Virus writers have created a Trojan which poses as London terrorist attack news footage. Infected emails harbouring the Trojan pose as a CNN Newsletter which asks recipients to ‘See attachments for unique amateur video shots’ (example below).

From the Register

So if you do get an e-mail which reads…

From: breakingnewsATcnnonline.com

Subject: TERROR HITS LONDON

Filename: ‘London Terror Moovie.avi <124 spaces>
Checked By Norton Antivirus.exe’

Then stick it where it belongs, in the spam bin.

Hey, hey, hey. Our dear friends at the Safety Elephant’s department have produced a nice little guide to the ‘benefits’ of introducing identity cards

I’ll rip this apart take a look at this in more detail later, but just on a cursory look this document is of much interest for no other reason than it begins to confirm, at last, many of things that opponents of the scheme have been saying for quite a while.

Take this bit for starters…

“Many of the strategic benefits derive from the use of the National Identity Registration Number (IRN) which will be a unique number that will be unequivocally linked to an individual. The use of this number will revolutionise efficiency in public and private sector organisations alike. Realising these benefits does not require the centralisation of service entitlement information on the ID Cards Scheme database – the National Identity Register. Service entitlement data would be retained by service providers on their own systems but their systems would be able to make use of secure identity check provided by the ID Cards Scheme to make sure that they were accessing the correct record. This will ensure that the scheme will enhance individuals’ privacy.”

What they’re admitting to here is that your Identity Registration Number will definitely used across the whole of the public sector to identify all the records relating to you…

…all of which means that those records can readily cross-referenced to compile a complete picture of your life - see here

Back later on with more…

Dear oh dear.

With so much going on of late, I’ve managed to neglect to mention that my former colleague, Stu - you know the one I mentioned had been suspended by my former employer, Sandwell Council of Voluntary Organisations is now starting his sixth week of suspension.

Now to put this perspective, SCVO, at most has around 25-30 employees of whom I’d be surprised in more than six to eight are likely to have any relevant observations regarding the allegation of bullying made against him. So unless they’re interviewing people at a rate of one a week, the whole thing should have been done and dusted by now - or so you might reasonable have thought.

In the mean time, of course, that’s another £3,000 of taxpayer’s money, maybe £3,500 and rising by the day, that’s been pissed away on paying the guy to sit at home and do nothing.

Oh, and I just thought I’d point out that, as far as I’m aware, the one person who hasn’t been formally interviewed or asked to give his side of the story is…

…Stuart.

Anyway, that’s not why I’m posting this today, the reason I am posting is because at the time I first commented on Stu’s situation one of the questions I was asked was whether the Chair of the organisation was aware of what’s going on there, to which I replied by offering the opinion that it was likely that not everything would be reported to her and that what she was told would be likely to have a particular slant on it which favoured certain people, especially some of those in management. However, I did go to say that, in my own experience, given an accurate account of what was going on, the Chair would invariably deal with matters fairly and equitably, even if that did mean overruling decisions taken by the organisation’s Chief Executive.

So with that in mind I was to say the least rather interested to discover that SCVO is currently consulting its employees on a number of changes to its internal employment policies, including its procedures from dealing with disciplinary proceedings, grievances and bullying and harassment, ostensibly to bring its procedures in line with a number of recent changes to employment law.

Now, apart from noting that their proposed grievance procedure is incomplete inasmuch as as it neglects to make provision for the modified form of the statutory procedure which came into force last year, the one thing that all these procedures clearly have in common is that they more or less remove the Chair of the organisation from any direct involvement in decisions relating to employment matters including where a decision is taken to dismiss an employee and also any appeals related to such a decision.

In fact the only occasion on which the Chair would be involved is in the case of a grievance against the Chair of the organisation’s personnel subcommittee - and then only if that grievance resulted in an appeal against an earlier decision.

I think that probably answers the question of the extent to which the Chair of SCVO faces opposition from within the organisation when, having one two occasions, ruled against the Chief Executive in employment matters what follows is their almost total excision from any further involvement in dealing with the organisations employees.

It is important however that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations throughout the world.
Tony Blair, 7th July 2005

I think we all know what comes next.

Tommorrow’s tabloid editorials pretty much write themselves. After the condolences, after the near obligatory reference to indomitable spirit of Londoners, the same spirit which “saw them through the Blitz”, all will demand that ’something must be done’, even the girl with her tits out on page three of the Sun - she’ll probably demand the restoration of capital punishment for terrorists.

That’s tabloid journalism for you - never miss an opportunity to trot out a well-worn cliché, especially one that might allow you to namecheck Winston Churchill or Vera Lynn…

…and never, ever, miss an opportunity to demand that ’something must be done’.

—- Pause —-

I started to write this yesterday evening, then took a time out to think through what I really want to say about what happened yesterday.

Since then, the tabloids have hit the news stands and the editorialising by numbers exercise has started.

The Scum, as is ever it wont, throws Hitler, the Blitz and Winston Churchill into its usual desperate rabble-rousing style and demands vengeance and justice. I guess that all we can expect from a newspaper owned by an Australian American, a complete lack of understanding of the British people and their character - justice will do us just nicely, we’re too civilised a nation to go in for simple bloodthirsty revenge.

As for the ’something that must be done’ well The Scum has its own take on that as well…

“Britain is crawling with suspected terrorists and those who give them succour. The Government must act without delay, round up this enemy in our midst and lock them in internment camps.

Our safety must not play second fiddle to their supposed “rights.�

…to which all I can say is that if you genuinely believe that then you are a bigger bunch of fucking idiots than even your already abysmal reputation suggests.

The Scum doesn’t get it. It doesn’t get the basic fact that ‘their supposed rights are also OUR rights. That you can’t take those rights away from them, whoever they might be, without taking those same rights away from us all.

That’s the price we pay for living in a free and open society; one in which we tolerate and even cherish dissent, in which we allow freedom of movement, of thought, religion and conscience, one in which we try as hard as we might to preserve the rights of citizens to live their lives in privacy and without the constant and overbearing scrutiny of the state.

Yesterday we paid that price in the blood of our own citizens. It’s a price we’ve paid many times before and its a price we’ll no doubt pay again. It’s what our parents and grandparents fought for and it would be the deepest possible betrayal of their memory and their sacrifice were we to allow that freedom to be taken away from us because there are those in this world who would take advantage of and abuse that freedom to visit mayhem and destruction on the ordinary citizens of Britain.

Yes, something must be done, but that that something must be to do simply what we always do when faced with atrocity. We pick ourselves up. We get on with our lives and we show the world, and especially the terrorists who visited this attack on our capital city that no matter what they do, no matter where they attack and no matter how many lives the take, they will neither take away our freedom nor will we allow those who govern to take it away in the name of protecting us from them.

And because we live in a free society, because we cherish that freedom, we give even the terrorists who attacked London yesterday certain rights and privileges, not least of which is the right, if captured, to due process.

To be arrested and charged only the basis of the evidence and not on vague and unsubstantiated suspicions.

The right to legal counsel and representation acting under a duty to defend them to the best of their ability.

The right to a trial before a jury of their peers.

And, if convicted, the right to life, albeit a life incarcerated in a British prison.

Why? Because it is from those rights, which are common to us all, that we derive the moral authority as a society to sit in judgement of these people. Because without those rights, given freely to all, we become no better than them.

What bitter irony there is when, in the same editorial, The Scum manage to invoke the memory of Britain’s greatest fight against tyranny while demanding the return of internment and the concentration camp.

“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
William Faulkner

Our thoughts are with those who have been injured.

Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.

No comment necessary.