the Queens blab

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

anyone intrested in it?

32 points raised, ID cards etc, I though tthis was a democracy?

Tbh i reckon if this is the way we are going we would have been as well letting Hitler win!

Does anyone else view this as an infringment on our civil liberties?

The only free country left is america!

Mr Quoter-vator Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 7405

i havent the foggiest what your on about.....but i prolly wouldnt have much to say anyway...not very opinionated im not.

Site Subscriber Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 1575

is it me? but funny how in the papers today they announced that a 9/11 style attack has been thwarted, coincedence that there is a queens speech today and id cards would be part of it!

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

yeah I know.

Its been thwarted but no one knows when exactly. But apprently it was in the last 3 years. Not that any passengers would have not gone to the papers etc! I'm sure they all promised to keep quiet...

Forum Moderator Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 1356

They claimed to have thwarted an attack on a 700ft+ tower in Canary Wharf, but they would have stopped it before any turbin heads got on any planes. They will have found plans etc.

ID cards - Â£3Billion waste of money, as no proof has been given that these will actually stop terrorism or illegal immigrants. Where as the same amount of money would allow for around 10,000 more police officers. Bobbies on the street or a plastic card in your wallet? Hmmmmmm

Plus WE have to pay for the cards, when you go to renew your passport instead of Â£40 itâ€™ll be nearer Â£100 to cover the price of the biometric cards.

Then there is the stamp down on drugs, if you have any in your blood stream that is a criminal offence (whereas before you had to be in possession of them)â€¦. Iâ€™d like to see how they plan to enforce this one, stand outside clubs and peoples houses and ram needles in them? Dinnae think so, maybe if they stopped the Biometric cards and spent the money on police but its not. Maybe these little cards are clever and can report back to the government when you pop an pill for a night outâ€¦.. or maybe not.

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

basically I think its there to screw the people with a record further and thats what will happen.

Its to easy to get drugs in your system, walk down the street and people smoke dope etc.

We need more bobbies on the street to crack the wee neds heads open when they throw bricks at fire engines etc.

Forum Moderator Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 1356

Aye, when you sit and mine and I'm smoking even though I open the window (kind hearted you see) you'll still have trace THC in your system... its a rediculous state of afairs. If they thought the courts were busy now....

Site Subscriber Joined: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 4722

id cards sounds like a load of bollocks to me, i have driving licence, have army ID, have passport..why do i need to get another one? if thay wont belive its me after showing em all that, thay need a diffrent job

Level 6 User Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 150

ID cards are no biggie, we get them at the age of 16 Smile

however I have got problems with biometric stuff in there.

as for America, ever since the Patriot Act was done on behalf of 9/11, all sorts of official agencies can search your house, arrest you and do other stuff to you on the grounds of very vague reasons. nothing free there anymore Sad

Level 6 User Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 155

Oh god blunkett is such a total gimboid Razz

I mean, when has he ever actually done a good job as a politician?! Not being rude to blind people or anything, but I do often wonder if the only reason hes still in the cabinet is cause of people feeling sorry for him - remember what a brilliant job he did as education minister. It was the same old stuff - he would come up with a bunch of crazy utopian schemes to solve everything, he would spend billions of everyone elses money on them and end up with ferk all to show for it apart from an angry mob baying for his blood. In the end the teachers all had enough of him and locked him in a cupboard at a conference I seem to remember. I think they might have had the right idea.

Anyway all this biometric stuff is a pile of old arse technically. No one has found a totally reliable form of biometrically id'ing someone - all the different ways can be fooled, and its often slightly unorthodox methods that can defeat them the best. I don't think even Tony Blur is mad enough to actually consider spending gazillions on manufacturing and distributing ID cards unless he can be pretty damn sure they will work, and you won't be able to fiddle them with a roll of gaffer tape, a small soldering iron and some ingenuity (or something similar). I reckon he's just telling old Blunky that everything is going ahead, but planning to drag it out as long as possible (which for a politician means more or less indefinately) - all these dates for the cards to come in are balls. I mean, we might get 'a card' but it will just be another driving license type thingy, with very minimal if any (and unreliable) biometric addons - and I very much doubt you won't even have to carry it with you at all times or anything. It would cause utter chaos if that were true, and what are they going to do if you don't have one on you? Fine you? Imprison you?! Have you killed by a firing squad? What about all the old people who forget what day of the week it is - are they supposed to remember this card thingy every time they go out? Its all a bit "1984" to actually become reality - if they just fine you or whatever then criminals will just not give a shite. In fact they will probably just forge the things; if they can forge Â£50 notes so good that you need an expert from the BoE to spot them, then you can be damn sure as anything that they will be generating fake ID cards worth potentially thousands to crims and illegal immigrants.

The other important point to note is that none of us should actually need ID cards if all blunketts ravings about biometrics were true. You would simply have a record of everyones retinal scan, or facial blood vessel scan or ferking anal probe results or whatever on a central computer. They are planning this to go with the ID cards, but what the hell will we need ID cards for with this?! If we are all going 'biometric bonkers' then we won't need anything apart from our bodies, and I tend to carry that with me everywhere anyway Wink

- of course, the real reason is that no-one in government has ever been able to get a computer system up and running properly that is even a tenth of the complexity and size of the the biomtetric system required, and thats just the 'easy' database side of it - not taking account of the biometric specific problems - so they are arse covering before the event. It will be many many many years before we have got anything approaching the retinal scan thingys in the movie Minority Report in every single place we go and require ID, and as the film points out, by that bloody stage, we will be able to circumvent the biometric scans anyway (even if that does mean new eyeballs).

So to sumarise, biometric ID cards are fundamentally pointless - you carry your biometric info with you at all times, apart from out of body experices - the biometrics we have are unreliable and easy to fool (or will be by the time the ID cards come out), the cost is frankly ridiculous to get everyones biometric information stored on the central computer system that would be required - virtually no-one (not even the police) would be able to afford the expense of having enough biometric readers to scan you and compare to the database to make relying on biometrics totally a sensible proposition for years (so forget using your eyeball to pay for your shopping in the supermarket) - and the goverment in any case would be incapable of developing the computer system required and keeping it running reliably enough to be of any use.

Which all kind of defeats the point Smile

But you already knew that. Now if we could just make the government realise... Wink

Anyway rant over now - just my two cents worth. Well, more like my $10 worth but anyway Very Happy

- the whole thing is just so ridiculous!

Cheers
Alex

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

lol good man Alex!

This counry gets my back up as well.

Forum Moderator Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 1356

I find it funny that if you are approached and asked for your ID card and don't have it your are going to be given two weeks to hand it into your local police station.... lmfao. Lotta good thats gonna do, all they need to do is run away or hide. The whole thing is pointless.

Level 8 User Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 278

I haven't heard the speech however...

This is how I think it will happen:

Firstly, I am sure it will happen.

A single card will be used to store all your personal details, drivers license, passport, national insurance, credit cards, any access control cards you carry, it will possibly even act as a key card for your phone/PDA or computer. Even your benefits book or whatever they use nowadays.
It will be your passport to life, you won't be able to buy or sell or even gain access to certain areas (banks?) without carrying this card.

You will remember to bring this as it will become very difficult to do anything without it.

People are suckers for the media, they also like convenience, either as they are lazy or too busy to spend time doing whatever it is the long way.

You will be convinced by the media, by however means, (threat of terrorism is a favourite) to accept this for your own good. If you do not - Have you something to hide? Are you one of the terrorists? etc.

Pressure to accept from media, peers, etc.

Cashless society, everything traceable.

Then when people have accepted this way of life, they don't want to be bothered carrying a card around and all the hassle of replacement when it gets lost or stolen.
Solution - Embedded the chip into the human body, why not?

You won't forget to bring your head or hand with you.
Unlimited power source for the chip.
Secure form the governments point of view.
Less hassle for the authorities.
Less hassle for you... if you stay on the right side of any law they choose to lay down.
See the so called, 'Patriot act' for examples of how you can be searched without reason, held indefinitely without a trial, have your property broken into and anything confiscated (including yourself!) and be unable to tell anyone about it.
If you go against this You are will them, you are helping the terrorist' etc.

This is just an interim step.

Level 6 User Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 155

The problem is if you start using chips n computers embedded in people, aside from the fact that I don't suppose many would fancy the idea of being electronically tagged like burglars are now, you have the problems of:
a) If its a computer chip it can and will be faked/copied by a criminal if they are sophisticated enough.
b) If the criminal is not that sophisticated, they will most likely start chopping bits off you to get at the chip.

You want something that cannot ever be copied or removed from a person and remain intact ie. you want a biometric. For example, if you used eyes, then you could build into the reader a check for bloodflow etc. to make sure that someone hadn't just yanked someones eyeball out and was carrying it round in their pocket. Also, biological matter obviously decomposes, and some changes occur within hours, so if you could check for that, you would be fairly safe against 'hack and grab' criminals.

As I said before, this is why the biometric ID card is an oxymoron - if you have a biometric security system, you don't need to carry any ID around with you - you are your own ID Smile

I suspect as with all government projects this one will be either dragged out indefinately, scrapped when there is a political change, or will be so horrendously implemented (think every government IT system) that it will be binned. Call me suspicious but I think someone is trying to get rid of Blunkett at the moment with this whole fastracking-of-thy-tarts-nanny saga that has appeared this last week, and I wouldn't be suprised if some bright spin doctor has realised that the biometric ID card is a crock of shit and is trying to get rid of him from the inside.

Cheers
Alex

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

retina scans cannot be foold as it is with an eyeball plucked from someones head, they eyes moves quite a lot so theres only a specific window of oppertunity for the scanner to accept the eye.

if they start chipping people then all you need to do is wrap tinfoil arounn the appendage. It stops any signals going out. Tinfoil is also excellent for stopping car ECU interference.

Anyway I don't like it, rather die than become part of the machine so to speak. If i want to pack up and go to inbdol china then I should damn well be able to.