Vista's a stinka

I own two (legit!) copies of Windows Vista. One I bought shortly after the launch, because I needed to ensure that people could use my partitioning program, Partition Logic, without destroying their computers [a-ok]. I installed that one 'within' my Linux machine using the VmWare emulator. Being generally unimpressed, I eventually deleted it.

Then another copy of Vista arrived through the post, as promised, a free 'upgrade' for my new laptop. I stashed that in a drawer somewhere, and haven't given the sparkly new Windows product much thought since then.

Until last night, that is, when I had to try and use the Vista that's installed on Kim's work laptop. She has complained bitterly about it, and asked the IT guy at work to install XP. In the meantime, someone had turned off DHCP in her Vista network settings, and I wanted to re-enable it so she could connect to our home network.

I'm a computer geek, and I seriously got lost trying to find that one magical dialog box with a 'use DHCP' checkbox. I went through layer upon layer, cycling back around to where I started at least a couple of times. Some dialogs showed the setting I was interested in, but wouldn't let me change anything. I had to click through at least a dozen security warnings. Eventually, I stumbled my way through the maze and made the change, but I couldn't tell you how I found it. If I had to do it again tonight, I'd probably end up chasing my tail once again.

That's just shoddy. Listen, XP is fine, right? I mean, if you have to use Windows... Microsoft has promised another new operating system in a few years, so why not wait and see whether it's an actual improvement? In the meantime, if you wanted to try something new, you could always try Linux, or get a Mac.

Losing our information ctd.

As usual, El Reg is on top of the 'data gathering in the UK' theme, inspired by this week's news that HMRC has lost sensitive information about millions of Britons:

UK Identity Crisis: Her Majesty's Customs and Revenue have demonstrated how important it is to keep track of all your important data.

So, inspired by their example, we've put all our stories on this week's data debacle in one secure location. Enjoy...

And here's the link.

Losing our information

Personal details of every child in UK lost by Revenue & Customs:

The personal details of virtually every child in the UK has been lost by HM Revenue and Customs, the chancellor, Alistair Darling, admitted today.

The missing information includes the names, addresses and dates-of-birth of the children and the national insurance numbers, and in some cases the bank details, of parents claiming child benefits.

This, quite simply, is one of the big practical reasons why the government shouldn't be relentlessly collecting information about us. If the government, or a company for that matter, creates databases with huge amounts of private and personally-identifiable information, then at some point that information will escape. Someone will lose a laptop, or backup tapes, or fail to erase a discarded hard disk properly, and voila! -- the bad guys have got it. Not to mention that hackers get into every system eventually, given sufficient motivation. When the politician says "but this system will be totally secure" he's either lying, or else foolishly believed the vendor who lied to him.

I refuse to give out personal information whenever possible; whether to the government or companies. The only way I can ever be sure that the British government won't leak my DNA profile to profiteers and villains, is to never give them a sample. So that's what I'll do. Can you imagine the implications of future identity theft, involving your DNA signature? When someone cloned my bank card, I got a new card. If someone steals your DNA, it's stolen for life.

I repeat, don't trust governments and companies with sensitive information. I bet the parents of "virtually every child in the UK" will come to wish they hadn't.

Which brings me to all the information, besides DNA samples, that the British government collects on us without our consent. They're keeping information about our movements, the physical location of our mobile phones, and all our phone calls, among other things. That information will leak too (though we may never know it leaked). It's only a matter of time.

Political correctness, hate speech ctd.

Here's a testimonial from the television show in question, "Undercover Mosque":

So what was the police's intervention about? Why did the police and the CPS feel entitled to act as television critics and, in effect, as potential censors of what we could watch? Clues to the motive, I think, lie in the slightly sinister phrase "community cohesion".

Once again, let's get the police out of the business of television censorship and hate speech and community cohesion. Let's get them out on the streets, getting to know people, and policing. I spend a fair bit of time in front of my house; smoking cigars, working on the motorcycles, etc. In the 4 years I've lived at my current address, I don't recall ever seeing a regular policeman walk down my street. I've seen volunteer policepeople a handful of times. I see police vehicles drive past occasionally, but not often. One van full of volunteer policepeople, passing by, stopped to hassle me at length about pushing a motorcycle down to the garage without wearing a helmet.

Can just I say how impressed I'd be if bobbies occasionally strolled down my street, perhaps once per week, said hello, and asked me what's going on?

I'm not against the police, not at all. We need them. I just think they need to readjust their priorities.

Political correctness, hate speech

The police here are being bashed for trying to prosecute some TV producers (and, when that failed, trying to get them "watchdogged"):

Channel 4 has been vindicated by the media watchdog Ofcom after police complained about an investigative programme that exposed extremism in British mosques.

West Midland's police had faced criticism for targeting the producers of the show rather than the controversial preachers depicted in it.

Police claimed that the Dispatches programme had misrepresented the views of Muslim preachers and clerics with misleading editing.

Following today's ruling, the Channel 4 called the police's actions "perverse" and said they had, in some people's eyes, given "legitimacy to people preaching a message of hate".

Can I ask: What are the police doing enforcing political correctness? Why did they feel they needed to get involved one way or another? See, this is what happens when you muddy the free-speech waters with "hate speech" laws. A television show airs undercover footage of nasty things being preached in mosques (read the article for more detail). You then end up with police trying to 'target' the producers for making the preachers look bad, and thereby for the offence of "stirring up racial hatred" against Muslims. So, not the nasty preachers, but the TV producers who tried to expose them. Is all that clear? Furthermore, what would happen if a Christian preacher was filmed giving a sermon filled with blatant hatemongering against Jews and homosexuals? You can bet the police would be going after the preacher.

How about this: The police should get out of the business of enforcing political correctness and perhaps spend a little more time solving actual property crimes, for example, like burglary and vehicle theft. My neighbour had his bicycle shop broken into, and merchandise stolen; the police didn't even show up. He had to go down to the station and fill out some paperwork, and that was the end of it, as far as he knows. There isn't even a presumption that the cops will bother with an actual investigation, and that's just sad.

Perhaps the police should forget about all their surveillance technology, and all this thoughtcrime nonsense, and get back to the old fashioned business of police work. You know, walk the beat. Know the people in the neighbourhood, and by extension, what's going on in the neighborhood. Show up when a crime is committed. That sort of thing.

Oh, is that so?

Bush to the president of Pakistan:

"You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time," Bush said, describing a telephone call with Musharraf. "I had a very frank discussion with him."

Good point, Mr. commander-in-chief.

Good for the goose

Well, I guess everyone gets to waterboard everyone now. The US seems to have deemed it an acceptable practice, even when the victims are American:

The top legal adviser within the US state department, who counsels the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, on international law, has declined to rule out the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding even if it were applied by foreign intelligence services on US citizens. John Bellinger refused to denounce the technique, which has been condemned by human rights groups as a form of torture, during a debate on the Bush administration's stance on international law held by Guardian America

Strange, given that the US operated and participated in the trials and executions of Nazis for using such techniques. How about we make this simple, and all just go back to not torturing, hmm?