Should know better

I just got a note from Universtity chum Dickie who claims that at least some biometric readers should work. Dickie, you're a cybernetics grad and should know better. Would you really trust any reader to be 100% accurate? That's not the point anyway. Even if we can build a good biometric device, it remains insecure. It may be able to recognise you every time, but there is always the chance that it will be compromised. The people stiffed by the Shell chip and pin scam will now have to change their pins because they have been stolen. It's a pain in the arse, but it can be done. What if they had to change their fingerprints?

There's been a story running in the British press for a few days about a hacker, Gary McKinnon from London, who got caught accessing machines beonging to NASA and other American government organisations. He's not a very good hacker. Over and above the fact that he managed to get himself caught, he wasn't employing any great skill to access these machines. He was just using a simple script to find insecure machines and then have a root around them. He got caught when someone noticed that a Windows PC appeared to be possessed because he was controlling it remotely. I told you he wasn't that smart.

McKinnon's main crime would appeasr to be that he has embarrassed some military organisations that really should have known better than to leave insecure machines lying around on a public network. They want him extradited. There is also some talk of damage to machines or data. McKinnon of course does not want to be extradited, and who can blame him. His defence is based upon the idea that, although he knew he was doing something wrong, it was honourable because he was researching surpressed technologies. Yes, he's claiming that the American government is keeping evidence of alien technology on insecure computers. This could either be a very clever defence with which he hopes to fool the authorities into thinking he's a UFO nutter not worth bothering with, or he really is as dumb as he sounds. Based on his hacking technique, I think my money is on the latter.

I dont think this defence stands a hope in hell actually, because he has to admit the hacking offences to make it work. He also apparently has zero evidence of the UFO technology he uncovered.

There is more hype in the press today about sex trafficing. Apparently UK police have "rescued" 19 women across Britain in raids on brothels. This story seems to sugegst that women are being smuggled into the country by ruthless gangs, and being made to work as prostitutes. I've said before that I don't believe it. It's possible that women are being smuggled into this country and being offered work in the sex industry. But you can't easily force anyone into it! You can't stop women walking out of the door, going to the police, climbing out of the lavatory window, or asking their clients for help if they are being kept captive. It's ridiculous to suggest you can. These women are willing participants, whatever they tell the police when they are "rescued". Why am I the only one who can see this?

Brittany Spears is pregnant again. Someone ought to tell her what's causing it.

Ruth Kelly was appointed Community and Local Government Secretary just a few days ago by Tony Blair. This was slightly controversial since she doesn't have a great record as eduction secretary, and her new role is really taking over from Prescott who was all but sacked from the post. Now I don't know what "Community and Local Government Secretary" really means, but it seems to have something to do with anti discrimination policy, at least partly. This is an issue since Ms Kelly is a devout Catholic apparently. She has a habit of avoiding votes on issues such as age of consent, civil partnerships, and gay adoption. Yesterday she refused to discuss whether she thought homosexuality was a sin. People are now suggesting that we have a minister who's personal views differ significantly from those of her department.