We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the year You cannot trust any agency with people’s personal data.
– Frank Abagnale, quoted in The Daily Telegraph.
The quote of Britain’s political week. There is a massive breakthrough in the public understanding of the database state, and the Government is finding it a real struggle to contain it. BBC journalists (Eg. Newsnight, The World Tonight, etc) are making an explicit connection between the three real monsters: the National Identity Scheme, Connecting for Health, and ContactPoint. My personal touchstone for success is when Criminal Records Bureau disclosure starts to be criticised in the public presses.
Bonus quote:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
Now is not a time to rest.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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How do they do it – the very term “Connecting for Health” inspires the thought of all manner of odious authoritarianism, pompous parochial amateurish bureaucracies and third-rate PR pap.
Yes, we are in a Database State and this is a godsend for the move to block the ID card process.
first link is broken, BTW
Link fixed now, Emma.
Don’t count your chickens yet…
“Another said: “This is just the tip of the iceberg.” Cost cuts mean that staff are discouraged from sending post first class, let alone registered delivery, he added.”
Another excuse to gouge us?
Don’t count your chickens yet…
Hence the bonus quote, which is about fighting as hard as you can when battle is joined, rather than coasting on presumed victory.
From ‘Die Welt’
You are correct not to assume victory Guy (after all some nasty statutes have already been passed).
However, things are looking better for liberty than they were.
Last Toryboy: this is what really annoys me about all of this. They don’t seem to understand the problem. The fact that the entire Child Benefit database was burnt, unencrypted, onto a couple of CDs by a “junior official” and sent halfway across the country doesn’t bother them in the slightest.They think it would all have been just hunky-dory if it had been sent Registered. Or emailed.
This is not simple low-level blundering caused by a lack of employee discipline; it’s sheer, ingrained, basic ignorance and incompetence. They are simply not – to use a favourite term of the Government’s – “fit for purpose”.
And of course they are lying Sam – as it was not just a low level offical.
Oddly enough their lie does not serve them well – as if a “low level official” could do all this on his own……
I’m a information security risk manager for one of the larger global financial financial processors. We’re regularly subjected to extensive government, PCI and client audits as well as run very extensive assessments internally. While we are constantly working to anticipate the ever-evolving threat to cardholder data, we’re very aggressive in our efforts. We recognize security is a process, not a final state.
At the same, I would never, ever use a credit card (and increasingly a check, given ACH fraud) at a government office. Many I visit leave workstation terminals unguarded and unlocked without timeouts, use shared accounts and passwords (which is terribly insecure and defeats the ability to monitor specific employee behavior), use poor passwords (like Friday456) and have incredibly poor overall information security. Worst of all, these governmental fools regard security as a finite state – in my previous external audit job, I’d routinely hear comments like “we’re secure because we have a Sonicwall firewall!” Yes, usually an unwatched, unlogged firewall lacking sufficient rulesets and having state-level awareness that was 3+ years old.
My recommendations to those that want to avoid harm from their government (besides not electing any liberals and fatcat conservatives):
1. Use checks. Increasing automation of ACH puts those at risk (e.g. storage of your account information which they have no business doing, but often go ahead anyway).
2. Use a separate at-risk “payments only” checking account. We actually use three – an inflow account for payroll direct deposit, transfer to an online billpay outbound account and a third highest risk personal check writing account.
3. Do not ever link a debit card to the inflow/repository account. This is where you keep money until you transfer it to other accounts for bill pay, investing, etc. Keep this unlinked. Never write checks from it.
4. Transfer only sufficient money for billpay to the outflow accounts. I write my government ones out of the high-risk account, use cheap checks and have very little to lose if someone abuses it.
5. Expect eventual fraud and loss from high-risk sources, and be prepared to detect and respond to it in a timely manner with minimal impact.
The last step is really the most empowering recommendation. I expect my government payments to eventually be put at risk. I would be shocked if they weren’t already in some illicit database, just waiting for their use. Only through minimizing your exposure to an incompetent and corrupt governmental organization can you reduce the harm you’ll experience.
Sounds excessive? Not if you knew what kinds of incidents we see from the bad guys.