MPs have needs too...

"Wacky" Jacqui Smith has submitted an expense form. That's not unusual. Perhaps frustrating for anyone who's ever tried to get legitimate expenses signed off, it's a bit much that hers contained the bill for her Virgin Media cable package. While we leave the tabloids to infer and sniggeringly imply what she may get up to in the privacy of her own home after it came to light that the bill included two porn films, let's examine her reaction to being caught putting a domestic expense through as a legitimate business one.

"I am sorry that in claiming for my internet connection, I mistakenly claimed for a television package alongside it. As soon as the matter was brought to my attention, I took immediate steps to contact the relevant parliamentary authorities and rectify the situation. All money claimed for the television package will be paid back in full," She said in a statement.

Fair enough, you may think, but if her husband (whom she's reportedly "furious" with) could order up pay-per-view skin flicks, it's not a simple broadband connection she's got - it's a full high-speed cable package. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't pay for the internet connection separately in a cable package. It's an all-in-one deal. If the charges for each part of the package were itemised, however, how did she mistake the high figure for the total package for one of the lower itemised charges? Did she even fill out her own expense claim?

There's a far more interesting aspect to this story, however. The natural conclusion many people will have jumped to after learning about Smith's porn bill was that she enjoys having, shall we say, a lovely relaxing time with a bit of porn. Go on, admit it - you did didn't you. However, the films were watched on 6st and 8th of April. Smith wasn't at home at the time. What a let down!

The interesting aspect is that the data collecting facilities Smith wants in place to collate details of our lives will ultimately be analysed by humans who are capable of making equally misguided inferences about us. If she doesn't learn that this can lead to some erroneous yet compelling conclusions that may ruin lives or worse, when the hell will she learn?

Catch 'em young

A young man is on trial in Northern Ireland, accused of murdering PC Stephen Carroll, of having an assault rifle and ammunition, of membership of the Continuity IRA, and of "collecting information of use to terrorists". He's just 17 years old.

Born in 1992, he can have no real memory of the Troubles, and yet this young man is on trial for a sectarian killing. How the hell did that happen? The answer could be that grown ups - possibly even members of his own family - taught him to hate. An attitude has been instilled into him to the point where, it is alleged, he was prepared and ready to take part in murder.

If he did it and is convicted, he'll go to prison. But what of the people who taught him to hate with such vehemence, the people who continue to flog a dead conflict? They remain free; free to hate, and to instil that same poison into other impressionable young minds.

The madness begins...

I've just signed up for Twitter, as if I didn't already spend too much time sat on the rickety chair in front of the large pile of computers, wires and other technological detritus in the corner of the room.

Daily Mail in story burial shocker... part 2

You have to laugh. The Mail has again posted a curiously fact-free scare story about the state apparently watching us all. However, once again, it pulled it from its feed just hours later.

The last time I noticed them doing this, it was a Sunday and the story had exactly 29 comments - just like this one. Coincidence can be a right swine, can't it? I can't wait for the next one to happen!

The BBC botnet

A botnet is a group of infected computers, which have all been infected to accept orders from a botnet "herder". The orders might include sending massive amounts of spam, or spewing huge numbers of connection requests at target web sites to effectively knock them off the Internet for the purposes of extortion (a so-called DDoS attack). The biggest botnets are even capable of taking down an entire country's infrastructure.

The BBC, in the guise of its usually very interesting Click programme, has succeeded in renting and using a botnet of 22,000 infected computers in a demonstration of the risks of not protecting yourself adequately online. The show launched a successful DDoS attack against a site that had consented to the test, and sent thousands of spam emails to a test address. At the end of the test, it ordered the botnet to apparently change the infected computers' screensavers explaining everything and suggesting the owners updated their security measures. "If this exercise had been done with criminal intent it would be breaking the law," said the BBC.

However, the BBC has actually broken the law, it seems. The UK's Computer Misuse Act act is very clear. Section I says it's illegal to gain unauthorised access to a computer. The BBC did this to 22,00 of them. Section II makes it illegal to make unauthorised changes to a computer system. Clearly, changing 22,000 screensavers breaks this law. It's arguable whether sending commands ot the botnet is also an offence under Section II.

I await developments with interest...

When is a killing not a killing

Over the weekend, two soldiers and a policeman were shot dead in Northern Ireland in, it seems, a desperate attempt to derail the peace process and return the people who have to live in that bedevilled province to the terror of past decades. However, what's bugging me is the use of the word "killings" to describe what's happened.

The word sounds almost designed to allow for the idea that maybe it wasn't murder. Let's be clear about this. Those people were murdered,deliberately, and in cold blood. And what did it achieve? A show of redoubled unity.

When Martin McGuinness (ex-leader of the IRA itself, now Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland) stands shoulder to shoulder on camera with the Chief Constable and they both express disgust at what's happened, the time for terror has clearly long past.

This is a democracy, but it's a spiky one. If you try to kick against it, it hurts you back; you must engage with it. If McGuiness can grasp that idea, so can anyone.

Post 110010

I'm sat here trying to watch teatime TV (the inestimable showbiz machine that is Paul O'Grady, in fact). However, it's pouring with rain and blowing a gale outside and, while the reception on terrestrial TV is slightly snowy, it's still perfectly watchable. On digital, however, the picture keeps freezing for up to 10 seconds at a time, rendering it unwatchable. It was the same with Radio 3 this lunchtime. It's Mozart week, but trying to hear the great maestro's work was almost impossible.

The government is insisting we all switch to digital reception. To help us make the switch, the terrestrial transmitters are being switched off. Now, this isn't a knee-jerk "this bloody government, so called" objection to being told what to do. It's an observation that if digital transmissions are to become universal, there's going to have to be far more investment in transmitter power to overcome the British weather because at the moment, it's true what they say: a bit of bad weather and Britain grinds to a halt. In future, this may include the one medium that can provide information and advice in times of, er, bad weather.

110010 is 50 in binary, by the way.

Daily Mail in story burial shocker

Here's an interesting thing if you're a bit bored. The Daily Mail's web site reported on Sunday that the bright green Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras installed by the Highways Agency to monitor journey times have been linked into "a police database", according to an unnamed Agency official.

However, the Highways Agency page detailing its camera types claims that "The data is anonymised and transmitted to the [National Traffic Control Centre] at least every 5 minutes. Once this has been matched to a record from an adjacent camera or a defined period has lapsed the data is deleted. The only information being retained being the average journey time for that section at that time. No one has access to the full number plate data." So, it's anonymous and used only for the purposes of measuring traffic flow. Am I the only one to think that something doesn't add up here?

However, at the time of writing, this story hasn't been reported anywhere else that I can find, and has been removed from the Daily Mail's RSS feed. But if, as the Mail reported, "Thousands of CCTV cameras across the country have also been converted to read numberplates – as have mobile cameras. Police helicopters can spot plates from the air and officers have live access to London’s Congestion Charge cameras," then there's a major scandal brewing here. It's a huge worry for the vast majority of us law-abiding people to be spied on wholesale, and 29 predictably indignant Mail readers have already left comments on the story.

So, is this story, by Jason Lewis, mere speculation? After all, it contains little hard factual content. Who was this official who seems to have spilt the beans, for instance? What would the Association of Chief Police Officers be doing with $32 million of "government cash" for the project? Is the newspaper simply stirring the pot or is the Highways Agency saying one thing while allowing its ANPL cameras to secretly be used for something quite different?

I think we should be told.