Would You Buy An Expensive Lock If Someone Else Had The Key?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Apple and Google recently enabled full-device encryption by default on their mobile operating systems – and big brother doesn’t like it – not one bit. As always he talks about things like ‘National Security’, ‘terrorist threats’, etc., and that there will be total chaos in the streets if ordinary citizens are allowed their right to privacy.

Some of the stuff that has hit the media has been ridiculous and would be laughable except these idiots are actually intent on total control.

For example, the head of the FBI has issued dire warnings of children dying if ordinary people are allowed their privacy via encryption programs. The secretary of Homeland Security used the deaths of the 168 people killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing as ‘proof’ that, while privacy was important, encryption should not be allowed to stymie US law enforcement.

Big Brother wants to stick his nose into EVERYTHING. Anything that makes that harder to do frustrates the hell out of him.

 

So he continues with the stupid excuse that the necessity to snoop on law abiding people is because criminals and terrorists might use encryption tools as well.

It’s a bit like saying that no one should be allowed to drive a car because someone, somewhere, sometime, might get drunk and cause a fatal accident.

Then there’s the EnnEssEhh director who wants mandatory “front doors” to be built into all cryptographic technology used in the U.S., so that you can’t have secrets it can’t spy on. His idea is for all encrypted software and hardware used in the U.S. to have one encryption key for the user (you) and another that would be made available to the government bureaucrat spooks any time they wanted it.

This is complete nonsense. And they know it. But still they persist.

They have already got the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which removed the right of a purchaser to use their goods as they see fit. This legislation means that digital products continue to be the property of the seller – not (you) the buyer who paid for them. And it makes it illegal for buyers of digital goods to circumvent any features that allow snooping.

Going back to my car analogy, that is like a car dealer selling you a car on the condition that you never open the hood to see how it works, or perform your own modifications.

In practical terms this means that if you buy a new phone or computer, the manufacturer can have a spy device pre-installed in its hard components or its software and you would be forbidden by law from finding out about it or fixing it.

If Big Brother thinks he can enforce stupidity like this then he is even crazier than I think he is – and I think he is completely crazy already!

Big Brother can legislate all he wants, but we all know that the only people who will abide by these new laws will be the law abiding people. The criminals and terrorists will find ways round it, through it, over it, or under it.

It’s the same flawed logic as in the continued cry from liberals to take legally registered guns away from law abiding people so that only the criminals are armed.

 

Then there is, not the probability – but the FACT – that if a government spook friendly encryption system was created, it would immediately be attacked by hackers – including hackers employed by foreign governments, some of them friends of the terrorists that the legislation is supposed to be there to defeat.

And what about the practical commercial aspect to it all? When you think about it, who in their right mind is going to pay good money for an encryptiuon system that they know can be broken?

Would you buy an expensive lock if someone else had the key?

I think not.

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General Confusion And Major Disaster.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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No, today’s post is not about matters military, although the term ‘SNAFU’ would be rather appropriate.

This one is about the General Election in Britain in May 2015 that will decide who will run the country for the next five years and who will be Prime Minister. This is a crucial election for voters because there is no real front runner. One party is as bad as the other. So a few votes here and there could make a crucial difference. Sounds a bit like Florida!

It may even end up with another coalition government in Britain, although I don’t know if the Conservatives could stomach another five years of being tied to the Liberals – but what am I talking about, of course they could, if it meant clinging on to power.

The election might be even closer than it should be because millions of people may be unable to vote. The secretive Whitehall department of stupid bureaucrats responsible for – wait for the irony, “efficiency” – refused to heed warnings from its own pilot programs that showed it had major problems with data matching.

It is very similar to the way the nerds at Microsoft didn’t believe their testers when they told them Windows 8 was a pile of doo-doo.

The bureaucrats first of all created new legal requirements for voter registration requiring them to verify information that was previously taken on trust.

The only thing is, about five and a half million voters went missing from the Electoral Register. The tests they carried out told them this was likely to happen, but they didn’t listen. Bureaucrats never do until it is too late.

According to government sources, “The digital service allows anyone to register to vote online, from any device connected to the web. It’s incredibly quick and simple – it takes less than five minutes.”

They forgot to add the crucial line that – it doesn’t work.

The problems became apparent as soon as the web service went live. The Electoral Register was a lot shorter than it had been. Not only that but strange things also began to happen.

For example, a five-year-old boy in Crewe had been given the vote – but he couldn’t get off the Electoral Register, because he was not able to produce his National Insurance number, which of course he didn’t have – because he was only five. Duhh!!!

In another case a woman, who had been an eligible voter on the Electoral Roll for twenty years, failed to get on to the new one because her National Insurance number was in her maiden name which did not match with her married name which the system insisted she use now.

The whole thing has turned into a government-created mess. People are now filling in the registration form thinking that means they are registered to vote, but actually they haven’t. All they have managed to do is submit an application to register to vote.

It’s bit like filling in a form so that you are eligible to fill in a form. A bureaucrat’s dream!

So it’s looking like general confusion and major disaster for the election. Just more proof that government bureaucrats and computer systems just don’t belong together.

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Can You Believe It? I’ve Run Out Of Puns!!!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Okay, wipe that smirk off your faces.

Of course I haven’t run out of puns. Whoever would believe such a thing.

And just to prove it, here are some more.

Enjoy, I know you will.

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I ate the burger with relish.

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Q: Why did Mozart kill all his chickens ?

A: Because all they would say was ” Bach , Bach ………Bach , Bach”

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You say that this beverage is non-alcoholic.

But where is the proof?

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The best vitamin for making friends is B-1.

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When they said I was mad I went out and got drunk.

I guess it was a choice between having a bottle in front of me

or a frontal lobotomy.

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When the artist tried to draw a cube he had a mental block.

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Coffee is for mugs

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Just been on bigbustycoons.com

Damn, those guys have really good bus companies.

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My wife shouted upstairs, “The sun’s just come out.”

I thought great, threw on some shorts and

flip flops and shot down the stairs.

I was rather shocked when I got down to find

our lad holding hands with his mate Michael.

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There’s no denying it, Rap is 75% Crap

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I just saw an advert for the new film: ‘The Hole – Now in 3D!’

Well, surely it has to be in 3D otherwise it’s just a circle.

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You invented White Out didn’t you?

Correct me If I’m wrong….

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A lot of stupid people who don’t keep up with current

affairs still don’t know who Kim Jong Un is.

Duhhh, she is the leader of North Korea.

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An unnamed weatherman has reacted angrily to being

sacked because he always gives cold gloomy forecasts.

So I guess it’s no more mist and ice guy.

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Q. What makes a riot?

A. Three dyslexics.

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A colleague just burst into my office

while I was busy working

and demanded to know what an

electrical synapse in the human body was.

The nerve.

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Did you hear about the guy who got his thrills

by shoving resistors up his bottom.

He definitely sounds like an Ohmosexual to me.

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My internet bride got delivered today.

She’s the WiFi always dreamed of.

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If you were lost in fog, would you be mist?

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Finally some news from this week on the stock market.

Helium was up, but feathers were down.

Paper was stationary, but pencils lost a few points.

Elevators rose but escalators continued their slow decline.

Switches were off and mining equipment hit rock bottom.

The raisin market has dried up.

Pampers remained unchanged while Sun peaked at mid-day.

Andrex tissues touched a new bottom.

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Don’t Take My Word For It, Let These Guys Tell You Themselves

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The elections are over, much to the relief of many of us, but unfortunately the politicians are still there. I have frequently criticized these idiots for making a monumental mess of things and for squandering billions of dollars on the most insanely stupid debacles and catastrophes. And I will probably do so again. 

However, it is always a good idea or policy to be able to back up what you say with some facts, so rather than run to my own defense which is usually what happens, this time I am going to let some of the politicians prove beyond any and all reasonable doubt that my opinion of them is well justified.

So here we have a selection of quotations from some fairly famous politicians in which they condemn themselves to the dustbin of stupidity.

Enjoy.  

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Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States:

“Politics gives guys so much power that they tend to behave badly around women. And I hope I never get into that.”

 

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This from a congressional candidate in Texas:

“That scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I’m just the one to do it.”

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Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California Governor talking about his views on the economy:

“The public doesn’t care about figures.”

 

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Jacques le Blanc, French ambassador on nuclear weapons:

“I do not like this word ‘bomb.’ It is not a bomb. It is a device that is exploding.”

 

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Aggie Pate, at a non-denominational mayor’s breakfast, Fort Worth, Texas:

“I didn’t know Onward Christian Soldiers was a Christian song.”

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California Senator Barbara Boxer:

“Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, ‘Thank God, I’m still alive.’ But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again.”

 

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Ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo:

“The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It’s only the people who make them unsafe.”

 

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Congressman Everett Dirksen:

“A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money.”

 

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Former U.S. President, Richard Nixon:

“Solutions are not the answer.”

 

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H. Ross Perot, major Texas businessman and former presidential candidate:

“This planet is our home. If we destroy the planet, we’ve destroyed our home, so it is fundamentally important.”

 

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Arizona Governor Wesley Bolin:

“We’d like to avoid problems, because when we have problems, we can have troubles.”

 

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George Wallace 1968 presidential campaign:

“I’ve read about foreign policy and studied, I now know the number of continents.”

 

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Dwight Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States:

“The world is more like it is now then it ever has before.”

 

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Fred Heineman, former Republican representative from North Carolina:

“When I see someone who is making anywhere from $300,000 to $750,000 a year, that’s middle class.”

 

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Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien:

“A proof is a proof. What kind of proof? It’s a proof. A proof is proof. And when you have a good proof, it’s because it is proven.”

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Imelda Marcos, former First Lady and a political figure in the Philippines:

“I get so tired listening to one million dollars here, one million dollars there, it’s so petty.”

 

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Bob Dole, Republican presidential candidate:

“The internet is a great way to get on the net.”

 

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Al Gore, former U.S. vice president:

“We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur.”

 

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Former California Governor Gray Davis, during the recall campaign:

“My vision is to make the most diverse state on earth, and we have people from every planet on the earth in this state. We have the sons and daughters of every, of people from every planet, of every country on earth.”

 

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Charles De Gaulle, former French President:

“China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.”

 

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President Clinton, denying that he had sexually harassed Kathleen Willey:

“I would never approach a small-breasted woman.”

 

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