Richard's Kingdom

The war on terror is over. We lost. The tell-tale signs are everywhere. You can see them in our buildings and our transport networks. You can read them in your morning paper. You can hear them echoing down the corridors of Whitehall. Galvanised by fear whipped up by the media, to which our politicians pander [...]

The new Conservative-Liberal coalition Government today announced it intends to pass a “Freedom” or “Great Repeal” Act. This will: Scrap the ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the ContactPoint Database. Outlaw the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission. Extend the scope of the Freedom of [...]

Over the last two parliaments the British state has grown ever more authoritarian. Personal liberty has been sacrificed on the altar of public opinion for political ends. The false dichotomy of privacy versus security has been used repeatedly to justify robbing us of the former while failing to deliver the latter. Billions of pounds have [...]

Credit-card companies claim their 3D-Secure system – branded as Verified by Visa and Mastercard SecureCode – provides an extra layer of security against online fraud. Back in November I suggested that, rather than protecting consumers, the extra security appears to benefit banks and merchants by pushing fraud liability onto card-holders. Now Ross Anderson and Steven [...]

Last Friday I travelled to London to see a talk by security visionary and cryptographer Bruce Schneier. The event was a fund-raiser for the Open Rights Group, and was chaired by its Executive Director, Jim Killock. His was not a demanding role. The capacity crowd of disciples, many of whom were also ORG supporters, needed [...]