Alternate Seat of TYR

This should be the biggest story in the UK; you know the Government just explicitly took powers to give the congestion charge ANPR camera data to the Americans, or actually any other state outside the European Economic Area? And what does Boris Johnson plan to do about that?
I can’t help but think, however, that this [...]

You may be wondering why this blog missed a week; the answer is, of course, a repeat of my 2006 candidacy for mayor of Aspen Runnymede Borough Council. As in 2006, I shocked the local Liberal party with the radical option of actually going and knocking on doors; as then, I achieved absolutely nothing. Both [...]

Let me count the ways.
If you think Phorm - the evil advert-spooking system practically all the UK’s eyeball ISPs want to force on you - isn’t so bad, I’ve got news for you. First of all, let’s have a look at this Grauniad Tech article.
BT’s 2006 trials certainly involved some sort of interception, because the [...]

Genius. Not only can the Chaos Computer Club tell you how to fool a fingerprint reader, but they’ve got Wolfgang Schauble’s dabs.

This is interesting. Jim Bates, an expert witness for the defence in some of the Operation Ore cases we discussed, has been accused of misrepresenting his qualifications. Specifically, the charges relate to whether or not he claimed to be an electronics engineer, despite not being one, and to his career in the Royal Air Force. [...]

ACPO is no longer tolerable as an organisation. It’s a freefloating lobby for ever-greater authoritarianism. Seriously.
Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some [...]

Via comp.risks, across the wire the electric message came: German students crack encryption on over 2bn RFID smartcards made by NXP Semiconductor. The cards in question are NXP’s MiFare Classic type, and are used for public transport….but also for access control in sensitive government installations, it turns out. Inevitably, NXP threw up its hands - [...]

Much more is filtering out about the Bangkok Bout Bust; it seems fairly certain that his arrest was the result of a sting operation in which the DEA posed as buyers from the FARC. Bout booked a meeting room in the Bangkok Sofitel; he, and several others, were waiting for their guests to arrive when [...]

I keep noticing a new face in the game; Vertir Airlines, of Armenia, founded last year has been flying routes from the UAE into Afghanistan. Not much information has been available, but we know a few things; the only known aircraft, Antonov An-12 EK-12221, serial 7345201, is the old ER-AXE, which flew for the now-banned [...]

So, the Obscurer snagged an interview with Gordon Brown. And what did he have to say? Well, he spoke of identity cards. And the news is not good at all. It seems that Brown is ill-informed about his own proposals (something which we have seen already from past ministers), is still committed to the most [...]