The Insanity of Banning Encryption

The prime minister says the security services must be able to read all our communications in order to keep us safe. In practical terms that can only mean banning encryption or rendering it ineffective. Does he know what that would mean and how it would affect our lives? Let’s set aside the technical absurdity of the idea and consider some of the impacts of such a policy, were it ever to be implemented.

The first and most immediately noticeable change would be that all overseas companies would close their UK-facing services as soon as the law was enacted. Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, WhatsApp, Netflix, Spotify, Evernote, Yahoo, Apple, Dropbox, Google and every other online service provider would cease to operate in the UK because operating insecurely would expose them to massive and continuous attacks. Online banking, e-commerce and Internet communications would end overnight. Internet companies wouldn't be able to deliver services to their customers and would fail or move their operations overseas. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost and much of modern life would become unbearable. The government's recent push to provide services and prove identity securely online? Pointless.

If only the Government can use encryption then all non-governmental agencies must communicate only in plain text. This would be very, very bad indeed; let me give you some idea of just how nasty things would get.

Want to travel? You'll have to buy tickets in person, with cash. Credit card transactions can no longer be verified automatically so every purchase you make must be handled by a person who then manually telephones a call centre to confirm the payment, except the call centres and credit card companies have been hacked and there’s no way for them to actually confirm payment. No more Chip and Pin or Cashless payments, it will be ten pound notes all the way. Do you fancy buying a flight to New York in cash in person at the airport because the booking and reservation system is paper-based? Neither do I.

And when I say “ten pound notes” I’m being optimistic because the financial crash caused by the overnight failure and closure of so many businesses has destroyed the economy and hyperinflation has rendered our currency worthless. The national debt has been inflated out of existence but you won't be able to afford bread.

Even if you could buy tickets you won’t be able to find out when the trains run or the aircraft fly because the databases have been hacked and destroyed. You might be able to get one of the very limited supply of maps and timetables that have been printed on bleached tree flesh but only if the printers have recovered from the shock of losing all their digital printers and computers. And you probably won’t be able to get maps or books or newspapers or magazines from a supermarket because the distribution systems have been hacked and mangled so the supermarkets aren’t able to buy or manage their stock. That's not too serious, though, because your bank account has already been emptied by criminals and the ATM network is no longer working so you can’t get hold of cash anyway.

In fact, you’ll have to make sure you get paid in cash, if you still have a job, but you'll have to spend it very quickly before hyperinflation destroys its value. Bank transfers, direct debits, standing orders and other instruments of financial convenience can no longer be used because unsecured financial transactions through unsecured banks - the only type now allowed - are routinely intercepted and diverted. You won’t be able to pay your mortgage or your gas bill but that’s OK because both the banks and the gas company are struggling, and failing, with the new manual systems that produce their bills and process their incoming payments; they’re going bust, slowly but surely, under a mountain of paper.

Do you still have a job? Probably not, although maybe you’ll get lucky and find work clearing cheques and updating paper account ledgers for a bank. Financial services, film production, software development, industrial design, manufacturing - any industry that deals with data or that can work internationally will move overseas. The economic collapse that follows will destroy most of the remaining companies that employ more than a handful of people. Any business that sells long distance, by which I mean more than a day’s walk, will probably fail.

The supermarkets’ problems aren’t limited to printed materials. You'll have to buy food, clothes and household items from local markets or corner shops because today's sophisticated "just-in-time" supply chains simply can't work without fast, secure communications. The supermarkets might still be open but they won't have much stock because it will all be locally produced - there will be no more cheap clothes from Indonesia or DVD players from China when UK companies can’t interact with overseas banking systems, which are, of course, still encrypted. Oh, and you won't be able to drive to the shops because you won't be able to afford the astronomical cost of petrol; you've got a bike, right? You won't be able to go to gigs or major sporting events because you won't be able to buy tickets or find out what's going on but that won't matter because nobody will come to the UK to perform anyway.

What if you need healthcare, insurance, references for a mortgage, banking services, social services? You're out of luck; the banks and hospitals no longer have your details because your unencrypted records have been stolen or corrupted or deleted by criminals, who are selling your data to other criminals. You won't be able to verify your identity or access any online records of any sort because unencrypted communications have allowed criminals and hostile governments free access to databases that ought to have been secure.

You can't fly anywhere; even if you could buy tickets, air travel is no longer affordable except for the super-rich and most airlines have stopped flying to the UK because it simply isn’t safe for their staff to be here. Heathrow Airport has become the UK’s largest camp for the new homeless, and there are millions of them. Nobody travels to the UK anymore because it’s just so unutterably unpleasant once you arrive. Your only option is to join the long line of people walking to the coast hoping for a ferry to sanity.

Even the criminals don't benefit in the long-term because nobody will have anything left worth stealing. And the terrorists? You guessed it - still active because the security services don’t quite have all the tools they need to keep us safe. And now there is a whole new underclass or unemployed homeless people upon which to prey and from which to recruit; terrorism and revolt become the major growth industries in the UK.

What the prime minister proposes when he says "ban encryption" is nothing less than the destruction of the Internet in all practical terms in the UK and an end to our way of life. And we can’t just return to some idyllic pre-Internet age, even if one had existed, because all the systems and jobs and companies that supported that way of life have gone, swallowed by the vastly better and more efficient digital age.

Without encryption people will suffer and die in numbers that today's terrorists can only dream of. I suspect the prime minister may need to reconsider his proposal.

Bikes on Northern Trains

Northern Trains wins today's prize for worst cycle allowance, having made essentially no provision for bikes at all. Mind you, given the age of their rolling stock it would be difficult to argue they'd made much provision for passengers, either.

They win points for having friendly helpful staff but lose them again for turning away a fifth cyclist, ostensibly because there was no more room for bikes.

Overall: 1/10. Extremely poor, must do better.

Bikes on Cross Country Trains

Taking bikes on East Midlands' trains turned out to be a doddle compared to Cross Country, who provide the most appalling bike hangers. Theoretically their trains hold four bikes but the spaces are so poorly designed that hanging even a single bike is a test of dexterity, endurance and strength; hanging two side-by-side is damn near impossible.

And if you had a non-standard bike or you lacked upper body strength you're stuffed.

Overall: 3/10, very poor, must improve.

Bikes on East Midlands Trains

I'm on a five car train, with my bike. There is space for one other bike in the single cycle storage area but luckily I appear to be the only cyclist travelling today.

Reserving the space was easy - you just email the customer service team (it's unclear why you can't reserve a bike space when booking a ticket). Getting your bike to the platform at St Pancras is easy.

Getting onto the train is more difficult because the door is narrow, the train is much higher than the platform and there's a fair-sized gap between train and platform. I suspect many people, especially those with limited strength or heavy panniers, would struggle.

Manoeuvring on the train is very tricky - there's very little space - but securing the bike is straightforward using the straps provided. There isn't a rack the straps are the only things holding the bike in place. Getting your bike out at the other end is similarly tricky.

Overall: 7/10, could do better

iOS 8 : Custom Keyboards

When Apple announced at WWDC that iOS 8 would support custom keyboards I was somewhat underwhelmed. At the time I couldn't see any real benefit and some very real downsides, like the potential for a malicious app to monitor everything you type and send it to a foreign server for nefarious purposes. I was quite certain that I would never consider using any keyboard except Apple's.

And then I found a blog about Smile's new version of TextExpander touch, which includes a keyboard and allows you to use TE in native applications like Mail and Safari and third-party apps like Evernote even when those apps don't support TE's API. Smile say:

TextExpander touch 3, coming on the heels of iOS 8 this fall, includes a TextExpander keyboard which can expand snippets in any app on the iPhone or iPad, including built-in apps such as Mail and Safari.

Prior to iOS 8, only apps which implemented the TextExpander touch SDK could expand snippets directly.

Under iOS 8, the TextExpander keyboard will work system-wide and reliably share snippets with the TextExpander app. The keyboard will also include full VoiceOver accessibility support.

I don't use TextExpander at the moment because it doesn't work with the applications I use in iOS. I'm not yet certain that I would use it in iOS 8 (although it probably makes sense as part of my wider quest to improve my workflow and move away from Windows) but I'm thinking about it. TextExpander Touch is the first keyboard app I've seen that delivers enough benefit for me to consider a switch.

It'll be interesting to see what other developers bring to the party when Apple releases iOS 8 to the masses.

Police want right to see medical records without consent

No. Just no.

Police want new and expanded rights to access medical records and other confidential data without an individual's consent, a senior police chief has told the Guardian. Sir Peter Fahy, the Greater Manchester chief constable, said the extra access to sensitive data was needed to help police cope with growing numbers of vulnerable people.

The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/10/police-right-to-see-medical-records

Westboro Baptist Church Protesting SF Tech Workers

TechCrunch report:

> The Westboro Baptist Church, the group known for its hate-filled picketing outside the funerals of soldiers and those who died of AIDS, has found a new target – the tech industry. The group plans to picket pretty much every major tech company in Silicon Valley from Facebook to Reddit this afternoon.


Public exhibitions of religious belief often seem a bit weird to outsiders but the activities of Westboro Baptists Church are seriously bizarre (and distinctly unpleasant). Their deliberate misunderstanding of life must make it difficult to function in the modern world; I feel quite sorry for them.

TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/12/westboro-baptist-church-protesting-tech-workers-this-afternoon/?ncid=rss

Google's Self-Driving Cars

Google is moving into low-volume car production as part of its work on self-driving vehicles.

Google is to start building its own self-driving cars, rather than modifying vehicles built by other manufacturers. The car will have a stop-go button but no controls, steering wheel or pedals.

Source: BBC News

This seems like a pretty exciting move, even if the vehicles are limited to 25mph. A self-driving car with no manual operation at all sounds like a great improvement and I'd definitely be interested in buying, renting or riding in one (especially if there were fleets of self-driving taxis available at short-notice in London).

Google have announced that they're now going to be tackling tricky busy city streets rather than the somewhat more straightforward roads they've been operating on till now. This is important for cities like London (or, in fact, almost any city in Europe) where the roads are often narrow and clogged with both moving and stationery vehicles.

One area in particular that I'm keen to hear about is how the system will cope with pedestrians. Not sensible pedestrians who use pavements and pelican crossings, or even drunk pedestrians who stagger along the pavement and occasionally collapse in the gutter. I'm not worried about children darting without thought into the road or slow-moving pedestrians limping slowly across when the cars have right of way. All of these things can be anticipated, managed, handled and once the crisis is over everything returns to normal and the car goes about its business again.

The type of pedestrian which, to me at least, presents the most interesting use case is the chap who, recognising a self-driving car with excellent brakes and computer-fast reactions, simply steps into the road trusting the car to stop in time to miss him. Unlikely, you think? It already happens in London, to a certain extent, on roads that are busy with pedestrians like Long Acre where taxi speeds are already constrained and it's reasonably easy to force the drivers to slow further or stop. Think how much worse it will be when the pedestrians know (even if this "knowledge" isn't, in fact, correct), rather than merely believe, that the car will stop.

The taxis eventually make it down Long Acre and along Wellington Street but it can take a very long time and they're often only able to do it by nudging across pedestrian crossing or through gaps that, strictly speaking, they shouldn't attempt. Will a self-driving car be able to break or bend the rules to make progress through heavy pedestrian traffic? It seems most unlikely.

By my reckoning there will have to be radical change. Roads that are currently open to traffic at all hours will have to be restricted if we are to avoid total gridlock. Zebra crossings, which work brilliantly for pedestrians, will have to be re-thought in areas where there are enough pedestrians to stop traffic completely. Some vehicles, like coaches, HGVs and construction vehicles, will have to be limited by time or location and it's not going to be pretty.

In short, if you're expecting self-driving cars to solve transport problems in inner-city areas, think again. And get ready for some bigger changes.

Possibly the Best Article about Programming, Ever

If you work with code or computers or developers you have to read this article.

My favourite part:

Most people don't even know what sysadmins do, but trust me, if they all took a lunch break at the same time they wouldn't make it to the deli before you ran out of bullets protecting your canned goods from roving bands of mutants.

Genius.  

Air China Business Class

There are two things I want to know about when I fly; 1) are the seats comfortable, and 2) is the food good. On long-haul flights the quality of either, but more likely the food, can vary significantly between legs. For example, the food served on the London-Beijing leg of my current flight was pretty good and even, in some respects, enjoyable. The food so far on the Beijing to Sydney leg is less good.

In what way? The Dauphinoise potatoes were spongy (which ought not to be physically possible), the bread rolls were inedible and the salad was frankly bizarre. Commendations for the cheese, though; who'd have thought there were two such different specimens that both had less flavour than the crackers?

I Ride My Bike Because...

I commute every day by bike. My bike causes no pollution, makes no noise, does no damage to the road and poses no risk to others. Cycling is faster, cheaper and nicer than public transport. Riding makes me feel alive; it keeps me fit, productive and healthy.

Cyclists make our city better; let's build roads that are safe for everyone.

Citizenship Rights in Britain

I find myself increasingly disturbed by the actions of our Government. Being tough on terrorists is one thing but stripping people of their citizenship is not a proportional or reasonable punishment.

During the dark days of the second world war, when Britain was in mortal danger, only four people were stripped of citizenship. Theresa May has denaturalised more than four times that number of in the last three years alone. Now she wants to increase the state's power further by consigning British-only citizens she deems undesirable to statelessness.

Source: The Guardian.

Why you won't catch me queuing for a burger | Life and style | The Observer

Jay Rayner is spot on. Queuing for a restaurant is insane, especially in London where the number of good restaurants is astronomical.

I'll go that extra 10 miles to eat well. I'll cross London to secure an ingredient, take a flight to eat at the right restaurant. But queue? That's not an expression of greed. It's stamp-collecting. It's trainspotting. It's eating out as spectator sport.

From The Guardianhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/13/jay-rayner-queue-for-hamburger.

Samsung Galaxy Gear Review

An entertaining review as long as you don't work for Samsung and
haven't bought their Galaxy Gear:

> Samsung is pitching the Gear as a smartphone companion device that is designed to make your life easier. It does not.


BGR: http://bgr.com/2013/10/01/samsung-galaxy-gear-review-smartwatch/

UK Defends Miranda Airport Detention

Yes, obviously:

UK Home Office says 'government and police have a duty to protect the public', in wake of row over airport detention

But they need to explain how detaining the partner of a journalist under extreme anti-terrorist legislation achieves this.

BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23769324

Ubuntu sets crowdfund pledge record for Edge smartphone

I really like the idea of the Ubuntu Edge smartphone, although I wouldn't actually buy one myself. I don't think they're like to reach their funding goal but I hope the project proceeds - the basic premise sounds great.

The London-based developer, Canonical, has generated $10,288,472 (about £6.6m) in pledges, passing the record set by Pebble smartwatches last year. But with six days of its campaign left the company is far from reaching its funding goal of $32m.

BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23714549

Email service used by Snowden shuts itself down

Secret courts and anti-constitutional behaviour. Deeply disturbing.

This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States."

I use GMail, Google Drive, Apple's iCloud, DropBox and various other US-based or US-connected services to store or manage my private data. Migrating away from these services would be painful and difficult but if the US continues its drive toward a police state then maybe it will be necessary. We can only hope that they are able to get a grip on their security services and rein in their paranoia. 

The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/09/lavabit-shutdown-snowden-silicon-valley

Skyscraper Fail

Oops:

The Intempo skyscraper in Benidorm, Spain—standing proud in this image—was designed to be a striking symbol of hope and prosperity, to signal to the rest of the world that the city was escaping the financial crisis. Sadly, the builders forgot to include a working elevator.

Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/the-builders-of-this-spanish-skyscraper-forgot-the-elev-1065152844 

Gauss Gun

An interesting application of the technology but not an enormously dangerous weapon.

A full-auto Gauss gun probably won't hurt much
http://hackaday.com/2013/08/07/a-full-auto-gauss-gun-probably-wont-hurt-much/

Sandbanks

Sounds great:

Sandbanks seemed to be a place where people came to obliterate reality with drink, money and heat, floating on a weird, isolated semi-island that's slowly sinking into the sea.

A Big Day Out with... Britain's Drunk Nouveau Riche!
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/sandbanks-beach-polo-posh-britain