Posts by Dave

The battleground of OSS

This is something I wish it were possible to get entusiastic about because the thruth is there is a HUGE oppertunity for the open source and open standards community to provide the best solution.

Open standards are particularly attractive because it would mean that each force could keep whatever weird and wonderful way of doing things and still be able, through agreed export formats, to communicate and share information with every other force.

But it'll never happen. In the public sector there just isn't the expertise. Its too easy to go with the Microsoft option. Ironically this then becomes more of a millstone because being a public body the hardware on the desktop is kept alive as long as it possibly can be even while m$ pushes out patch after patch to bloat the os and slow it down.

Add to that the version of office being used is either out of support or the new version that is crippled by the now out of date by 5 years machines its installed on.

Lightweight, free, customisable software that will run quickly on legacy hardware is exactly what the doctor ordered.

strict liability *shudder*

A law that the police wont understand, a file sent to a CPS who wont understand it, to be decided on by a Director who wont understand it, arraigned before a judge who wont understand it and tried by a jury who will think "pervert" and convict on sight.

No wonder it has to be an offence of strict liability!

Which for me is more sinister than all the CCTV and databases in the world. Strict liability seems to be an increasingly common short cut for the government (and I haven't been paying attention to see if the Tories did it as well) to pass broad sweeping and poorly thought out legislation.

As for streaming/possession my interpretation would be that while the stream was being viewed the viewer is possessing it, even as pixels on their screen. But then you're talking about viewing and possessing being the same res gestae - "two bites of the cherry" which unless the burden of proof is different, i.e. viewing for the purpose of gratification versus the strict liability of possession its a bit moot.

If the law was such that the CPS had to prove an INTENT to produce the images for the purposes of sexual gratification then that would make sure it was used only in the most severe and appropriate cases and would, in one simple step, protect those who are genuine artists.

Big shopkeeper is watching

You know the VAST majority of CCTV cameras aren't run by "the authorities" but are privately bought and run by businesses, shops mostly. Your local westfield shopping centre has more camera than your local council. And that doesn't count the cameras installed in each shop by the tenants. And don't even start me on petrol stations, with their numberplate readers!

Boycott these shops who have no right to treat YOU like a criminal who is going to steal things?

Mr Ozimek - I'd be genuinely interested in seeing some statistics on the % of CCTV that is police run, since it seems to be your specialist subject - fancy it?

"The Rozzers should not be dictating what laws and rules they want, nobody elected them, they don't answer to the public"

I'll refrain from just calling you stupid for that argument and just say you're just ignorant of both the law and local government. Do a bit of googling and take a look at licensing regulations and police authorities. If you don't agree with how the police are run in your area what are you constructively doing about it?

UK ahead of the game... for a change

Grooming is already illegal under UK law and has been since 2004. In answer to Adam's question the grooming is proved usually by the lengthy chat logs with stuff like "I can't wait till we meet so I can spend the night with you" etc. to prove the intent. The definition of grooming is in fact very broad in legislation, as it should be (I disagree with the AC here) to cover chat rooms, msn, txt, second life, forums, VoIP, whatever. It isn't talking to children through whatever medium that is the offence, its the relevant INTENT, which is pretty much a cornerstone of UK law. And its for the prosecution to prove that intent, a difficult thing to do so hopefully ensuring only the clearest and worst cases make it to court and not everyone who's ever made a smutty remark to a 15 year old.

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A person aged 18 or over (A) commits an offence if having met or communicated with another person (B) on at least two earlier occasions, he intentionally meets B, or travels with the intention of meeting B in any part of the world,at the time, he intends to do anything to or in respect of B, during or after the meeting and in any part of the world, which if done will involve the commission by A of a relevant offence and B is under 16, and A does not reasonably believe that B is 16 or over.

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Like all management, woefully ignorant

Clearly noticing that Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie is in fact a WOMAN is a bit of detective work some of those posting comments aren't even capable of.

An alternative proposal: A single stand alone (write once only?) certifiable drive cloning device.

So police arrives, takes the hard disk from each of your computers and clones it byte for byte onto a drive or any sort of media that can be exhibited.

Of course you still have the remote storage problem if your illegal booty is on "the cloud" but at least there might be cache files if the miscreant isn't all that clever. And lets face it, if they were then the police wouldn't be at their house to begin with.

The problem with a copy as an exhibit is that it will need either a change in the law or at the very least clear and agreed guidelines for the judiciary so that the information obtained from then can be accepted as being of the same quality as the original. There are issues with privacy as well, but eh problems associated with retention and exclusion of legally priviledged material are not insurmountable, and certainly not new.

It certainly does take some steps to reduce the intrusiveness and disruption to a suspects life an business. So while police can say that at this date and time these computers contained this information the suspect can carry on without being without what might be vital equipment. The alternative is the PCs sitting in a storage facility till the case comes to trial, and beyond. And if you consider an employee of a company being the suspect and not the company itself you can imagine the implications for the business.

The issues with long analysis times are not unique to PC examination. Analysis of DNA from apparent blood let alone low copy number can take a significant time, even fingerprint analysis is not quick. But as with everything, capability will be dependant on demand. As the requirement grows and becomes perhaps a viable market for private providers then it'll get better.

But in a climate where fraud is not given significant resources or attention from the government and media its only to be expected that those given the training and equipment, both of which are very expensive, within any force will be limited.

And don't forget investigating this sort of crime is complex and costly. Now from the police's point of view that doesn't matter they have a duty to carry on but most financial institutions recognise the time and cost involved in obtaining sufficient evidence for a reasonable chance at getting a conviction is often much higher than the cost of the fraud itself so they don't bother. Policing is a resource limited by statute so at some point the decision comes down to: Do we apply resources to finding the murder or the scammer who got away with money from a bank who aren't interested in trying to get it back?

Dragons poop

Wasn't this on Dragon' den and laughed out of the place as a daft idea?

pass the parcel?

"A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service told the Register: "We have given our advice to the police on this and are not prepared to discuss what that advice is."

No I think you'll find its the CPS that decides whether or not to prosecute people. The clue is in the name.

whoever mislaid it SHOULD have taken more care and MAY have been criminally negligent. Isn't it amazing that even when the authorities do something right and refer the matter to the courts some people still see conspiracy.

@ billyghoti

Update the map with that, thats the only sighting in Norn Iron so far

@Gulfie

Someone's already replied about criminal intent and mens rea so I won't go into that but

"How is monitoring and profiling internet usage any different, say, to opening and analysing all the post send to the people concerned? Or recording their phone calls? Or tracking their cars?"

You're exactly right, it isn't. However before someone mentions it I will point out that The European convention of Human Rights doesn't apply to private companys. Its there to protect us from our government but not from each other.

I cba to look but it may well be that the law governing interception of communications says something its illegal to do it "with intent to.... " something. Which they didn't

Basically that extract is a more complicated way of the police saying its a civil matter (breach of contract) so take it up with BT yourself.

And what's your point?

"Surely the system just needs better Social Services links to the Police and Medical Systems to avoid another Victoria Climbié. "

Put aside the article's bias and isn't this exactly what this is?

@ jeremy

No I got that just fine, but I'll reiterate that that law is not applicable and what the plod is probably trying to do is convince you to delete the picture without doing anything more. If the article was about a new law banning photographs of the police that'd be news, but its not, its a couple of isolated examples, one of which isn't even reported correctly and some very ropey statistics.

"Delete that picture of my police car parked on yellow lines outside the chippy, it is illegal under anti-terrorism legislation"

"No, it is evidence of an offence which I intend to report"

"I'll seize your camera then"

"Okay, I'd like a receipt with the reason and legislation its being seized under, your name number and station and the address of who I can write to to get it back"

If the pictures are evidence of your "offence" then they're in no danger of being deleted.

Can you explain your actions as being lawful? Yes.

Can the police officer inconvenience you while you do it? Yes.

But then, if you care THAT much about "catching them out" you shouldn't mind, should you?

If on the other hand you're doing it to be smart like W above why should you complain if you have no reasonable excuse and you have to explain yourself... in a police station?

@ NT thank you for your very sensible comments. I agree there are privacy problems at the moment. There are lots of where photographers' activities might arouse the interest of the police. For example if there was someone outside your childrens school playground snapping away wouldn't you want to know why?

Whats the point

of cathcing them breaking school rules when if you try to enforce them you end up in the high court because expulsion is discriminating and interfereing with their rights.

We're using technology instead of asking the question, why do youg people no longer respect the authority of the teachers, or anyone else?

Why reinvent the wheel

"Automatic Numberplate Recognition (ANPR), used in most current traffic-control systems - for instance the London Congestion Charge zone - is easily beaten by the use of false plates carrying someone else's number*."

.

So if its so terrible why is it used by everyone else with automated toll roads?

AFAIK the Irish system is a badge displayed in the window that you "top up" on a website or in shops like a phone card, read at the toll booth as you exit the toll road. So even if you cloned it you'd have to rely on the cloned person keeping paying and not noticing you using up their credits.

Does anyone have a reference for "routine" use of congestion zone data by the police? I wasn't aware that was the case.

Full disclosure

At the very least you it would be reasonable for this report to say "X was accused of being naughty. A Police investigation was carried out and found no evidence of any offence"

And since we're all about the full disclosure, shouldn't it include the particulars of the person making the accusation?

Seems all you have to do to make policy is a headline in the tabloids, no matter how ridiculous it is.

"It is enshrined in the letter of law that UK does not have the presumption of innocence"

Anyone got a link to that?

I wonder

how many plods are sitting in offices to gather and compile the data for this rather than being out on the beat?

@ Shakje

Absolutely not, but you shouldn't need to fill in forms to follow someone who's known to be a burglar, at a time and in a location and in circumstances that look like they could be about to do it again.

Thats way different from stopping someone who "just doesn't fit in" for being in a middle class area in a hoodie, or with the wrong skin colour, and hassling them. That is wrong and rightly challenged.

Or if my car was stolen during the night I'd prefer if ANPR cameras could look for it right away not not wait until a form had been filled and sent to someone working office hours.

My exchange analogy still stands, and it has become the case with information held by ISPs, even will full access theres just so much data that no one has the resources to look through it unless its for a specific reason. That's not to say there shouldn't be accountability, of course there should. but would you be happy if you were the victim of a crime and the person responsible got away because the checks and balances prevented the police from acting in time? I'm just not sure the balance is right.

@Aristotle

Criticising spelling, the last recourse of a pedant. My "vision" is just reading whats ACTUALLY being suggested and not reading the headline and crying "OMG its another nail in the coffin of civil liberty, we're doooooomed!"

And incidentally, if you can spot an "experienced" legal professional in the CPS you win a prize.

@Brian Bles*ed

Isn't the suggestion that if YOUR house is burgled repeatedly the police should be able to watch YOUR house so if they come back again they can be caught? You'd object to that?

Police need to be, and as far as i can see _mostly_ are, accountable. But equally clear is that its not a case of plod doing their job AND filling in forms, its either or. Which is why they're not on the street being a deterrent, which for my money, is where they're meant to be. Instead we have people in police looking uniforms doing it for them. If you prefer them filling in forms to catching criminals then we've got the police you want right now so no need to complain. If you want to emigrate fair dos, is there another country where its any better?

Interestingly light on details isn't it

You know for someone so concerned with freedom of information, the originator of this story, and all its salacious headlines and controversial "revelations" is very scant on actual FACTS

http://www.jennywillott.com/news/000233/home_office_allowing_private_companies_access_to_the_dna_database.html

So lets see:

"Up to May of this year, the Home Office approved 25 applications for research projects using DNA profiles from the DNA database.

•5 are from private companies"

We can assume the other 20 were by the company that runs the database who have all the info anyway. That's 5 approved since the database was started... in 1995... 13 YEARS. Yes indeed, your private information is just FLYING out the door. Except, it isn't as they didn't provide identifiaction, only profile information. But lets not let pesky facts get in the way of a good spot of Labour bashing

"The police, many of whose officers have added themselves to the DNA database voluntarily, rejected a request for their DNA samples to be used in a research project."

A request. Ah, ok. Out of how many? On what grounds? How many were approved? If they rejected ONE request but accepted 5, 10? I can see how that'd make your "revelations" a bit less saucy. But a bit more accurate. I'm just speculating of course as the MP who submitted the freedom of information request didn't see fit to publish the request, or the answers. Ironic, no?

If anyone is interested your DNA is taken if you are arrested for a _recordable_ offence. That means your parking tickets, litter dropping, speeding, anti social behaviour etc does not mean you get a sample taken. Thats just ill informed daily mail ranting.

Nor does DNA evidence mean you are banged up and convicted on the spot. In fact recent changes in the law mean the police only have a power to arrest you if they think you commited an offence AND it is necessary for a specific reason. You need to be questioned for a minor offence and can come in when you finish work for example would NOT be an occasion where you could be arrested. But I digress - All DNA evidence ever does is connect you to a person object or location. Which is the basis of all modern forensics anyway.

And it is not a smoking gun by any means, it just creates a connection that must be supported by other evidence. DNA evidence itself is not de facto proof anyway, anymore than fingerprints ever were, and shrewd lawyers and juries are wising up to this fact.

No one has ever been convicted in a UK court on DNA evidence _alone_ as far as I know, though I wait to be proved wrong.

I'm all for a debate on how DNA is collected and used but its hard to know if the information the government has is being used responsibly and proportionately when all we get to inform opinion is so clearly biased one way or the other.