I am having to contain myself here. Someone who I respect very much works at the Ministry of Defence, and I am sure it is made up of very earnest and hard-working people.
So I separate the people at the Ministry of Defence from the corporate body which is "The Ministry of Defence" - if that makes any sense (probably not, in which case go swiftly onto another blog, please).
Suffice it to say that I had some experience of observing "The Ministry of Defence" during the denouement of the Greenham Common saga (said Common being about a mile from my home - or 300 yards if you count a bit of green which is historically part of it).
Getting information or concessions out of "The Ministry of Defence" during that saga was a bit like trying to extract a digested three-penny bit from the wrong end of a duck. Difficult.
In fact, I dined out several times on my little aphorism about the MOD. It was: If you ask the Ministry of Defence what date Christmas Day is on this year they will tell you that they can't release that information in the interests of national defence.
Nuff said.
So, I am very sorry. I am very very sorry. It may be unpatriotic of me but I allowed myself several guffaws this evening when I read this story. It is beyond a joke and leaps into the realms of complete farce. I think it is British to laugh at these things.
I mean, for goodness sake. You could get enough secrets onto a memory stick to overturn the entire balance of power of the World. The Ministry of Defence have lost 100 of the things. And they have lost 650 laptops in the last four years. 20,000 laptops have been recalled because they forgot to encrypt them properly. Derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I mean come on! Iran? Korea? Syria? Just come along and take our secrets. The Ministry of Defence are too busy turning down requests for legitimate information from British citizens to worry about real security.
With repeated apologies to those who work at the Ministry of Defence.
Friday, July 18, 2008
British secrets? Take one please
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6 comments:
I have to say that anything like this should result in an instant dismissal for the IT management. Speaking as an IT admin/slave, I have to say that I am staggered at this incompetence. This is basic stuff!
I've no doubt that when the Libdems are in power all our secrets will be safe and that this sort of thing will never happen.
...but they are not in power and this is happening.
Yes, and it's certainly serious. I guess I'm just frustrated with the ding-dong of political debate. The system forces the parties to find weaknesses in their opponents' positions and use these to tear them apart rather than work with each other to solve problems.
....So we should keep quiet about the government's mistakes?
There has been no shortage of helpful constructive suggestions made to the government on this and other areas. (They have actually implemented many of them). In particular, the scaling down of staffing of the government body responsible for ensuring high standards of data security was highlighted as a move which has led to a lax data security regime.
Sarah Teather was the MP who uncovered the memory stick and laptop losses. She is quite right to make the point that this is hardly likely to inspire confidence in the government handling of our personal data in the ID card scheme it proposes.
If you turn on BBC Parliament, Andrew, apart from Wednesdays 12-1 you will actually see MPs of all parties working very hard, very conscientiously and, one might say, fairly boringly to "work with each other to solve problems". It is a complete myth that it doesn't happen. You see it on highly boring council committees also - all behind the scenes. The cut and thrust of "ding-dong" politics is actually about 5% of what goes on in parliament and about 3% of what goes on in local councils.
But when the choice is down to "ID Cards" or "No ID Cards" then it is a stark choice which doesn't lend itself to conciliatory mumbling behind the scenes.
I understand what you mean andrew cooper, as the blurbler would confirm, I hate the nullist debate also, but on this issue, this is scarily stupid.
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