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Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:15 pm

What can I say?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7103566.stm

The fact that they can get that much data on two discs amazes me, but there again I'm not a techie. The fact that they send it though the normal post and put millions of people at potential risk then resend it again beggars belief. Shocked

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:32 pm

Unbe-smegging-lievable. I can't see how or why they thought it'd be a good idea to send that kind of stuff through the post. I'm sure that's a breach of the security principles in the Data Protection Act.

Regarding the discs, I'm actually quite sceptical on their figures (unless they're DVDs, and the Lib Dem guy was misinformed/misquoted), since by my sums that'd mean they only use about 40 bytes for each record in their database, which isn't nearly enough.

(Here's the maths in case I've missed something)
2 CDs ~= 1400MB
1400MB ~= 1468006.4 KB
25m indiviuals + 7.25m families ~= 33m records
1468006.4 KB/33000000 = 40.96 Bytes

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

Ivor Grimey Colon wrote:

2 CDs ~= 1400MB
1400MB ~= 1468006.4 KB
25m indiviuals + 7.25m families ~= 33m records
1468006.4 KB/33000000 = 40.96 Bytes

Read the stickies, math is not to be discussed on the forum!

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:38 pm

apparently postal shit happens:

Quote:

It appears the data has failed to reach the addressee

this today in the german news (sorry if a bit off topic)
http://n-tv.de/882079.htm

(google language tools translation: Counterfeit checks leaked out

Two counterfeit checks from Nigeria, the customs at Frankfurt Airport confiscated. The payment had been made in the control of a nondescript package in the cargo department has been found, officials reported. The settlement checks were amounts of 20 million and 14.7 million euros.

The box had been sent from Nigeria and should be sent to an address in South German country. The checks were due to suspicion of illegal money laundering assured. Customs determined now to the recipient in Bavaria.

Customs monitors the cross-border financial transactions. This is, inter alia, to prevent that proceeds from crime in the European Community flow.)
Hope you didn't lose any -errr...customers of your sig-material Very Happy

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 2628

Its not the first set of discs they've lost recently bbc link

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 10:43 pm

25 million was the figure quoted by the Home Office Minister in Parliament. Apparently details of children and also bank accounts and National Insurance numbers are included. The mind is boggled. Shocked

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:00 pm

KD, the cheques above were mine, can you explain to the authorites please, all 100% risky free investments

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:33 pm

Alistair Darling should take a long walk of a very short Peer. Laughing

Quote:

National insurance number
Name, address and birth date
Partner's details
Names, sex and age of children
Bank/savings account details

[Edited] Just to point out that this isn't political. I would have posted it whoever was responsible for probably the biggest computer cock up since some geeky nerd called William Gates told his mother he didn't like Apple and he wanted the garage space for some computer experiments. Shocked

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:42 pm

At least it's not just our postal service that loses stuff! Confused

What the heck does the UK gov't need people's bank info for? Isn't that private?

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:50 pm

^^^^The Tax Credits get paid direct into the recipients bank accounts to save the hassle of issuing cheques.

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 10:14 am

The cock up was losing the database in the post of 25 million claiments of child benefit. As Tommo said, the bank details were for direct payment into bank accounts. The Government used to pay by giro (a type of cheque) book. But that was too expensive.

I can well understand how this happened. Any important info had to be sent by e-mail and if any hard copies required by the executive, we sent someone to hand deliver it rather than rely on internal mail. To try and defend the indefensible, if civil servants and Government spending weren't such a favourite whipping target then maybe we would get a better result. The IT systems we used were cheapo microshit stuff. The pay is crap, and if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 10:37 am

If the guy who has the discs is reading this: please put some money into my bank-account.

Actually, all this palaver kinda makes me wonder if I shouldn't ditch my bank-account and make all my transactions by WU.
Probably safer than leaving my details with the govt. Evil or Very Mad

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 10:43 am

^^^^^^

this could cause more trouble for some major banks when everyone
starts to close their accounts.

i am just waiting for the money to transfer from my wifes account
into mine as i type.

Wink

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 7:23 pm

Wow! Another "Not fit for purpose excuse."

I just love that phrase. "Sorry love I wasn't fit for purpose tonight, I had other things on my mind and had too many pints in the pub. Laughing

"

Heads should start rolling. Starting with you, obviously Darling (apologies to 'Blackadder' for the following pun), General Haigh, General Haigh's wife, General Haigh's wife's tennis partner and Cliff Richard.

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 24 Feb 2006 Posts: 713

Kinda puts all we do here into perspective. Boffins on the radio earlier today reckoned that chances are the discs have been pinched rather than slipped behind the sofa (or whatever). Which is marvellous.

I wonder if global financial meltdown would be caused if 25 million bank accounts were suddenly compromised.

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 2628

Thing is we tell our kids not to give out personal info , no full names, address, date of birth on myspace, bebo etc

then the govt hand it out to all and sundry it seems, with no security in place.

This data has been missing for several weeks now.

I'm not so worried for myself but the info on the kids ????

Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 12:36 am

Wow, Wrong on so many levels it's hard to begin. Unfortunately it seems that their whole system is so flawed that it would take a major restructuring to actually solve anything.

The old joke about computers allowing one to make really big mistakes really quickly is especially true in any kind of security set up.