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And of course, New Zealand is keen to show that it's right up there, defending the nation against hordes of invading villains bent on bringing death and destruction to this lovely country.

The latest plan is to not only add embedded processors to our passports, but also to give government the power to decline anyone a passport without explanation.

Of course, if you are declined a passport, you can spend tens of thousands of dollars (or more) to appeal through the High Court -- but if it's simply a clerical error that screws up that overseas holiday you've saved up years for, then that's just too bad.

But who am I kidding? No government department would ever have such poor record-keeping that they'd get someone's name wrong or mistake their identity would they? (they're not *all* as bad as the IRD surely? :-)

Yes, once again, the issue of ID seems to be raising its ugly head.

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The government, in its infinite wisdom, is moving towards placing a greater emphasis with interacting with its citizens through the Net.

e-Government, it believes, is a great way to provide a better level of service at lower cost to the taxpayer.

Yes, that's wonderful, and quite true -- but how do you guarantee that the person with whom you're interacting is the person they claim to be?

Well a little while back, the government announced it was looking for such an authentication system -- and I put my hand up and said "I've got one that's vastly superior to a simple name/password system, much cheaper and simpler than biometrics, and could be implemented at very low cost."

Did they come a knocking on my door?

Nope.

They seem to have decided that a name/password system is just fine and dandy.

This morning I received another phishing email purporting to be from the Westpac Bank. How long before someone with an agenda, or some crim who spots a chance to raid the public purse spots an opportunity and starts sending out emails that say:

"In order to keep your eGovernment details up to date, you are required to log into the government's website at www.govt.nz@fakedomain.com... and complete the form you will find there.".

Duh!

So again -- how do we verify someone's identity for the purposes of international travel, interacting with government electronically, purchasing goods and services online, and for a whole lot of other activities?

Quite frankly, it's starting to look more and more as if, driven by the war against terror, commercial pressures and governments' general desire to increase their own powers, that chipping newborn kids may not be as much of an outrageous scifi fiction as it once was.

Of course there are those skeptics who claim that the "war against terror" has been grossly over-hyped by governments of the world, simply as a convenient way of gaining more control over, and restricting the rights of their citizens.

I would never suggest such a thing -- but it's interesting to note that in 2002, the total death-toll from terrorist activities in the OECD was just a tiny fraction of one percent of the number who died in car crashes.

In the same year, the percentage of US citizens who died as a result of terrorist attacks when compared to the number of US citizens killed in road accidents was even lower than the OECD figure.

So why is such a huge amount being spent on new laws, slashing civil rights and boosting the power of the government, when everyone faces a vastly greater danger each time they get in a car? Hell, if (as we're told) excessive speed is a major contributor to road deaths, it strikes me that we could save tens of thousands of lives every year by simply requiring new cars to be regulated to 100kph.

And, given that so many of those crashes involved the abuse of alcohol, it strikes me that banning alcohol would also save thousands of times as many lives as will the "war against terror". Of course we know that governments earn a very healthy amount of their revenues from tax on alcohol and by fining speedsters -- maybe there's a clue there.

So you decide -- is the "war against terror" just a convenient way to use new technology and laws to increase the power of government and reduce the rights of citizens?

Maori TV Goes Live (but forgets the net)
Yesterday Morning, MTS went live and began to broadcast its long-awaited list of locally produced content.

That is great news for every man, woman and child in this country -- it's nice to see that the huge amount of money we've invested in this operation is finally producing some results.

It's just a shame that MTS didn't bother to check its website yesterday. The site was off-line every time I tried to get to it.

Was it crumbling under the weight of all those websurfers wanting more information? Or was it just that the MTS staff were too busy with the glitz, glamour and limelight of "live TV" to worry about something as trivial as an old website?

And what's with that .com domain for the MTS website?

Proudly NZ? It doesn't seem so does it?

Okay, who's going to be first to register maoritelevision.co.nz and put up a spoof site?

Yes, it seems that they can afford flashy studios, golf clubs, junkets and all manner of other luxuries -- but they can't even hire someone to advise them how to protect their branding on the Net.

Your tax dollars at work folks!

New Forums!
Yes folks, good news. The grotty ezboard forums have been replaced with a new phpBBS-based system that won't assault you with a myriad of pop-ups and other flotsam.

A big thanks to Managed Internet Solutions for offering to provide this service.

You can access the new forums over at aardvarkforums.co.nz

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