Ding dong, the database is dead. Isn’t it?

Jacqui Smith is scrapping the uber-database that would monitor everything we do online. Isn’t she?

In an unexpected press conference yesterday, Doctor Evil admitted that his unpopular plans for “sharks with frickin’ laser beams” were “extreme” and too expensive, so the entire programme is being scrapped.

However, when journalists examined the details of the policy, they discovered that Doctor Evil’s programme is still going ahead.

Sharks are still being fitted with laser beams, but Doctor Evil has renamed the beams as “big torches.”

Owning a camera doesn’t make you a criminal

Me on security guards, snappers and deleting photos…

Part of the problem is overzealous people in uniform, whether they’re security guards or serving police officers. The Metropolitan Police’s crazed anti-terrorism adverts (PDF), which brand photographers as potential bombers, don’t exactly help. But there’s also a problem with the law.

The idea that Section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act makes photographing the police illegal is pure fantasy. It doesn’t mention photos at all. Rather, it says that it’s illegal to gather or publish information about the police or armed forces that is “likely to be useful” to a mad bomber, foreign spy or Osama Bin Laden.

With pretty much everything in the world linked to terrorism these days – Icelandic banks’ assets were frozen under anti-terrorism legislation, while anti-terrorism surveillance powers have also been used to crack down on such threats to life and liberty as dog crap and fly-tippers – then it’s easy to see how that phrase can be misinterpreted, either by accident or by design.

Worried about privacy? Forget about Street View

Me, on Techradar:

Before we pay too much attention to the headlines and the soundbytes, though, we should perhaps wonder if there are more sinister invasions of privacy than a Google car taking shots in the street.

For example, we could start with newspapers.

.net column: could the war on terror mean the end of online anonymity?

Another of my print columns has made its way online: The war on terror will wipe out Web privacy.

Getting rid of online anonymity wouldn’t actually be that hard to do. Simply pass a law that requires everybody who goes online to get a unique identifier, and to use that identifier whenever they interact with the internet – when they email, or comment, or shop…

You’d need to provide your ID when you used your broadband connection, or set up a webmail account, or commented on a blog, or joined a public Wi-Fi hotspot, or used a cybercafe: no ID, no access.

Voice stress analysis for benefit claimants: bollocks, or complete and utter bollocks?

My Dad thought I’d be interested in this one. He was right. Ministry of Truth investigates the technology that will apparently tell the Department of Work and Pensions whether benefit claimants are telling porkies.

Have you watched The Wire? You know the bit where the homicide detectives tell a gullible suspect that their office photocopier is a lie detector? That’s probably just as effective, but an awful lot cheaper.

.net column: I read the news today, oh boy

Another of my .net columns has made its way to them thar internets:

There were four interesting news stories this week. The Home Office decided that it fancied a giant central database of everybody’s internet activity, something that would be perfect for data mining in search of thought crimes. A student was detained for six days under antiterrorist legislation for downloading documents from the US Department of Justice website. A well-intentioned but badly drafted new law could put manga fans in prison as suspected kiddie-fiddlers. And Boris Johnson banned booze on the London Underground. Only one of these caused UK internet users to take to the streets in mass protest. Can you guess which one?

Scotland’s new anti-porn legislation. Here we go again

The Scotsman speaks to Kenny MacAskill, the man behind Scotland’s “even tougher than England’s” forthcoming anti-porn legislation.

“We are now in an age dominated by DVDs and the internet. We need to update the law in this global age. England already has some of these laws – but our laws will go further. Our laws will be covering matters such as images of rape.”

Leaving aside the argument as to whether seeing a picture should ever be illegal, and skipping past the rather alarming (and faintly amusing) prospect of Porn Police checking laptops when English businessmen cross the border, let’s look at the few details we know.

Mr MacAskill said people who mistakenly access extreme pornography, for example by clicking on the wrong computer button, would not be pursued. Equally, it is likely that convictions under the new law will require people actually to download images of “extreme” pornography, rather than by viewing websites alone.

That line worries me, because unless some techy people have been consulted on this then it’s going to be a mess. If you see an image online, it’s downloaded to your web browser’s cache. If somebody spams you with pornographic emails, the images in those emails are downloaded.

On the other hand, if you deliberately watch a streaming video of illegal pornography, then arguably you aren’t downloading anything at all because the content is delivered as you watch, and isn’t stored in full on your PC – and in recent years the online adult industry has moved to streaming, not downloadable, video, largely because it’s harder to pirate.

Is the law going to address those crucial technical details? Will “viewing on a website” be fine provided people don’t save the files for future reference? What about legitimate content repackaged with different intent? When I was researching a feature about the porn industry a few months ago, covering the rise of streaming media sites, some of them featured content such as the rape scenes from The Accused and Irreversible, two mainstream and perfectly legal films. Is it okay to watch that content when it’s in context, but not when it’s out of context? What about unsolicited content? I reckon much of the spam I get would fall foul of the new law.

This picture depicts violence, and it’s clearly got a sexual subtext. The poor girl looks frightened half to death.

It is, of course, a promo shot from Hostel 2 – an 18, not R18, movie that’s freely and legally available on DVD.

Here’s what the Scottish Government says:

We propose that this offence will criminalise the possession of pornographic images which realistically depict:

* Life-threatening acts and violence that would appear likely to cause severe injury;
* Rape and other non- consensual penetrative sexual activity, whether violent or otherwise; and
* Bestiality or necrophilia.

The maximum penalty for the proposed new offence will be 3 years imprisonment.

We intend that the new offence will be similar to that at section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which will apply in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Scottish offence will go further than that offence, however, in that it will cover all images of rape and non-consensual penetrative sexual activity, whereas the English offence only covers violent rape.

In its analysis of the consultation exercise, the Scottish Government admits that there are genuine concerns about that.

[respondents, including broadcasters] found these definitions to be too subjective, unclear and liable to criminalise a much broader range of images than it appears the consultation paper intended.

Such as, say, excerpts or screencaps from Hollywood movies.

This is a stupid example, I know, but it’s a real one: yesterday, a wag on Fark.com posted a faked image showing Barack Obama being bummed by Hillary Clinton. I don’t know if it was consensual or not. What do you think? Would Obama say “yes we can”? Because if the answer is no, then we’ve got ourselves some dangerous imagery right there.

“As technology and 3D rendering techniques become more sophisticated and realistic it is possible to render the scenes you wish to ban in which there is no human participation at all.”

That’s a good point. Is Poser porn illegal? Photoshop jobs? Should they be?

And:

78.    Channel 4 (235), The British Computer Society (285), The Campaign Against Censorship (217) and others felt that if realistic depictions were to be included, the reach of the legislation would inevitably be much further than the consultation document intended, possibly including works of art and historical artefacts.

79.    The BBFC in particular thought this would create an issue for them, as “realistic depictions of serious violence are a very common feature of modern, mainstream films and videos, and many such depictions will have a sexual context.” (BBFC194)

Despite all that, it seems that justice minister Kenny MacAskill wants to carry on regardless. Nevermind talking to the press about the evils of porn – how about actually publishing details of the legislation so we can see whether it’s going to work?

Why Police snooping powers are a step too far

The nice people at Techradar.com have kindly given me a regular blab slot to talk about tech, and the first one is up: it’s about the powers that will enable the police to install keyloggers and other spyware on people’s PCs without a warrant.

Imagine if the Home Office decided that the best way to fight terrorism was to ban curtains.

“Hang on!” we’d say. “That means Creepy Dave across the road will be able to see me in my underpants!”

The Home Office would nod sagely. “That’s true, but you know who else has curtains? Terrorists! Terrorists and gangsters! So it’s curtains for curtains!”

The Home Office hasn’t banned curtains just yet, but it’s getting closer.

ID cards: voluntary? Only if you’ve never been on holiday

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Clauses in the draft Immigration and Citizenship Bill give state officials the power to make anyone who has ever entered the country, at any time, prove who they are without needing any suspicion of a potential crime.

Civil liberty groups warned that the catch-all clauses would effectively cover any British citizen who has ever left the UK, even for a holiday, because they will have “entered” the UK on their return.

Refusing to hand over the necessary documents would be a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of almost a year in prison and/or a hefty fine.

It’s probably the result of badly worded draft legislation, but if it isn’t fixed it’s all rather chilling.

A little rant about the government’s £12 billion interception programme

I originally wrote this as a column, but couldn’t make it funny…

Since 9/11, our government has been rather keen on burying bad news (its phrase, not ours) by announcing really stupid ideas when people are distracted by more immediately terrifying things. So with capitalism apparently collapsing around our ears, cynics would expect something truly appalling to sneak out when our attention was elsewhere. They were right. While shouting “Look! Over there! It’s all your money! And it’s ON FIRE!” the Home Office quietly admitted that it planned to spend £12 billion to wiretap every single person in Britain – and that it had already committed £1 billion to the project.

Maybe the Home Office got the idea from The Wire, but if they did then they’ve missed the point of the programme altogether. The Wire isn’t about How Wiretaps Are Brilliant; it’s a howl of anger about political betrayal and the damage done when the people in power only care about the next headline. Maybe the Home Office watched it with the sound off.

Leaving the civil liberties arguments to one side – it’s something the Stasi might consider a step too far, it means an Englishman’s home is no longer his castle, it’s going to be abused – let’s just talk about the money. £12 billion is a lot of taxpayers’ cash, but the real bill will be much greater. When it comes to budgeting IT projects the government is like a shifty builder who promises to do your extension for six grand in six weeks. Ten years later you’re sitting in rubble and the builder’s spent your savings on a Bentley. Don’t believe me? Two words. ID cards. Originally, the government told us the bill would be £3.1 billion. Now, they tell us it’ll be fifteen billion, ish. According to the Telegraph, analysts reckon it’ll be costlier still: somewhere north of £34 billion.

Let’s pretend that we can actually trust the government’s figures, though, and the combined cost of ID cards and total surveillance will be £27 billion rather than £50-plus billion. What’s it for? Fighting terrorism, inevitably, plus a few other tabloid favourites such as catching kiddie-fiddling rings. Of course these are serious things, but is that really where we need to spend the money?

Friends of the Earth says that in England alone, 20,000 people – most of them pensioners – die every year from the cold. That’s three times the combined death toll of 9/11 and the Northern Ireland conflict combined, each and every year – and according to FoE, “the rise in the number of fuel poor is likely to put more lives at risk this winter. Many families with young children are forced to choose between heating their homes and cooking a hot meal.”

While the Home Office is chucking billions at GCHQ to tap people’s communications, FoE and Help The Aged are taking the government to court for allegedly breaching its commitment to eradicating fuel poverty. For a supposedly civilised country to spend billions on unnecessary and invasive IT while tens of thousands of people freeze to death isn’t just appalling. It’s an abomination.