Dec 08
12
Police In The UK Clueless About IT
That’s the conclusion I came to, after finding an article on silicon.com. In an interview with Detective superintendent Charlie McMurdie, the police force in the UK are looking to create some kind of magical device that can be used like a "computer breathalyser."
The device would look on somebody’s PC for any illegal activity, such as illegal file downloads, or information on fraud. Or at least that’s what the police believe – I feel a little differently about it though, as you would expect by now..
For one thing, this would never get past the European parliament – it’s a direct infringement on people’s rights. Secondly, by comparing such a device to a breathalyser is not just misinformed, but downright idiotic. A breathalyser, looking for traces of alcohol in your body, doesn’t compare to a system that scans your whole computer for traces of illegal activity. It’s like having a breathalyser that not only checks your body’s alcohol levels, but every other chemical, plus your address, your correspondence with other people, taps your phone, checks your inside leg measurements, looks in your wallet for any fake notes and so on..
Thirdly I don’t even see how this would work, if it was suggested it only looked for suspect material. You would need to get everything in order to work out what was of any use, which puts them right back to where they are now, with police officers checking the data..
This quote from the Detecive superintendant shows us that they think they’re doing us a favour by going through our personal private data without a warrant:
You can bet that if the device is given the go ahead, it won’t require a warrant to use.
The device is being discussed because the UK police force lack the necessary skills to analyse the numbers of PCs they’re getting – so a mythical do-it-all device is being thought about because they have problems understanding IT… Hmmm, anybody see the link there?
It would be nice to have a system on your PC that detects unwanted entry by a USB stick or other device, and wipes it – I would pay good money for something like that, just on the off chance I would one day be able to use it!