Irreverence

posted on 18 June 2008 08:50

Hazel Blears, the bird-brained and bird-like UK government Communities Secretary had sensitive government documents sent to and stored on her constituency office PC in an unencrypted format. The PC was stolen and the documents exposed to public consumption.

Such unencrypted transmission is in direct contravention of UK government guidelines. Commenting about this theft of Hazel Blears' PC from her consituency office, an official said it was okay because the PC: "was password-protected".

Jeez, where do you even begin? These people are so seriously bad at PC security that they shouldn't even be trusted to pull up their own underwear.

Last week a government official in the Government Cabinet Office, the top Civil Service institution for the UK's government, was suspended from duty after leaving a top secret pair of government documents in a shabby orange cardboard file folder on a train.

Fortunately the government's strong hand was immediately evident as Prime Minister Gordon Brown ordered the Cabinet yesterday to ensure that sensitive information procedures were followed.

That's such a relief as the effectiveness of such comments have helped create the highly effective and near water-tight security environment we see in the UK government today. There have only been these extraordinarily limited and near-miniscule security lapses in the government security barrier recently:-

- November, 2007, HMRC loses unencrypted CD and 15,000 people's details exposed to identity theft,
- November 2007, HMRC loses unencrypted CDS containing 25 million people's details exposing them to identity theft,
- December 2008, N Ireland Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency loses unencrypted CDs and exposes 6,000 people to identity theft,
- December 2007, Driving Standards Agency contractor loses two unencrypted disks and exposes 3 million people to identity theft.

That's an utterly trivial 28,021,000 people put at risk of identity theft. Why that is barely even half the entire adult population of the UK. It's clear that, under the glorious and progressive leaderhip of the great brain, the magisterial master of ministerial matters, the globally-respected Gordon 'Flash' Brown, we have nothing to worry about with National Security. We can all relax and get back to Sudoku.

After each neglible and irrelevant security breach - I hesitate to even use the term 'breach' in referring to such microscopic lapses -the firm and great clunking fist of Mr. Bean, aka Gordon Brown, the UK's glorious and inspiring visionary leader, came down in a display of 100 percent effectiveness and told people to obey established procedures. There was also the odd review.

That's what we need; the slithering sound of poo dripping down the wall as Flash Gordon's edicts ring across the Whitehall security landscape with all the force of a wet nappy. ¹

Recently UK Gov decided not to send sensitive information via unencrypted disks - see how it responds with lightning-like speed - and to use secure digital transmission instead. It looks like Blear's staff got the digital transmission bit but not the secure bit.

These people are so risibly bad that they make Noddy and his Toyland friends look like PhDs, and Bart Simpson a Nobel prize winner. Hazel Blears - bleuch!

Note. See this release for openly-available identity theft information on sale.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}

^{1. Diaper.}