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A classic piece at The Register on biometrics and stupidity: read David Moss and you’ll be more competent than anyone in government on this issue. It’s the false positives, of course; but the truly shocking thing is that despite everything, the ID scheme still depends on the n=10,000 trial from 2004 that they deny is…

Read More Read this now

Iduntity cards. Jamie quotes a Computer Weekly article on a “business breakfast” with Jacqui Smith as proof of private sector interest in the project. A business breakfast with Jacqui Smith; the horror. I remember that a “breakfast briefing” with a certain mobile industry luminary who would always have it at Claridges when he was in…

Read More an enterprise of great advantage, but none to know what it is

Self-satirising ID card madness. So they’ve actually got as far as issuing some significant contracts. We’ll begin by noting that one of them has gone to CSC, last seen introducing the joy of Cerner software to the NHS National Programme for IT. But much more to the point, what is this talk about using the…

Read More it is now absolutely certain that the national ID card will be compromised

The thing that pisses me off about Al-Qa’ida is that they insist on egging the government on. That said, I can’t think of anything more ridiculous than Phil Woolas wanting to have reports of any foreign student who misses ten lectures. I can’t think of many things more ridiculous and contemptible than Phil Woolas anyway,…

Read More HOWNOTTO be caught as a student terrorist

“Londonstani” has a superb post at Abu Muqawama about Ed Husain’s The Islamist. Read the whole thing. Then look at the comments and cry. Meanwhile, shouldn’t this story be getting much more press? Intelligence briefings for Mr Obama have detailed a dramatic escalation in American espionage in Britain, where the CIA has recruited record numbers…

Read More spies

Ha. Ha. Ha. So, how are those ID cards going? It seems that despite the government’s fanfare, repeated several times, of announcing the issue of the first ID cards, it is impossible to check anyone’s card because there are no card readers. Of course, it’s actually worse than that – even if the card readers…

Read More They have the watches, but we have all the time