Have you seen the missing discs? Email your sightings
to pm@bbc.co.uk. Please put: "GIANT DISC BLUNDER" in the subject line.
The Stainless Steel Cat sends this:
"Found this photo slipped under my office door together with a note saying "Mwahahahahahahahah!" Hope this helps..."
DI Wyman writes: "'eres a big 'un. came in 'The Daily Wail' this morning..."
And have just been alerted to .
Gillian writes: "Look what just arrived in the post - the letter started with ''In response to your query.....''
Roger Craven says: "Tyne & Wear? Now who was that MP who had a constituency somewhere up there? Anyway I saw this woman wearing rather fetching matching earrings..."
Then Roger believes he saw a disc here:
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At least it isn't a re-writable disc!
Phew!
ed
Wisdom is rarely found on the best-seller list.
Are they being given away free with the weekend papers?
If I see them, Eddie, I'll put details of the contents on the Frog. After all, they're not protectively marked, so I'll be in the clear.
*Child Benefit* - are they a new BoyBand?
Don't panic!
It's just occurred to me that all this time spent looking for discs may have been down to a spelling error.
Try searching for disks!
xx
ed
"Speed is subsittute fo accurancy."
Jon Snow needed them last night for his hilarious intro.
Well, they could be among the pile that's on my desk. How can I tell?
Actually, that IS a good question... Were the discs labelled in any way??? I know that oftentimes internal disc mailings from an individual one dept to an individual another department in an organisation aren't marked up as to contents. After all, if you're sending the discs to a specific person, then it's assumed they'll know what they are to begin with......
If they can't find them, I've got a copy they can have.
Just how big is an the Xcel file with 2.5 million records? I presume that the data dump was just that, a simple straight forward export data routine. After all who ever wanted the data would have to have it in this simple format so they could import it.
And Ed I, I know that they should use open source spreadsheets but this is the government who likes Mircosoft.
If it was open source format someone with MS excel may have trouble opening it 'cos its not immediately obvious what it is!
see also :
Am I imagining it, or is there an unusual volume of requests from various banks in my inbox today?
;-)
ed
What is a magician but a practising theorist?
-- Obi-Wan Kenobi
. That didn't take long.
SM (10)
I think it was 'dumped' as a comma delimited file ready to be read back into good old Sun Open Office!
DiY:)
Giggle, giggle, giggle, and thank you all! Those downloads are, well, priceless.
Just received the PM newsletter. Thanks. Not more on the Donald 'Trump' story tonight surely!! I mean the guy is just an 'old fart'. If I were that farmer, I'd take the money and move somewhere less 'windy'. Sorry couldn't get 'blow off' in.
And elsewhere, there's not really anything of note happening....
Nov. 21, 2007
ASIAN STOCKS FELL sharply as concerns spread that the U.S. economy, the most important export market for many of the region's companies, would continue to weaken.
MARKET INDEXES
Australia All Ordinaries 6450.20 - 0.62%
Bombay Sensex * 18602.62 - 3.52%
Hong Kong Hang Seng 26618.19 - 4.15%
Japan Nikkei 14837.66 - 2.46%
Shanghai Composite 5214.22 - 1.50%
Singapore STI 3347.20 - 2.65%
South Korea Composite 1806.99 - 3.49%
Taiwan Weighted 8484.11 - 2.27%
*Intraday
;-)
ed
Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. For a first offense, that is.
Never mind the discs, where's the iPM blog gone?!?
love from former mistress of the blog (who would never have lost a blog), Lissa.
Gillian..........aahh..the 'wonder of woolies'!
nice one....!
DiY:)
That's not fair. I haven't got mine yet, unlike Carl. Sulk.
It's probably a load of hot air, with Eric talking out of the back of his... mic
That's not malicious.
OK. Eric never does such a thing. It was a feeble attempt at a joke.
Stewart M (10):
Excel has a limit of 65535 rows (2^16-1) so this data is unlikely to be stored in such a spreadsheet. More likely it will be an Access database, or some sort of bespoke database format.
Bespoke would be best in this case, as it would take some non-trivial effort to decipher and organise, though obviously that effort would be worth it to criminals.
Feline Inox,
Come on, give us a guess how long it would take you. Two, or perhaps three, strong coffees?
Bespoke by who, I wonders. Considering the record, any difficulty in deciphering it would be unlikely to have much to do with security, and much more to do with spaghetti.
xx
ed
Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting for a dial tone.
Lissa at 18: the iPM blog is still there (only just) - where it's always been, www.bbc.co.uk/ipm. It's strange you can't see it - have you been banned again?!
Ed is right. Computer disks have a K, music discs have a C.
O-kay?
Now the iPM blog flashes on and off and then dies. Is it Alastair Darling's fault?
Lissa is too polite to mention it, but iPM was HER idea. I thank her here publicly. Or as I typed initially, pubicly. Shame we had to fire her sorry ass.
Only on thing makes sense to me regarding the missing discs. It has been widely accepted that Tory moles are embedded within government administrative circles for the purposes of mischief making. Probably a Tory activist has purloined them and stashed them in Tory HQ. Labour probably know this but couldn't possibly say so without any evidence. Hence their calm demeanour over the whole sorry mess.
Only on thing makes sense to me regarding the missing discs. It has been widely accepted that Tory moles are embedded within government administrative circles for the purposes of mischief making. Probably a Tory activist has purloined them and stashed them in Tory HQ. Labour probably know this but couldn't possibly say so without any evidence. Hence their calm demeanour over the whole sorry mess.
Only on thing makes sense to me regarding the missing discs. It has been widely accepted that Tory moles are embedded within government administrative circles for the purposes of mischief making. Probably a Tory activist has purloined them and stashed them in Tory HQ. Labour probably know this but couldn't possibly say so without any evidence. Hence their calm demeanour over the whole sorry mess.
Eric - your Monday newsletter arrived today at 3am. Last Wednesday’s and Thursday’s arrived early on Saturday. The one for yesterday is still awaited. A good job news stories are never topical...
Dear Halifax Customer,
We recently upgraded our Online Banking security system with a newly established security server in which guarantee's your maximum protection when accessing your account online. In order to ensure you are properly updated and your account is fully protected, you will be required to Login to your account and Complete necessary forms requested, to login to your account kindly click on the " Protect Me Now " link stated below :
Protect Me Now
Yeah! Right!
Uh huh!
xx
ed
Parkinson's Fourth Law:
The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.
test
Steve @ 27 -29
"It has been widely accepted..."
Please define "widely"
Lissa!!!!
Long time no frog! Good to see (read?) you.
Glad to see credit where it's due.
Well, three messages in this thread for starters ...
Sid
OK, in lieu of a Glass Box...
Yesterday I said this in the Revenue & Customs thread:
"Sadly, I fully expect the government to parrot JohnP's tongue-in-cheek comments as if they were truth, and even more sadly, I think a lot of the population will swallow that."
So I was doubly saddened to hear the first part come true on tonight's programme. I still maintain a spark of hope that the second part won't come true.
In other news...
Two separate mentions of fingerprint biometrics, but neither time was the obvious question asked: "How long do fingerprints remain useable on severed fingers?" because you *know* muggers are going to start chopping off digits if that becomes commonplace.
Personally, I'd rather run the risk of losing a piece of plastic occasionally than losing bodyparts.
Lissa!!!!
I don't know whether to kiss you or kick you! :o)
Lissa!!!!
Long time no frog! Good to see (read?) you.
Glad to see credit where it's due.
Oh! a 502. What a surprise.
Dr Hackenbush (24) - No, not okay. Both spellings are perfectly acceptable. 'Disk' is merely an Americanism.
Excel versions up to 2003 had a limit of IV65536 (i.e. 256 x 65536)
Excel 2007 has a limit of XFD1048576 (i.e. 16,385 x 1,048,576)
Whatever software you're using, possibly the easiest way to transport it is to (a) save it as a CSV file (comma separated values - does what it says on the tin), then (b) zip it up (as it's entirely text, should be able to get over 90% compression). For added security, encrypt it with PGP (freeware encryption software that's so good the US government briefly classified it as a munition! [they wanted the developers to include a "back door" - the developers refused]). By the time you've done all that, it should take a matter of seconds to transfer electronically - ideally using a VPN, but if needs must, you could email it - if it's been properly encrypted with PGP, potential criminals/evesdroppers would require a few supercomputers to attempt a brute force decryption.
Excel versions up to 2003 had a limit of IV65536 (i.e. 256 x 65536)
Excel 2007 has a limit of XFD1048576 (i.e. 16,385 x 1,048,576)
Whatever software you're using, possibly the easiest way to transport it is to (a) save it as a CSV file (comma separated values - does what it says on the tin), then (b) zip it up (as it's entirely text, should be able to get over 90% compression). For added security, encrypt it with PGP (freeware encryption software that's so good the US government briefly classified it as a munition! [they wanted the developers to include a "back door" - the developers refused]). By the time you've done all that, it should take a matter of seconds to transfer electronically - ideally using a VPN, but if needs must, you could email it - if it's been properly encrypted with PGP, potential criminals/evesdroppers would require a few supercomputers to attempt a brute force decryption.
[EDIT]
And talking of supercomputers, seems I spoke too soon last night about the blog working again...
But I saw a disk with a fix on SSC's desk!
xx
ed
Mittfh,
But the frog should be working fine. I saw a disk with a fix on SSC's desk!
xx
ed
Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
-- George Bernard Shaw
Another day, another football match. It's nice to see the quotes today:
The England Captain said, "We'd like to thank the Estonian team for a good game. They were clearly the better team and we look forward to playing them again sometime."
Another player said, "They deserved to win, and we don't mind a bit. After all, it's only a game, isn't it?"
Oh wait... now I've woken up. Let's see the real headlines:
"Disaster for England!"
"Emergency meeting to call for manager's resignation!"
"McLaren must go!"
Ah yes... that's more like the "beautiful game" I know and despise...
Still 404 'Page not found' on yesterday's Glass Box.
Given the lack of control/documentation over this whole fiasco, I can't help wondering what "proof" exists that the missing discs ever existed in the first place...
SSCat (36), Yes, I'd worry about that too (losing a finger rather than a bit of plastic, that is).
Not 404ed for the Glass Box, but I got a whoel new message when I tried to post:
Can't load error template; got error 'Loading template 'error.tmpl' failed: HTML::Template->new() : Cannot open included file error.tmpl : file not found. at /home/system/cgi-perl/mt/extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 1500 HTML::Template::_init_template('HTML::Template=HASH(0x11e953d00)') called at /home/system/cgi-perl/mt/extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 1105 HTML::Template::_init('HTML::Template=HASH(0x11e953d00)') called at /home/system/cgi-perl/mt/extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 999 HTML::Template::new('HTML::Template', 'type', 'filename', 'source', 'error.tmpl', 'path', 'ARRAY(0x11b1f0520)', 'search_path_on_include', ...) called at /home/system/cgi-perl/mt/lib/MT/App.pm line 736 eval {...} called at /home/system/cgi-perl/mt/lib/MT/App.pm line 735 MT::App::load_tmpl('MT::App::Comments=HASH(0x10112dd40)', 'error.tmpl') called at /home/system/cgi-perl/mt/lib/MT/App.pm line 534 MT::App::show_error('MT::App::Comments=HASH(0x10112dd40)', '') called at /home/system/cgi-perl/mt/lib/MT/App.pm line 621 MT::App::run('MT::App::Comments=HASH(0x10112dd40)') called at /home/system/cgi-perl/mt/mt-comments.cgi line 80 Apache::ROOT::cgi_2dperl::mt::mt_2dcomments_2ecgi::handler('Apache=SCALAR(0x11aae9ba0)') called at /usr/local/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.1/sun4-solaris/Apache/Registry.pm line 149 eval {...} called at /usr/local/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.1/sun4-solaris/Apache/Registry.pm line 149 Apache::Registry::handler('Apache=SCALAR(0x11aae9ba0)') called at /dev/null line 0 eval {...} called at /dev/null line 0 '. Giving up. Original error was
No ObjectDriver defined at /home/system/cgi-perl/mt/lib/MT/Object.pm line 144.
Since I have no idea whether this means I got through or not, here's the post I tried to send:
SSC @ 2, that worry about biometrics and how long a fingerprint lasts after the finger has been removed from its owner -- yes, well, when the scheme was first mooted, one of my children said she woud rather have her card stolen than have her hand cut off. So the idea can be seen through by a bright fifteen-year-old.
I am told, though I don't know the details, that this has now been tried in South Korea and it was found that the victim didn't need to be present for the cash to be stolen from his account.
Perhaps this needs a bit more thought from the government gonks? Even if it didn't work, hw many amputees would we get while the crooks made sure it didn't?
(I was hoping Eddie *would* share this with the government.)
Kirsty Young's next guest on Desert Island Discs is Alistair Darling. However, the programme will be shorter than usual because he has lost four of the eight discs
Sid
Vyle Hernia (13): Not surprisingly, this particular item has been suspended pdq. If anyone wants to know, this is what it was:
"Here we have two CD-R's for auction. They are not blank, but seem to have some sort of database written to them. I found them in my local courier firm's sorting office, addressed to
"Her Majesties Audit Office - Child Benefits Section" and marked
"Sensitive HM Government Information - DO NOT LOSE - ENSURE THESE DISKS DO NOT FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE CRIMINAL FRATERNITY"
They were obviously surplus to requirements.
I haven't read the data myself. The database appears to have approximately 25 milion records in it, but is password protected, so it is impossible to read it and it's definitely impossible to extract any bank account data from it.
Any information that you might discover (should you be lucky enough to win the auction for these useful items and read the database thereon) must be kept in the strictest confidence.
0.99p start and no reserve, so grab yourself a bargain. All profit from these items will be donated to Sue Ryder Care.
Cash on collection ONLY please from Portsmouth PO8, since we wouldn't want these to get lost in the post!
PLEASE NOTE: Government departments should contact me by email before bidding, since they will have to be vetted for competence before entrusting such items to them."
Sid
Today's news - police are searching through London's rubbish dumps in an effort to find the missing discs.
Have they had a tip-off?!