Gary Partis

Was going to buy one - but was put off by it's closed architecture :-(

I know a family of Ords (farming family), who I believe originated from the Sheepwash area around a 100 years ago.

After an evening writing code to render ESRI ShapeFile map data in near-real-time, not very pissed! How pissed are you? Or more to the point, who are you?!

Do not invest in a venture you know nothing about or have no lasting interest in! Very expensive!

As I dont live in WDC anymore (Ashington until I was 12yrs old, then Bedlington until I was 21yrs old), I cant really comment on WDC's performance. However, as a member of a main party (the wife has stood for two years running in North Tyneside councillor elections), I have a rough idea how councils work. Councillors are largely 'figure heads' and the employees of the council do the actual 'work'... The word 'work' is may be a misleading term having been on the opposing side of a council employee with regards to planning etc.... We could not build a conservitory as drivers on the A19 (0.5miles away) may be distracted by it?! It may have been 18M by 7M but someone driving at 70mph over half a mile away may be distracted... !*!@# ... Councillors get paid very little money (less than 6K pa last time I checked for North Tyneside) for many hours work, with little reward. It is almost on the boundary of volentary work. My gut feeling is if you dont like your councillor(s), stand yourself. It is a democracy. Instead of slagging off councillors, try taking making an active contribution to your society instead of complaining about it. People who winge, get looked over. People who do, get somewhere. People who cant spell are called Gary! ;-)

To be given a 'job', the employer has to assertain whether a individual can do that job. This does not just mean whether he/she can do it, but to ensure all others around he/she are not affected by he/she. In this case the MoD got it wrong from the beginning. Who is to blame?

Nope! Have enough usernames/passwords to remember without aliases!

Pricing is simple. Charge what ever you can get away with! Fact! Why is the UK more expensive than many other countries? Quite simple really!

Hi ThreeGee ;-) The point I was making was that we all know DNA is not an exact science; were as goverments and corporations try and tell us that 'encrypted digital information' is secure and exact. So I personally believe DNA is of great use. Even if a person NEVER commits a crime; they can be eliminated in the very early stages of any crimminal enquiry. Past cases where entire villages have been DNA tested because of a rape etc could be distant history if the authorities had info on all people anyway. ID cards, forgetting the logistics etc, are NOT secure! Not because they can be issued to the wrong people etc; but because the technology does not exists to ensure data can not be tampered with. Whether encryption is via TDES, AES et al, the key exchange is via ModExp (modular exponentiation) - a simple 30-odd year old mathematical formulae. To this day, this system has not been proved to be 100% secure by the best mathematicians in the world! So forget Elliptic Curves, M-Ary, CRT, Montgomery etc - encryption systems are not safe (including so called SSL - secure socket layer on websites). I could get into 'power analysis of enc/decryption systems' etc etc; but there are plenty white papers by top experts in their respective fields working independantly of goverments etc. Oops, have I just destroyed all confidence of debit/credit cards with Chip&Pin, e-commerce and even encrypting your files on your hard drive! ;-) Dont get me wrong. I am quite happy to carry an ID card; containing encrypted digital data; providing the system was mathematically proven to be 100% secure. This is not the case at the moment. So here are two challenges: 1) The ability to factor any number (PKI generally use two primes to create a modulus) for _all_ numbers 2) Create a mathematically proven 100% secure encryption system If anyone could either of those, for former probably means you'd 'disappear' and the latter could make you very rich! I'm rambling now!

DNA - yes Cards - may be I reckon every one should have their DNA taken and stored securely by the goverment. Starting with newborn children. ID Cards... As an engineer, with a specialistion in cryptology (factoring, number theory, etc), no system is 100% secure. 1024bit modular exponentiation encryption once once deemed unbreakable except for govements and very large corporations. This figure is now 2048, and before long 4096bits. As massively parallel computational systems (not bog standard computers, but ASICs/FPGAs etc) get faster and larger, plus the further research in large-number-factoring becomes more accessible (ie. cost); then the likes of ID cards become more insecure. This is also true of smartcards (debit, credit etc etc). So, DNA, yes as the records may be protected by physical security. ID cards probably no, as there is no physical security and can be ultimately cracked.

Great idea. The majority of law abiding people have nothing to worry about. We live in a rural location with no surrounding houses, so our property also has a number of CCTV cameras - although we generally only record the occasional late night or early morning fox or rabbit! My only fear is that some one monitoring public cameras may use the information he/she aquires for other means (eg. sees someone on the street, therefore may know their house is empty etc).

As I dont live in Bedlington any more (for about 12 years now); what is the old Police Station now used for?

You obviously haven't driven any decent cars then...

Hmm... Police magnets....

We live in Holystone, not far from the planned new site. We also have problems from Holystone Waste; who recycle household waste just over a field from us (the actual site is next to a housing estate, so we get off a bit lightly in comparision). We all know that recycling is environmentally sound. But why near concentrations of populations? Bedlington used to have a land fill site in the early 80's (I think), in the remains of the opencast mine between Bedlington & Choppington. Away from housing etc.... Why cant they do that now - somewhere where is hurts no one?