Zombies!

The Government is wanting more and more of our information but don't worry they will be able to keep it 100% secure shouldn't they? I mean surely our security and governmental organisations have some sort of defence against known viruses don't they? Well apparently they don't. Manchester Police have recently been hit by the "Conficker worm" virus (link). This virus got into the system via an officers memory stick and spread quickly throughout the system. The virus itself has been around since at least November 2008 with the most recent variant being found in April 2009 (link), this to me would seem like ample time to set up some sort of defence to detect the virus before infection. With such sensitive and valuable data on the system a scan of any external memory devices should be run to ensure our information is safe, this is obviously not a priority of the police force.
In this case the infection was caught fast and the system was isolated meaning that the damage caused was minimal. If the virus had gone undetected for long it would open gateways for other more damaging viruses and hackers to enter through, this is very worrying considering what information is held on these types of systems.
Even though the damage was minimised the system still had to be taken down for three days. During these three days police couldn't access information to check for criminals and suspect vehicles effectively crippling the whole system. Now this may appear as a small and negligible problem in the long run but what happens if this kind of thing happens on the now developing National Identity Register (NIR)? If the NIR went down for a few days people would not be able to access any information on the system, effectively removing them from the planet for those few days. Any checks that need to be ran would be impossible and all transactions for that time would be halted.
This however, would be a best case scenario, one in which the virus was not detected early allowing it to spread could be so much worse. If a similar virus was allowed to mature and spread through the system peoples information would become readily open to attack from hackers and other viruses. This could lead to peoples information being effectively lost from the system, this person would then have to prove themselves against a system which is apparently fool proof in order to restore their identity. Furthermore peoples information could be easily stolen and sold on or used for identity fraud, with the amount of information held on the system this could be devastating.

This is not adequate protection.

The way that this system is designed to be interconnected across the entire country leaves many openings for some sort of virus to enter through. Unless their are thorougher checks on every device added to the system (this is neglecting any viruses picked up via other methods) an infection is inevitable. If a system the size of Manchester Police can fall prey to something like this what hope does a national system have? Sure, there may be a raised sense of security about it but an infection is inevitable.



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I'm Spartacus

This shall be a short blog post. Lately new adverts promoting ID cards have arose. Below is said advert.



Cute isn't it? Why it seems only innocent people are fingerprinted is beyond me but this is not what I want to discuss. The scene they are relating to is from the film Spartacus (link). In this scene the slaves are told they can all be allowed to live if they produce Spartacus to be killed. However the group of slaves all group together and defy the Romans. So effectively what the ID card scheme means is that bad people will be able to find and kill however they please. Nice... Nice.




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Safe as (card) houses

Now as you will probably have guessed I am indeed against the new ID card scheme and there are many reasons for this which will be explain through the time I maintain this blog. One reason I appose the system greatly is the blatant risk this scheme creates regarding our personal information's security. Now if the government is going to collect and hold so much information about us then the least you'd expect is that it would be kept safe. We are promised gold standard security regarding our information held on the database but what does this really mean?

Now the way the database is designed for information to be passed around means that it is stored online meaning that security is not as simple as locking a door. I do not claim to be an expert when it comes to Internet security but what I do know is this, any information held on the Internet will ever be 100% secure. There will always be people who can hack through firewalls and play with the information which, when it involves your very identity, could be disastrous to your life. Now when hacking is brought up in debate many people will say that this is not a risk as the security system that will be put in place will be created by the government and thus it will be almost impossible to hack making it absurd to imagine people being able to pay a local hacker to damage others information. However this will simply not be the case. The problem being that just because it is the government in charge doesn't instantly make a system more secure, many cases can show this ideal of superior security to be flawed.

Firstly let's begin with the American government and the pentagon. This is an organisation with billions of dollars at its disposal and with secrets that would lead you to conclude that they need the best security in the world. Somebody simply hacking into the system without the backing of criminal masterminds and a whole team of experts seems absurd doesn't it? Yet this is exactly what Gary McKinnon, a 43 year old Asperger's syndrome sufferer, did (link). Now if the information is so delicate that it warrants his extradition (link) then surly their security would be top notch? It has also come to light that the Iraqi resistance have been hacking into US drones using nothing more then a £16 piece of software which is widely available to the public (link). If it is possible for war machines to be hacked into by such simple methods what hope do we have for this database which will be so central to our lives.

That is just the problem you see. The fact that this database and ID card will hold so much of your information that eventually peoples lives will become dependant on it making it a target for cyber terrorists or indeed cyber warfare (both are real threats shown by this link). Not only this but the fact that practically all of someones personal information will be held in this one place will make the database a huge target for fraudsters and other criminals. The huge amount of people who could find gain by hacking or simply damaging the database is staggering, meaning that sooner or later a way in will be found and the ramifications of this will be catastrophic.

The real question here is whether you trust our government to keep the astounding amount of information they want from you safe. This is the same government that lose Cd's containing very personal information (link) and leave laptops on trains (link). If they can't keep the amount of information they already have on us safe then how do they expect to keep the ludicrous amount of information they want on everyone in the UK safe. When past security specialists for the MoD warn that the system is a major threat (link) you know something is wrong. The prospect is terrifying.


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Naked Pictures

Not many people will be hard pressed to remember the events of 7/7. If you've somehow forgotten here's a nice link for you: Wiki article

The attacks were horrific and nothing anyone says will ever change that. We all saw the images and we all felt the pain. However this does not mean we should be scared, by being scared we let the terrorists win.

Many of you will remember this cover of the "newspaper" the Sun. It shows the academic John Tulloch injured after the attacks. The important thing however is the fact that around his face the words "Terror Laws: Tell Tony he's right" are written, insinuating that John Tulloch had spoken to the Sun and that he did indeed support Tony Blair's views (At this instance this would mean increasing the time a terrorist suspect can be held without trial being extended to 90 days). This was actually contrary to Tolloch's views and he is quoted as saying "Not in my name" during an interview. A full article can be found here.

This shows that even victims of terror attacks can see that simply making terror laws more extreme and intruding on civil liberties does not equate a safer society. It also goes to show that images in the media are used to manipulate feelings for political gains without necessarily representing the feelings of those involved.

Now why do I bring this back up you may be asking? Well it seems that terror has again reared it's ugly head bringing with it the question of safety procedures and civil liberties. On Christmas Day 2009 a man attempted to detonate an explosive on a plane in Detroit (article here). The attempted bomber carried the explosives within his pants meaning normal techniques for searching personnel did not pick up on this allowing him to board the plane and attempt the attack.

What can possibly be done to stop people doing this all the time you ask? How about having naked pictures of every passenger taken in order to find any concealed weaponry which could be taken onto planes. Crazy you say? Apparently not. Now this may just be me but I personally do not wish to have naked images of myself taken for security reasons which are flawed to begin with. At what point do we stop with scanners all together and just have people periodically strip off and have full cavity searches before they are allowed to board a flight?

Now lets say these scanners stop anyone wearing explosive unddies from boarding flights thus cutting out this possibility for terrorists. Would this stop attacks on planes? Of course not. This bomber did not simply decide that he wanted to put explosives in his pants just for the fun of it. No, the group he was working with saw the current searches and found a way around them. No matter what precautions are put in the way if someone wants to blow up a plane then they will find a way. Even if it were possible for it to be made impossible for a bomb to be taken onto a plane then the target would simply change to another. We seem to forget at these times that car bombs can just as easily be made.

Moreover it was not simply a flaw in security at the airport itself but a fault in system put in place to monitor terror suspects. The US had intelligence capable of stopping this event happening, namely having the attempted bomber on a terror suspect list (link). This shows that the attack could easily have been stopped without this new costly (and many suspect ineffective) scanner.

Now what we seem to forget is that the UK has had a long history of terrorism (link), how do people forget the IRA???? Now I realise that the IRA and Al Quieda are very different organisations but the effect is the same, innocent British people are killed. So how is it that suddenly all life must change forever because of terrorist attacks? Now putting security doors on planes I can see being nesicarry but how is taking naked pictures of people going to help? Paranoia in this country is rife and we are at risk of giving up all liberties before we know it. People are now being stopped and searched or even arrested for taking pictures under new terror legislation (link). This is not a stand alone case by any means and if you were to look around on the page provided previous there will be many many cases similar to this.

Keep alert, stay free.