Mary Fisher wrote:

So you only store data which could be useful to a miner for six years.

I see. Right. Safe as houses, really ...

While I have it stored, no one is going to mine it... ;-)

(on a more practical note, data mining only works well on really large
collections of data - 1000's of people and more....)

I was thinking of personal material. Ancient accounts give a wealth of
information to the social historian.

One of the oddities of our modern day ability to store so much is the
likelihood that there will be far less preserved for future historians.
A paper ledger can last 100 years or more, a file on a disk is likely to
find itself erased to make space for new stuff, or simply left to
languish on a format no one has the equipment to read any more.

Alas space to store them is not... ;-)


Build a shed. A concrete one with steel doors and properly alarmed.

Got one of them ;-) guess what....

Even with chip and pin? There seems to be a lot of confusion and perhaps

Yup even with chip and pin. The thing that changes with chip and pin is
the retailers liability for fraud. It used to be the case they were to
an extent protected from fraud carried out by the customers. If they
offer C&P then this is still the case (even if the customer elects not
to use it), however if the do not offer it and the customer commits
fraud then the retailer would be liable not the merchant account company.

I suppose to need to ask if you are unsure...


Which I did and was told that you were talking to a wider audience.You, said
that, not someone else.The use of one to indicate the general could be
useful in avoiding misunderstandings.

Indeed, one will take more care...

I would not want you to miss me ;-)


And I would.

Thanks...

If I remembered ...

I think .... ;-)

So NO system is foolproof so the criticism of the ID one being prone to
faults because of government tenders and carelessness and cheapness has lost
value.

There are degrees here - from good but not perfect to very very bad. To
know that perfect is not achievable is no justification for accepting
the latter.

Don't think anyone has accused the current proposals of "cheapness",
quite the reverse.

The tender process brings its own problems, but as I highlighted the
alternatives that can be/have been used have their own problems. What
it needs is astute procurement with a little more technical nous
employed at that stage, and less involvement from parties with vested
interests.

Many of the main weaknesses of the current proposed system (from an
engineering point of view) are that it has fundamental conflicts of
interest built into it. To give an example, for good security of access
to database it is better to centralise access to it, but for any
practical use in an ID system it needs to be vastly distributed.

For counter terrorism activities you need a complex database integrated
into many facets of day to day life so as to capture the transactions
that you can later mine to work out connections and relationships.
However a tightly integrated system like this becomes a very attractive
terrorist target itself because of the potential disruption you can
cause to those very same day to day activities.

Secure, cheap, optional, and non invading, then it would be ok...


Which of those would you be prepared to compromise?

If you^h^h^h one could convince me there was a tangible benefit to be
had, then "cheap"

Tell you what, if it were secure and people were PAID to have it, they'd
all be in favour, would they?

I would not have thought so...


What about other people? Even the earlier objectors in this thread?

Ask'em ;-)

That may be true, but it makes two assumptions. Firstly that the holders
of the information are benign,


There is no proof that they are not.

Can you substantiate that statement?

and secondly that having something to hide is always indicative of
wrongdoing.


Why else hide something?

A multitude of reasons....

Embarrassment, personal safety, privacy, employment prospects, even
national security. I am sure even you can think of things relating to
peoples identity and movements that would be damaging in the wrong hands
(especially when combined with their occupations).

--
Cheers,

John.

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