Spooks' favourite IT firm tells Reg readers to grow up

Epic Fail

It's a bit like the govt collecting our credit card details and internet banking passwords but assuring us, "well we're never actually going to use them" - i'd much rather you didn't have the information at all TBH gordon - i can't trust you not to use my money to build yourself a duck pond.

Cheeky Corporatist

Wrong! Intrusive data Collection really does matter, if your get enough direct, or indirect, identifying, or worse mis-identifying, data, it can be misused later!

You can only misuse data you have collected, so the use argument is a red herring. It is easy to backup over-broad data before a database is 'sanitised', and new analysis can be applied to one or more databases, so making the results far more intrusive than the original intent.

The state can be both intentionally, and unintentionally, malevolent; the incompetence, and cynical erosion, of our political checks, has allowed this to occur.

I don't trust the state at all, I try to have as little to do with it as possible.

Pssst, it's a secret

Don't anyone let McKinnon know that Sutherland REALLY has UFO secrets on his computers.

What Is Martin Sutherland Lacking?

Clue?

Ethics?

Morals?

Decency?

I'd rather be accused of needing to grow up than lacking Clue, ethics, decency and/or morals.

Or will you give me unfettered access to all of your personal data?

Two cars damaged?

So if two people sharing a house have their cars parked outside and someone crashes into them, or crashes into one and propels it into the other, or if drunken yous wlak past smashing windows, why is it suspicious that both cars got damaged at the same time? It's just this sort of faulty logic that worries everyone. You're labelled a fraudster because of some spurious conclusion drawn by some badly written government software.

false positives

The example this guy gives to show the "benefit" (since it's of no benefit to anyone except insurance companies, snoops and other assorted control freaks) of the system and "that it works" is completely bizarre...

"In a simplistic but real example, he said, the software noticed two people separately reported their cars, registered at the same address, had been damaged at the same time."

Let's put this in another way... a man gets struck by lightening, then later in the same day he gets struck by lightning again. While this is certainly unfortunate, and we might consider him especially unlucky, we can't actually infer that the two events are in any way related, whether it's because of him being especially unlucky, cursed by a vengeful deity, because he's looking for attention, or whatever. Once he's had his first lightning strike of the day, which we could write as 1/p_strike, his chance of having another lightning strike in that day is still the same: 1/p_strike (give or take a few hours).

So to get back to this "expert"'s example, for every person who has damage done to their car on a given day, and calling the probability that this happens is 1/p_damage, then if say there are 1000 reports of damage every day, then 1000/p_damage of them will be unfortunate enough to have two accidents that they need to report. There is nothing suspicious about this at all!

Either this person has no understanding of basic statistics, or they are deliberately lying. Either way, I would not pay anything for advice from this person.

Big Brother says...

Be happy in your work. Cast your mind free of thoughts. Don't learn, just live. Like a pig, in a cage, on anti-biotics.

No Magic Databases

The average family changes address once every five years. If it takes a month for a change of address to be registered we can make a prediction that at any given moment about 15% of addresses in the database are wrong.

GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT

Idiot

I had a Job offer from these idiots, RFID and it's security applications.. Telling me to grow up, how about you grow up first, RFID has never been nor will it ever be a secure medium.

w.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/08/mit-students-ge/

I'm a teapot!

Dear Politicians, Pig-ignorant Spindoctors and any other professional liars:

I would like to introduce you to a new word: Context.

Databases are merely collections of disjointed, context-free data. Data is not a "fact". It is just data. You need to analyse it *in context* to understand its meaning. Databases cannot do this. Computers certainly cannot do this—to a computer, EVERYTHING is just a bunch of numbers. Interpreting those numbers is entirely up to the programming. Only *humans* can apply meaning to a collection of data points, because only humans understand context.

Unfortunately, humans are fallible. They are not robots. They are not machines. They WILL make mistakes. How you handle those mistakes defines the acceptability, or otherwise, of any IT system. (No bank would install a computer system without ensuring a workable paper-based alternative is in place as a backup, for example.)

The problem with attempts at building national IT-centred projects is that this government—and those before it—are spectacularly ignorant about IT. Most of our MPs are plainly IT-illiterate. These people are in no way competent to define, describe or specify an IT project. They sure as hell aren't competent to *manage* one either.

The only sensible solution here is simple: define a *standard data format* for the personal information the many departments would like to have access to. Those of us who choose to provide our details in this format will also be free to demand a token payment for the *privilege* of granting you access to our *valuable* data.

*We*, the people, would therefore be responsible for looking after our own data, and we would have the right to pick and choose to whom we give it. If the Police, DVLA, etc. are happy to charge their own bosses—that'd be us, the people, again—for their services, I see no reason why we citizens shouldn't be permitted to do likewise.

Defining open standards is a far better use of precious government time and resources than building mammoth, monolithic IT projects like the massively overpriced NHS, HMRC and police IT cock-ups.

bollocks..

Sutherland, we have grown up thats why firms like yours and governments like the one we have now have problems. We've woken up to what is possible,and what is possible is not always what should be allowed. It's possible I could hit you with a lump hammer, but it's not allowed .

The problem with databases is its my data, my personal data, my private data that you want and why should i give it to you and listen to you when your only interest is making money out of my data. Do I trust this government NO. Do i trust you NO. This mania for interception and profiling has gotten completely out of hand. When a government fears its people it spies on them.

Roast in the flames

I have only one thing to add...

"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man,

I would find something in them to have him hanged."

Cardinal et Duc de Richelieu (9 September 1585 - 4 December 1642)

Data Collection

Maybe it's just me but I consider any information about me actually belongs to me? Wait a minute - I should be receiving a fat license fee everytime it's accessed/viewed/used by anybody for any purpose? Like, eh, that'll happen! I'm not bashing Open Source either, cause you can give anything you want, for free, to anyboby, if you want! Har,Har,FAIL

Nothing to fear

I am confident they got their statistics properly worked out and make sure there is little chance for false positives. Such as having a confidence interval of 1 in 1000, oh, wait, that would be 6100 false positives, maybe a confidence interval of 1 in 1000000 --> 61 false positives -- darn, they must feel VERY confident here!

BS in --> BS out, works for people and for databases!

RE IBM & the 3rd Reich

IBM Germany cut their teeth on the German census data (1935 IIRC) which was analysed in record time and down to the individual, not household level. The IBM tabulators of the time had special extensions made to their design to facilitate this work.

Very hand for dropping out specific groupd of people, or groups of people in a particular area of town. With a printer you can even cross reference addresses.

So useful for efficient "processing" of the unwanted elements.

So profitable for IBM corporate in New York, which IIRC was where the profits ended up.

What an idiot

The intentions of the enemy are not of great interest, only the capabilities. Intentions may change at the drop of a hat...

I have a grown up question........

Over time my personal data will change. Very simply, phone numbers, home address, employer, vehicle registration numbers etc etc will change. The changing data will result in an accumulation of errors over time. Also, there will be data entry errors in the data base resulting in an accumulation of errors as the size of the database increases and as changes are made to it. How are they going to manage this problem?

Just think of all the people leaving home to go to university/college every year, all those leaving university/college to go to work or on the dole every year. Who in their right mind would think that these people are going to update their personal information at every move? Hands up all those who are driving around with drivers licenses with an incorrect address on them.

It is not too difficult to imagine some poor serial suicide bomber being shot on a train because he lives where an evil Brazilian electrician used to live and the electrrician failed to update his information before dying.

Is there vested interest?

If so, when the vested interest is removed how much credence can we put on those comments?

My answers: zilch, nada, zero, nil, nought, nowt, nu'hin, ...

Mind you, credence to el reg that the guy thinks commenting to/on el reg will talk the job up and accelerate drafting up a contract.

Flushed it out?

How the databases are being used?

When a CEO of a failing company has 12 million shares of stock that could be worth $0.003 each if he uses the data ethically, or $15 each if he screws everybody and their family... Has everybody forgotten the dot-bombs of 10 years ago? Ah, Sutherland worked with the government. No chance of corruption there.

I refuse to grow up

and why would I debate privacy with mr Sutherland or any other industry lizard. I am sure existing markets in some of the more repressive countries on the planet will continue to ensure Detica are a British success. Money before morality and a profit at any cost?

As inspired by XKCD

Everyone change their names to obscure database-tangling commands.

Or include odd unicode characters.

Or silent non-pronounceables. (I recall a book character who changed his name to Hen4ry - the 4 is silent - specifically to screw up databases that refuse a number in a name field.)

Or take a leaf out of Monyt Python (cultural precedent there) and become a nation of people ALL called Kevin Yohannas Bloggs (yes, even the girls).

....

Or everyone with a brain could move en-masse to a nice UK peninsular, buy some razor-wire and declare independence (sadly, you can guarantee that within 2 generations your progeny will gave screwed it up all over again).

@ AC

"You cannot process data that doesn't exist and you cannot misuse data that you don't have."

That post sums it up, right there!

Martin Sutherland is either a complete moron or utterly disingenuous if he thinks he can categorically say exactly how collected data will be used in the years to come.

Unless this guy is clairvoyant, he should just STFU.

There have been countless examples of Government abuse of existing data, not to mention their desire to share it at every available opportunity with the little Hitlers in local councils (and anyone else who takes their fancy). So it really doesn't take much imagination to see how this would end up.

He is quite right it is not the Databases...

BUT that depends on who is using them & for what Purpose?

The Real Question should be:

How do we put safeguards in place that ensure the data is only used by the appropriate people & for the intended purpose!

Re: How to process the data?

pengwyn,

Anyone who declares a war on anyone or anything is a terrorist cynically justifying subjective and indiscriminate murder. And it is invariably done to support a non viable and collapsing regime so it will exacerbate the problem and destroy itself from within with the Core Driver Decimated to Render the Regime Bankrupt of both Home and Foreign Support. And there is nothing more Vulnerable than the Capitalist System and its Banking Cartels which will always be perfectly Legitimate Targets for the Poor and Oppressed, as to Imagine to buy up Valuable Resources for Practically Worthless Paper given an Arbitrary Value of Debt and Spun as Credit is a Ponzi Pyramid Scam which collapses when the Debt is no longer Bought and the Currency is no longer accepted, being recognised for what it is....... a Free Ride for a Few with Plenty on the Backs of the Many with Nothing. And you definitely don't want to be spinning them a yarn to excuse and try to justify despicable and unforgiveable behaviour...... for they won't be listening in Ignorance having Learnt of the Workings of the World and how it is All Controlled Badly with Chaos and Misinformation to Hide the Grand Delusion to Server the Impossible Dream.

And the pdf available at the address below, is a thoughtful, if somewhat perverse and subversive read which highlights the very clear and present danger for those who would dress up first degree murder for having a contrary political view as an acceptable public policy ...... http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2009/0511_counterterrorism_anderson.aspx.

Man is getting SMARTer and at an exponential rate, and it is folly to expect him not to learn of past stupid moves which have become convenient norms but which have no place in the Future which knows of so much more and so many more knowing. It is not something that you can ignore, hoping it will go away/not surface. It is the current dilemma, is it not?

A pedant writes

@AC at 14:13: the duck house (not pond) was expense'd by a Tory, not Pa Broon.

@pengwyn at 07:08: Internet * open government == a velvet revolution. http://www.mysociety.org/ is one possible way forward. (There are many similar projects in other countries.) Despite it all, there are sufficient people of good will doing good work, I believe, that it's possible to hope that the tide can be turned. "Us Now" ( http://www.usnowfilm.com ) is interesting, too.

A lot more work is needed, of course.

Titles, titties and tomfoolery

His insurance scam analogy is full of crap. Two people living at the same address both reporting damage to cars registered there could easily be a husband and wife having a bump in the driveway when both were leaving for work. How it proves conspiracy to commit insurance fraud is utterly beyond me but I get the impression that beady-eyed little bastard could sell ice to an eskimo and this is just one tactic he employs to keep the public money flowing into his company.

As for the growing up about privacy thing. I'll grow up when Government proves it's done the same. Function creep, data-loss, biometrics anyone?

No database, no data to analyse.

Let's be clear.

Why do *they* want this data?

What benefit does it give *us* to give it to them?

How much will they charge *us* for the work. Because as taxpayers it will be us that pays for this.

As for the insurance case its so simplistic it's what professional fraund investigators do. Straight data analysis would drop this out on overnight sweeper runs.

Do you get the feeling he's a Turkey farmer telling his birds "You'll love Christmas. It's a very happy time for me."

Sounds like another gubmint boondoggle ...

... at least the F-22s in Amurka are only pissing away money and not increasing the likelihood of the Average Jo getting snared in "we wanna catch us a terra-ist" data- trawls. (We have the banking/ finance industry to do that for us already, except they claim to trawl for people on the brink of losing credit worthiness so they can jack our interest rates "pre- emptively".)

A mature debate ...

is what this man wants. So, let him have it according to HIS OWN rules ...

I hope one of his legs drops off.

I hope this will be swiftly followed by two of his gonads.

I hope all the hair in his armpits grows out of his nose.

There, a mature debate according to Mr Sutherland's principles.

You!

Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddy!

http://regmedia.co.uk/2009/07/16/detica_sutherland.jpg

Image processing for facial recognition complete.

Gather only the info needed...

for the Task you are doing, your patterns will match & be far more accurate.

The Left Hand does not need to know what the Right Hand is doing, in fact if it does know then it can't be doing its own job. It has been too busy monitoring to carry out its own duties.

Then use all the extra processing power which should become available for the benefit of mankind, instead of suspiciously monitoring & manipulating mankind!

Sutherland is Big Brother

"The debate should be about how you process the data," Sutherland said. "The best computers can do is find patterns in large volumes of data."

Not so hard.

Match National ID number with key words found in comments on forums or websites. Match those ID numbers with voting history, health records, DNA, tax records, education history, CV found on job sites/recruitment sites, facebook profile, photos, pron viewing history, mobile phone records, card purchases, travel history, relatives and all their data...

The first step is to populate, then disseminate, then cogitate, then exterminate...