Categories
current affairs

An accident waiting to happen

Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, the giant government department responsible for tax, benefits and customs, have lost 25 million records relating to child benefit. In my mind and the minds of many ORG and FIPR people this was an accident waiting to happen.

The Government has consistently shown very basic misunderstandings of what IT can and can’t do as well as how smart folk can abuse simple failings. As a result aggregating lots of sensitive personal data should be avoided at all costs. In this case however it didn’t take a smart hacker to potentially leave bank and personal information to identity thiefs. A ‘low level’ worker burnt to CDs the database of 25 million records which was then lost by a courier somewhere between HMRC and the National Audit Office.

Any system which allowed a so-called ‘low level’ member of staff to burn any records let alone millions to CDs has fundamental security failings. Getting bulk data (i.e. more than one at a time) out of the system should be highly restricted. While I welcome the Audit Offce’s commitment to carefully checking HMRC’s work, the requirement to analyse such quantities of live data has to be re-examined. I also sense that Data Protection and the Information Commissioner have been given insufficient regard.

Green policies see the management of a complexity of tax benefits, credits and grants as a burden on society. Takeup of many of these is low and the cost of administration is enormous. The Green Party wants to see a radically simplified tax and benefit system based on a livable citizens’ income and local income taxes which mean you pay on the basis of what you earn, not what someone reckons your house is worth.

Categories
notes from JK

Championing Architecture

Jason in front of the old Royal Alex hospital

Regency Ward is incredibly rich in wonderful architecture, much of it protected. Indeed the old Royal Alex childrens' hospital is in a conservation area itself. Which was why the developers who bought the land it sits on need separate permission to demolish as well as permission to build.

The original plans submitted by the developers were ghastly and completely lacking in imagination. They were the same old recycled designs for blocky flats with the sweetener of a doctor's surgery. The drawings showed a total lack of respect for the surrounding area and no attempt whatsoever to reflect the unique history and character of the area. Frankly the plans added insult to the injury of their desire to flatten the old King Alex.

The south and east-facing facade of the main building, in particular, are full of character and history. These are the minimum the Green Party would want to see preserved from the existing building. Regency residents want to keep the building and its green space (currently hidden by horrible hoardings) – it's a familiar and well loved old character.

Thanks to the lobbying of residents working with Green councillors the developers were forced to withdraw their applications. Of course we expect them to submit again. If they once again show a lack of regard for the Regency's unique architectural character and want to flatten the building, we'll fight their every step.

Categories
current affairs

Links 19-11-07

  • Germans abandon plan for 2008 electronic voting
    Very good news as their proposed plans were particularly bad and had no room for recounts

  • ORG, wonderful ORG
    The Open Rights Group have published a review of their activities over the past 2 years. A very good read, summarises our work on e-voting and really makes you ask – if you're not a member, why not!?!

  • Amazon: Reinventing the Book
    Interesting article on Amazon's move to create an electronic book reader and the associated economics of ebooks. I think I'll take a while to be convinced of this one!

Categories
notes from JK

Sorry, not interested

I think elections are fantastic, and I love the opportunity they provide to meet people. Over the past few weeks I have been out in Regency ward daily knocking on doors and meeting people all over the place. The Green Party has such a positive message, so many good things we want to achieve for Brighton & Hove, that it's a pleasure to be out there.

So many people appreciate the opportunity to engage with real politicians and political activists. Politics becomes real when you talk about it on someone's doorstep, when they challenge your views or ask for your help. It's wonderful, energising and very grounding. I also love the physicality of it – being outside, shaking hands and reminding yourself how every single street is unique.

Sometimes people are out or they are busy — perhaps giving their baby a bath or in the middle of a telephone call — that's all fine. What I do find challenging are those who answer the door with “Sorry, not interested.” When pressed it's not that they're not interested in the Green Party but that they're not interested in the election or politics.

Of course there's more to life than local politics, but everyone notices when the bins aren't emptied, hospital service is poor or police non-existent. If you're busy, say so and I'll move on; if you don't wish to discuss your politics in public, I respect that choice; and if you wish to vote for another party, let's chat about it! But if you think you have no interest at all in how your city is run and the direction it sets itself for the future… well then I'm not sure I believe you. I think actually you're saying you don't believe in politicians to set those directions. If so then I think talking is exactly what we need to do.

Categories
voting

Disappointment over MoJ e-voting response

I was sorely disappointed by the Ministry of Justice’s response to the Electoral Commission’s evaluations of the May e-voting & e-counting pilots in England (which implicitly addressed the ORG report on the elections which was formally submitted to both bodies).

Given past form it wasn’t an enormous surprise that the government failed to take on most of the lessons the disastrous May pilots offered up to them. As I’m knee deep in the Regency By-Election campaign ORG’s Chief Commandant par excellence (aka Executive Director) has led the charge on the blog posts: Firstly Open Rights Group dismayed by Ministry of Justice response on e-voting which is a joy to read and then a quick one on the Scottish Affairs committee.

By the way, if you’re not a member of ORG, why not?! Join today

(Also if interest is the Kable report on all this.)

Categories
current affairs

Supporting yellow buses

Caroline Lucas launches Big Lemon Buses
You may have recently seen around Brighton wonderful bright yellow buses. These buses are from the new community interest company “The Big Lemon Buses“. (Disclosure: Big Lemon founder, Tom Druitt, is a member of the local Green Party). These buses exemplify Green values… they run on used vegetable oil resulting in low emissions and reuse of what would otherwise be considered waste. They also are operated for the community interest, not for the profit of the owners.

Even better, the buses are cheap and have simple prices. £1 for a single and £2 for an all day ticket. This is how it should be. I recently was trying to explain how the Brighton & Hove bus prices work to someone new to the city. In doing so you have to somehow define the difference between city centre and not along with the implications for prices that has.

If we’re going to reduce the number of short car journeys within the city (and we need to!) then making buses regular, reliable and affordable is absolutely critical. So while Brighton & Hove Buses have recently increased their prices, Big Lemon Buses have stuck to their simple £1/£2 pricing formula. Perhaps not being dependent on spiralling oil prices helps.

If you can make use of a yellow bus (they currently run between Brighton station and the univerisites at Falmer) then please support a community company which respects the environment and helps improve the air quality of our city.

Categories
voting

The complexity of e-voting

It’€™s well known that I’€™m opposed to the introduction of e-voting and e-counting in the UK. This is fundamentally because the technology of today cannot deliver on the unique requirements of democratic elections. Elections require secrecy, accuracy, anonyminity and verifiability. This is an incredibly difficult combination of requirements to meet. Banks or online shops don’€™t meet all the requirements – while others may not know what you bought (secrecy) unlike voting your identity is known to the bank or vendor (anonyminity) so that they can deliver their services and check if you are a fraudster. By checking your bank statements you have an element of verifiability not available in voting.

While many very clever people are working hard on a variety of cryptographic solutions to these problem, I think they miss the point. I’m not saying that their work isn’€™t interesting or clever. It€’s just that their proposals are usually very complicated and hard to administer. The result is that they suffer from a lack of transparency as voters and candidates struggle to understand what is going on. Recent demonstrations of promising cryptographic election methods descended into farce when the inventors couldn’€™t administer their mock elections due to the complexity of the procedures.
I just can’t see any pressing, convincing reasons to be spending large sums of money and introducing new levels of risk to our voting systems by making them electronic. There are bigger, more important challanges such as climate change or caring for our aging population.

A hundred years from now there may well be a technology or a theoretical breakthrough which makes it trivial to implement e-voting that conforms to the requirements of secrecy, accuracy, anonyminity and verifiability. I can’€™t see such developments on the horizon, but I can’€™t rule them out. I very much doubt I’€™ll still be here in a century, but I rather do hope we’€™ll have been wise enough to focus our brightest on more pressing issues than just making our votes electronic.

(Cross-posted from Our Kingdom)

Categories
notes from JK

Asking for your votes

While I'm out on the streets of Regency asking for your votes in the up-coming by-election, back in the world of the web I can also ask for your votes. I'm absolutely delighted that this site has been nominated to the blogs shortlist for the Brighton & Hove Web Awards 07.

You can vote for this site online now. Please vote!

Categories
current affairs

Links: 29-10-2007

  • Obvious science: Organic food is healthier
    The Soil Association have been saying this for years. It's obvious that industrialised intensive farming leaches the soil of minerals leaving produce that is low in flavour and goodness. Hence the unfortunate need for vitamin supplements even with a balanced diet. What's most galling is the Food Standard Authority's continued insistence in there being no difference between organic and industrially produced food.

  • A case of the wrong technology applied incorrectly
    The Swiss have made a big deal about using 'quantum cryptography' to protect electronic vote tabulation transmissions. This significantly misses the point but I couldn't have put it any better than Avi Rubin so read his post!

Categories
notes from JK

From member to Chair and Candidate

This week has absolutely zipped past. On Monday I learnt the sad news that Dr Hermione Roy, a Green Councillor for Brighton's Regency ward had been forced to step-down due to ill-health. We're all wishing Hermione a swift recovery and offer our thanks for her many contributions.

On Tuesday Brighton & Hove Green Party counted the votes for our local executive and I was delighted to be declared the new Chair. Earlier that day a selection process had been begun to choose a candidate for the by-election Hermione's resignation has triggered.

I'm deeply honoured to have been selected by the local party at a very well attended special meeting last night. I'm looking forward to campaigning in the wonderful Regency area over the coming weeks and to working with the ward's other Green Councillor, Sven Rufus. I absolutely love canvassing, though this will be my first winter election so gloves and hat will certainly be needed!