Laser-driven Topography

There’s an interesting thing on the BBC today about using a laser radar from a plan to map the topography of the United Kingdom. One aspect of this work is to estimate which parts of the country are most liable to flooding.

However, one quote from the piece amused me.

“During our flight, he told me: “The difference between an area flooding and not flooding is 6ins and the data we are gathering here has an accuracy in elevation of about 15cm. That could be the difference between the water flowing over the threshold of somebody’s doorstep and not.”

© BBC 2008

Now I’m pretty sure that 6in is the same as 15cm. The change in measurement is enough to screw things up on occasion (See the Mars Lander with Beagle II on it for a perfect example) but this one is quite funny all the same.

Communications Database

The BBC are today reporting a plan by the government to store every phone call and email in a database. Hell, even communist russia couldn’t manage to record everything – talk about totalitarian crap. But I must admit that the entire database concept both fascinates and annoys me simultaneously.

First, how long will it take to set up something like this? (Bearing in mind we’re working on Government-time, rather than anything sane) Let’s not forget that the NHS ‘national database’ won’t be completed ’til at least 2014, having already been in development for a fair number of years.

Secondly, how will the data be collected? Would I have to register my home-based SMTP server as something that could be indexed by the database? Or is it a case that all email traffic would just be collected by the ISPs? What about spam? Will the database be recording that as well? What about text messages? Will they be stored? If not, why not? And with the incidence of pay as you go mobile phones for calls etc., how would you trace them to the right person. I suspect there’d be a lot of phones registered in the name Michael Mouse, or Donald Duck, for example.

Then there’s the entire issue of data protection – and even of how long the data will be kept. Twelve months? Twenty-four? Sixty? Considering the data-protection screw-ups of the last twelve months, would you expect the data about your emails and phone calls to stay protected any more securely than – for example – the information about your child benefits, driving licence details, credit card details, or anything else that the Government’s lost copies of recently?

Of course, those questions don’t even scratch the surface of the problems. Why the hell should the government be allowed to just keep all records, based on the premise that they might (and let’s be honest, it’s a pretty fucking slim chance. Even 1000 ‘terrorist’ cases – a number I’ve pulled out of the air – would be less than 1% of 1% of the UK’s populace.) be needed in some kind of anti-terrorism case.

Even more importantly, if this system were to be created and used by the government, now that it’s been publicised, you’d have to be a remarkably fucking stupid terrorist to then communicate via email, phone call, or (perhaps) text message. Instead, they could just go back to using the post, or meeting up, or notice-boards.

Communication doesn’t rely on email and mobile phones – no matter how much the Government wishes it would, so that they could record everything.