell Goldsmith
This seems like nothing more than a power grab and an appeal to the right wing members sections of Britain that are incensed by these uppity sandal-wearing Lefties and Muslim types voicing their displeasure about various things.
The country's biggest force, the Metropolitan police, is to lobby the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, because officers believe that large sections of the population have become increasingly politicised, and there is a growing sense that the current restrictions on demonstrations are too light.
It seems to me that Tony Blair's government has recently freaked out about something which has been going on for quite a few years and that is issue politics. The populace seem generally apathetic about the political parties but a number are passionate about singular political issues be it marching in opposition to the Hunting Bill or demonstrating against the Iraq war etc. Also there has been a rise in political views being expressed online as the number of fora has increased where such views can be aired.
I think that they have freaked out because virtually all these views being expressed are anti-government. You'd be hard pressed to find any Joe Public commenter expressing a pro-Iraq opinion for example.
Most worrying is the following bit of it.
The police want powers to tackle a "grey area" in the array of public order laws. At present, causing offence by itself is not a criminal offence.
Causing offence is not a criminal offence and it never fucking well should be.
He talks about respecting freedom of speech.
We also need to think more laterally around how we police public demonstrations where 'offence' could be caused, while still respecting the British position around freedom of speech.
But this sounds like just a piece of management speak that means fuck all that has been bored from Tony Blair.
But then I'm part of the problem not the solution aren't I.
He seems like a decent if slightly odd fellow and I do hope that his new found fame does allow him to help The Christopher Reeve Foundation in the way he wishes, my own order for the Superman dog tags in aid of The Christopher Reeve Foundation has gone in.
I'm so disengaged with my home town of Devizes it's unreal. Somehow I had totally missed the fact that tonight was the opening of the Devizes Christmas Market. I don't even know if it's going to be a fixture in the Market Place up until Christmas or is just a one off for tonight.
Anyway I was walking into town to post off some packages and remarked to myself that there seemed to be a lot of people on the streets this evening and that many of the kids appeared to have very cheap looking lightsabre toys. Then I stumbled upon a burger van and a Punch and Judy show stationed outside the job centre or whatever the fuck the New-Labour title is for it now.
It was then that I knew for certain that something was going on in town tonight and sure enough there is an outdoor Christmas market going on selling the tackiest cheapest crap possible. These Devizes market traders really know their customers.
Myths over Miami is a fascinating article from almost ten years ago in the Miami New Times. [via]
On Christmas night a year ago, God fled Heaven to escape an audacious demon attack -- a celestial Tet Offensive. The demons smashed to dust his palace of beautiful blue-moon marble. TV news kept it secret, but homeless children in shelters across the country report being awakened from troubled sleep and alerted by dead relatives. No one knows why God has never reappeared, leaving his stunned angels to defend his earthly estate against assaults from Hell. "Demons found doors to our world," adds eight-year-old Miguel, who sits before Andre with the other children at the Salvation Army shelter. The demons' gateways from Hell include abandoned refrigerators, mirrors, Ghost Town (the nickname shelter children have for a cemetery somewhere in Dade County), and Jeep Cherokees with "black windows." The demons are nourished by dark human emotions: jealousy, hate, fear.
One demon is feared even by Satan. In Miami shelters, children know her by two names: Bloody Mary and La Llorona (the Crying Woman). She weeps blood or black tears from ghoulish empty sockets and feeds on children's terror. When a child is killed accidentally in gang crossfire or is murdered, she croons with joy. "If you wake at night and see her," a ten-year-old says softly, "her clothes be blowing back, even in a room where there is no wind. And you know she's marked you for killing."
I wonder where Dexter might fit into the mythologies of the street children of Miami.
Earlier this year the UK Passport Service (now the Identity and Passport Service) started to introduce Biometric Passports (pdf link) in an effort to vastly improve the security of the passport system. In their words
To: • help fight passport fraud and forgery; • help the public and the UK to fight identity fraud; • ensure the British Passport stays one of the most secure and respected in the world;
Firstly they have opted to use RFID chips to store the data in accordance to standards drawn up by the International Civil Aviation Organization. The use of RFID to store the data is bad enough but the ICAO standard also directs that the key used to access the data should be comprised of , in the following order, the passport number, the holder's date of birth and the passport expiry date, all of which are contained on the printed page of the passport on a "machine readable zone."
Bruce Schneier an authority in the area of security has written a number of times about the security wreckage associated with passports containing RFIDs.
Most recently Schneier has revealed that The Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee of the Department of Homeland Security has recommended against putting RFID chips in identity cards. Whether the US government heeds this advice is yet to be seen but unfortunately for us in Britain our government has already made the poor choice.
The security measures in place to prevent unauthorized access to the data held on the chip work by creating a encrypted 'conversation' between the chip and the reader. Interestingly they have used the Triple DES algorithm for the encryption instead of AES which was introduced to replace Triple DES in 2002 and which is much more efficient. However the choice of algorithm is a secondary concern compared with how it was implemented with a key that is comprised of non-secret information that is published in the passport itself.
As Laurie puts it so eloquently "That is the equivalent of installing a solid steel front door to your house and then putting the key under the mat."
FAR! FAR away, the Google lives, in a land which only children can go to. It is a wonderful land of funny flowers, and birds, and hills of pure white heather.
The highlight of tonight's National Television Awards was seeing Sir David Attenborough receive the Special Recognition Award for his lifetime achievement in bringing the wonders of the natural world to British TV screens over the past five decades.
He is a wonder of the natural world himself as he really does not look anywhere near the 80 years he has lived. I have always loved the many series of nature documentaries I have seen in my life presented by Sir David Attenborough and he really is in my opinion the Greatest Living Englishman.
Then from the sublime to the ridiculous he was followed to the stage by Peter Andre and Jordan who were there to present the award for Most Popular Serial Drama.
The BBC reports on a new service that is designed to help users reduce their risk of identity theft through a monitoring facility. The service is kind of like the constant surveillance of the Orwellian Big Brother but where the individual is in control of the surveillance upon themselves.
The Garlik Datapatrol service has been set up by the founders of the internet bank Egg with the intention of putting users back in control of the information that is held on them in public databases that are easily accessible through the internet.
The service brings together from the internet, public databases, and Credit Reports all the personal information it can find on a user and then displays it in a simple online format. Then on a monthly basis users will receive an update summary of additions or changes to their online profile as well as highlighting any risks or suspicious activity.
By facilitating individuals access to the information that is held on them the service puts its users on an equal footing with the criminals that might seek to steal their identities and as irregularities are often the first indication of a problem the monitoring system gives users an early warning and the possibility of nipping it in the bud before any negative consequences have occurred.
My only concerns are the security of Garlik's database and the trustworthiness of the company. They seem to have a fairly robust system to establish user's identity and to then authenticate users accessing the personal information gathered in the server database. But it presupposes that an individual's identifying information hasn't already been compromised or stolen.
I can see this service being a boon for identity theft rings who have enough data to register falsely for the service in order to further the scope of their thefts by letting Garlik do the legwork as it were in accruing further information.
Garlik's secure servers would also be a prime target for criminals and so I would hope that they have taken the security of their servers as seriously as any bank would with theirs. Is the physical access to the servers as well secured as the online access is?
My second concern would be that as a new company they haven't had the time to build a reputation or a record of establishment of trust. Registered users will be empowering the company and placing a lot of trust in the security of the service and the authenticity and accuracy of the personal information data provided to users. Having said that there is nothing to suggest that Garlik is in any way a disreputable company it is merely my natural paranoia.
I would have more faith in Garlik presently than I would in the UK government in securing any personal information I would give them.
Garlik are currently offering free trials to people signing up for the Datapatrol service at their website. http://www.garlik.com.
People with concerns about identity theft and security online should also take a look at the following website Get Safe Online which has been set up by banks and prominent internet companies.
