31/03/2009 by The Daily Male.

Network Rail.

Why? well let me explain. I have an Apple iTouch, a fantastic piece of kit and especially because you can download loads of funky new apps. One in particular, MyRail, a FREE app, was very good indeed and allowed you to view live departure and arrival information for any train station. However this app no longer works because Network Rail have not renewed the licence for the app owners to use their live data. At the same time Network Rail have introduced their own app that does exactly the same job except they want us to pay a fiver to use it. The greedy bast%*#s.

Here is my call to all iPhone and iTouch users… Boycott the Network Rail app.

Posted in Technology, Society, Travel | Print | 1 Comment »

31/03/2009 by The Daily Male.

I think we need to be very clear why what Jacqui Smith has done is an appalling abuse of power. There is a lot of innuendo about her expenses but everyone (the press) are too scared to spell it out. So let me do it for them.

Jacqui thinks “I really could do with decorating and furnishing my home, but boy! is it going to be expensive”.

“Ah, hang on, there is a loop-hole I can use.  I will say I live with my sister and say my home is my SECOND residence. I only have to pop in to my sisters a few times a month to make it look good.”

 ”Jobs a goodun! I can now claim £116,000 of tax payers money to literally feather my own nest.”

 Note from Me. Dear Mr Tax Man. I have decided to live a few days a month at my mum and dad’s house, is it okay if I now get a new kitchen and bathroom fitted and claim it as an expense? what? No you say? but if it is good enough for Jacqui bloody Smith, the Home Secretary no less, then why not for me?

Posted in Politics, Society | Print | No Comments »

30/03/2009 by The Daily Male.

So, Jacqui Smith’s has been claiming expenses for her husbands “Play-Per-View” films. You just don’t know if you should laugh or cry. The thought that the tax payer has been footing the bill for the Home Secretary’s husbands presumed onanism is so bizarre as to make me pinch myself  in case this is some kind of weird dream. This is the woman who is charged with keeping us all safe, ensuring that those that would seek to harm us are detected and stopped, yet the fact that she had claimed expenses for “Debbie Does Whitehall” went by unnoticed.

 I think the trouble with politicians is that they spend so much time with their hand in the till they don’t even know they are doing it. It is like a sort of Pavlovian response, they hear the ching of the till opening and they automatically dive in. You then question why they are doing it and they look shocked and amazed, as if the greedy hand was not actually part of them. It is a form of kleptomania, they want to be good people but they just can’t help themselves. 

Posted in Politics, Society | Print | No Comments »

26/03/2009 by The Daily Male.

I hereby announce to the world, or at least the small part of it that reads this blog, that I refuse to refer to Fred Goodwin as Sir. Fred Goodwin, the man who presided over the worst corporate failure in our history as the boss of RBS received his honour some time ago, but to me the moniker “Sir” implies a man of Honour, Integrity and Decency, none of which this man has. It is time we and the press dropped the Sir, he doesn’t deserve it.

Whilst I am on the topic of Fred, I see he got his windows smashed by a group of vigilantes this week. Now, this is a very stupid thing to do, all this does is terrorise his poor wife and kids and they have done nothing to deserve that, that is the trouble with vigilantes is they just create more innocent victims. I am not surprised though considering some of the comments made by some government ministers. Harriet Harman said that “he [Fred] will be judged in the court of public opinion”. Now who is the judge and jury in that court, how is a verdict made and what is the punishment, it sounds like a call to vigilanteism to me.

Posted in Politics, Society, Law & Disorder | Print | 1 Comment »

24/03/2009 by The Daily Male.

I see in the news this week (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7959099.stm) that the Open Rights Group have written to several large Internet companies to ask them to block their content being used by Phorm. In case you are unaware, Phorm produce a rather worrying piece of software they want to have installed on your ISP’s servers. Basically what this software does is scan every web page you visit looking for keywords and creating a profile of your browsing habits. This information is then used to create targeted advertising. They make a big song and dance over their privacy controls to ensure that your browsing habits can not be traced to any individual but speaking with my tecky hat on I can not see how they can guarantee this.  If you want the technical stuff please read the stuff at the end of this article.

I have grave worries about any piece of software that examines every web page I visit, even if they allow an Opt Out or Opt In I have my doubts that this will alleviate the security risks. I hope these companies decide to block Phorm and that the whole venture goes the way of the Sinclair C5.

 I currently use BT for my broadband, they are one of the companies thinking of using this and if they do I will be one of the first customers to switch ISP.

Posted in Privicy, Technology | Print | 1 Comment »

23/03/2009 by The Daily Male.

I am sure you are all by now aware that Jade Goody sadly passed away this weekend. Now, don’t get me wrong, I would not wish what she has been through on my worst enemy, I lost a good friend to cancer some years ago and know all too well the devastation this inhuman illness can cause and all the pain and distress of the families left behind. I truly feel for Jade’s children, direct family and close friends. However, I have been somewhat baffled by the outpouring of public grief form all corners of British life, even the PM, Gordon ‘is a moron’ Brown chipped in with his two pennies worth. The Sun, who only a few months ago characterised Jade as, and I quote “RACIST SCUM” now appartently thinks that she is the greatest UK hero of our time, even featuring a multipage pull out obit? Even Stephen Fry, a man I have deep respect for, compared her to Princess Di. Can someone tell me where to get hold of these XXL rose tinted glasses everyone seems be wearing? The hypocrisy makes my skin itch.

It seem that she is somehow applauded for publicising her cancer because it has “raised awareness” of cervical cancer. But surely this is not by design but merely a side effect of her celebrity. I feel for all people who right now are battling cancer but do so with courage, grace and dignity. All the men and women who give of themselves to help others without the need for a camera crew to record their deeds. I weep for all those children who will lose a mother or father to cancer in the coming months and years who will not have the cushion of a million pound OK deal to secure their future, only the pain of watching the remaining parent struggle to make ends meet to ensure their future. These are the true heroes of our society, we walk past them every day and do not notice them and they all worth a million Jade Goody’s.

I can not follow the hypocrites, I have to stick to my true feelings, I have never liked Jade, I think she was an appalling role model to young people and her terrible illness and tragic and untimely death does not change the person that she was. This was a woman whose education and upbringing was so poor that she actually thought East Anglia was another country and had never seen or heard of asparagus. What can people possibly learn from her life, that to be poorly educated and ignorant is cool, that all you need to get on in life is to be a rude, aggressive bully, as long as you can do this in front of a camera all your worries will be over. If Jade’s all to short life is to teach us anything is to highlight all the things that are wrong with our society. An education system that fails many young people, a society blighted (perhaps broken) by drugs and neglect. What we can only hope is that Jade is the last of her kind, that we strive to ensure that we no longer fail our youth and that in future we can hold up better examples to the next generation.

Posted in Press, Society | Print | 1 Comment »

13/03/2009 by The Daily Male.

This week in Luton a small group of angry Muslims took it upon themselves to jeer and protest at a “welcome home” march by the Anglian regiment. This has caused a lot of upset and hurt especially among the vast crowd that had gathered to cheer the troops. I appreciate that their actions, which were quite deliberately inflammatory, have left many people saying that they should have been stopped, silenced, arrested or even lynched. However, and here is the rub, we live in a free society where our rights to express our feelings are protected even if those views may be offensive to some or indeed many. It is important that we maintain this fundamental right, Nu Labour have already gone way to far to curb our freedom, we don’t need to give them any more rope to hang us. Under this government we now need permission from the police to hold peaceful demonstrations within a fixed radius of parliament, it would not take much for G Brown to extend that restriction to the whole country, and there lies disaster.

We, as reasonable peaceful Britons have to defend the right of these people to demonstrate, in fact if they had been demonstrating about the Iraq war outside parliament or number 10 I would have most likely joined them, but equally they have to accept that we all think they are a bunch of putrid horses asses, and it is my right as a free (but angry) man to say so.  

Posted in Religion, Society | Print | No Comments »

12/03/2009 by The Daily Male.

You may ask what gives me the right to pontificate about this, well, I have over 22 years and an IT professional and have worked with data and database in many industries and for many clients. I understand Data and Data Security in a way that makes most people want to kill themselves. The ID card system as defined by the government is flawed in so many ways but they spin the truth and lie about the benefits to try to deceive the public about the benefits of the system. In this article I hope I can explain in “Non techy” terms why the ID card scheme must be stopped.

Note: these are my thoughts alone and do not reflect any views or opinions of the no2id campaign group.

10. It won’t stop terrorism. Honestly, how could it, home grown terrorists will have legitimate ID cards and I am sure when they apply for one they will not state that their ambition is “… to bring down the state and install sharia law through random acts of mindless violence”. Foreign terrorists will not need an ID card so it can not help there.

9. It won’t stop organised crime. In fact the ID card will be just another tool of the trade of organised criminals. They will target ways to get their hands on ID cards or create fake ones in order to make money and continue their criminal activities.

8. It won’t stop ID theft. Far from it, in fact it may make things worse. If a criminal can duplicate your ID and falsify the electronic details they will have a piece of id that will make them unchallengingly you. You may argue that this is impossible because your details are also stored on a central register but as the system will hardly ever challenge the central data and will generally just check your identity against the data held on the card they will be able to fake your identity with more certainty.

7. It is not secure Part I. The government talks a lot about data security (at the same times as they lose millions of records of our private data) without actually explaining what that actually means. Let me try to explain, without sending you to sleep, why the system is insecure. Your most private and sensitive data will be copied from the secure central database onto a small plastic data chip card. The data on this card will be encrypted using a single key system, similar to the way your data is stored on a chip and pin card.  As you may or may not know the chip and pin algorithm has been cracked and because all the cards use the same algorithm that once you have cracked it once the  data on ALL the cards is accessible. The same will be true of ID cards, the criminal fraternity will be working overtime to crack the algorithm, once it is done the whole ID card system is compromised, the only solution is to re encrypt all the cards or re issue new cards, but any old cards will be compromised and there will be millions of them, how do you ensure these old cards are destroyed? and more importantly who is going to pay to issue all these new cards and dispose of the old ones? yes, you guessed it, us. And if you think it is impossible to break these codes then read on and I will explain how it can be done.

6 It is not secure Part II. So how do you crack a secure encryption system? well there are many ways, but the most important starting point is to have an example of encrypted data, well that is easy as there will be millions of them out there, the ID card itself. Next it would help if you have access to some device that decrypts the data, a sort of enigma machine if you will. Well again there will be thousands of them, the ID card readers. The first chip and pin decryption scams were achieved by modifying the hand held chip and pin readers. The next thing that would help would be “an inside man”. This may seem a bit far fetched but remember all these ID card readers will have to be manufactured by outside agencies and will almost certainly be made in China. There will be a lot of people in the manufacturing chain that will have access to the encryption algorithm data, I wonder how much it would cost to bribe or extort the data from a Chinese manufacturer. And remember, because this is a single key system (ie each card uses the same key to decrypt it) once one cards system is cracked, all cards are accessible. Even without the inside man it is likely the system will be cracked in a few years maybe only a few months, ask Sky TV how often they have to issue new viewing cards because hackers have broken the encryption systems.

5. It costs so much, maybe as much as 15 billion to create and maintain the system. Let me write that out in full to make it clear £15,000,000,000.00 . And if you lose your card you will HAVE to buy another at a cost of £40 or more. and if you move house you will have to tell the ID register and have a new card issued, more cost. Get married or change name, new card, more cost. Fail to do so will be a criminal offence with a hefty fine.

4. It isn’t voluntary. Oh yes it is, I hear you cry, OH NO IT ISN’T I reply in true pantomime style. The government say it is voluntary but in truth other, non ID card laws, are being created to give the police the right to demand to see your ID at any time thus enforcing compulsion via the back door.

3. It won’t stop benefit fraud. No, not even this, most benefit fraudsters do not lie about their identity but instead lie about their circumstances, how many kids they have, if they are working, if they are disabled, none of this will be stopped with the ID card.

2. It breaches every single rule of good Data Protection. You never, ever, ever, and I can not stress this enough, ever allow data to be copied from a secure central database onto a removable data store (be it card, cd, chip stick etc) unless you absolutely have to. Once data had be removed from the central store it is no longer secure, even if it is encrypted. When the data is still in the central database, you can control it, see who is accessing it, check that it is still accurate. Once the data is removed it is lost, you can  not know who has it, what it says and what it is being used for. It is no coincidence that ALL the embarrassing data loses that the government have committed over the years have ALL happened because data was taken from a secure central database and placed on a removable media. So what do the government propose to do, send out this data on millions of plastic chip cards, unbelievable!

And the big number 1, THE CARD IS THE WEAK LINK. Why have a card with a copy of my thumb print or retina scan on it when I pretty much always have my thumb and eye with me at all times. If the police want to check my ID then they can scan my thumb print, send the data to the central data along with my name and the central system can confirm my identity, simple, no need for any sensitive data to have ever left the database, WHAT IS THE BLOODY POINT OF THE ID CARD AND ALL THOSE OFFLINE READER MACHINES? Having a central database of all my data is bad enough and totally unnecessary in my opinion, but to then send all that data out via the post is like setting off a huge data bomb, it is utterly and totally moronic and doomed to failure.

Posted in Privicy, Technology, ID Cards, Society, Law & Disorder | Print | 1 Comment »

10/03/2009 by The Daily Male.

I was enjoying a nice Saturday morning last weekend and my enjoyment of The Saturday Kitchen was rudely disturbed by Jehovah’s Witneses. Let me tell you I was quite proud that I managed set a new speed record in door slamming, I estimate that the time it took me to open the door, see the two gullible JWs standing there and then slam the door in their face to be under two seconds, Guinness are you reading this?

But I have to say I was left feeling very very irritated, I know it is no great loss to miss James Martin preaching the delights of making a top quality spotted dick but I still felt violated. It is probably fair to inform you that I am a devout and often evangelical atheists and most people of religion annoy me, but in most cases I am able to avoid the indoctrinated classes but simply not going to any religious gatherings. I may occasionally go to the odd wedding or christening but on the whole I do what I can to avoid them. So why is it I have to put up with these nutters (IMHO) knocking on my door and trying to peddle their twisted ideas, I do not go round there house and evangelise about my private little imaginary friends or fantasies, to be honest if I did I believe I would be arrested, so why are they free to bother me?

 I need to to find a nice little brass plaque that I can stick by my letter box that reads;

“No Circulars”
“No Solicitors”
“No Sad, Indoctrinated, Myth Worshiping, Smug, Self Rightious, Simpletons”

Trouble is I don’t think my door is wide enough.

Posted in Religion, Society | Print | 1 Comment »

06/03/2009 by The Daily Male.

Today I tried to get tickets for the vFestival concert. I logged on to the various web sites with tickets but by the time I was able to get a connection the event has sold out. Over 100,000 tickets gone in under 2 hours. You would think this is a good thing, all these people buying tickets for a live music event, but the truth is most of these tickets are sold to touts and profiteers who have no intention of going to the venue but will instead re-sell the tickets at over inflated prices to the genuine music fans. This is all made possible by EBAY, within seconds of the sell out EBAY was flooded with sales of vFestival tickets. Are we to believe that all these people have suddenly found out they can’t go seconds after buying the ticket, of course not. They are all touts and EBAY is allowing these parasites to line their pockets with money from genuine music lovers who should be given the opportunity to buy the tickets directly.

I generally like EBAY but when it comes to ticket sales they are taking away the right of people to attend these venues and are acting as agents to an immoral trade. All they would have to do is make it a rule of EBAY that tickets can only be sold at face value and with limited postage costs then the touts would give up bulk buying concert tickets. 

I think EBAY is too busy making profit to care about the people it is exploiting. 

Posted in Society, EBAY | Print | 1 Comment »