From: InfoSec News (alertsinfosecnews.org)
Date: Thu Apr 02 2009 - 06:07:09 CDT

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/01/jacqui-smith-expenses

[Slow news day, too many Conficker.c and April Fools stories to drudge
through, but this whole story below has been flying under the radar a
little bit, and is worth a read and wide dissemination. - WK]

By Simon Jenkins
The Guardian
April 1st, 2009

Sweet is the spectacle of a home secretary bitten by her own snake. The
outrage of Jacqui Smith's television expenses claim lies not in its
content, lurid as it is, but in the way it was exposed. How many times
must the home secretary have been assured in security briefings that her
latest purchase of some data storage gizmo was "totally secure"?

"Don't worry," the briefers would have said, "the material will be
protected by the finest firewalls, the most foolproof anti-hacking
devices and the most savage legal defence. Nothing will be transferable
and only the highest in the land will have access. Besides, home
secretary, as you have so often said, the innocent have nothing to
fear."

Yes, they do. They have the revelation of their husband's taste in
movies, apparently leaked by contractors in receipt of easily copied
discs, now on offer to anyone with £300,000.

Anyone who knows anything about computers knows computer security is a
contradiction in terms. It is garbage. Yet this is not believed by
gullible ministers and MPs who troop through the Commons lobby to vote
through new measures for more state surveillance.

I am sure when they submitted invoiced expenses to the fee office last
year MPs were told they would be secure. They may have believed it. They
thought that what they told their constituents about the security of ID
and NHS records also applied to them.

[...]

_______________________________________________
Best Selling Security Books and More!
http://www.shopinfosecnews.org/

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]