Thanks to Dare to know:

The ContactPoint regulations slipped through the House of Lords on Wednesday 18th, despite resistance from a number of sources, including ARCH. Hansard has the full story.

Look at some of the evidence supplied to the House of Lords. Firstly, from Carpgemini the contractor:

* Up to 330,000 registered users.
* Database will contain records of all 11 million children in England.
* Approximately 200,000 enquiries per day, peaking at about 50 transactions per second.
* Average response times of 1 second for a keyed enquiry.
* 99.9% availability for 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.

That is a lot of accesses. It means that one million accesses per week will be made, and that the entire ContactPoint database will be copied in not less than 11 weeks.

and the nspcc chimes in with something completely illogical:

2. Paragraph 4(1)(a) refers to a child “who at that time is ordinarily resident in England.” We are concerned about how local authorities will interpret “ordinarily resident’ as it could result in particularly vulnerable children being excluded from Contact Point. We have previously raised this matter with the DfES, as neither the draft regulations nor the draft guidance gives a clear interpretation of this. The potential consequence of this is that vulnerable groups of children could be left outside the remit of Contact Point. For example, adults may present children as only being temporarily in the country, as in the case of Victoria Climbié. These children may in fact be trafficked, privately fostered or sent to this country to work and are arguably some of the most vulnerable – because they are often invisible – children in the country.

3. We would suggest that the DfES review this regulation as a matter of urgency. We would propose that the definition used in the Children Act 1989 under section 47(1) (a) “Where a local authority are informed that a child who lives, or is found, in their area” is a better guide for local authorities. In our view it would be better inappropriately to include a child on Contact Point and remove them at a later date than not to include them at all.

Retention of information – Regulation 7

4. We have previously raised concerns in relation to Regulation 7. If it is intended to archive information until the age of 24 years then this should be with the consent of the person concerned when they attain the age of 18 years. Although the information is archived, this measure arguably extends the database well into adulthood. It raises serious concerns about the privacy and confidentiality of information about a person’s childhood. This is possibly one issue which children and young people and parents have not sufficiently been consulted about.

My emphasis.

So, they want people innapropriately put into this monstrosity? Obviously they have no idea about databases and that in order for them to be really useful, they have to be accurate.

They say that, “It raises serious concerns about the privacy and confidentiality of information about a person’s childhood”. Why should this be of concern to someone only when they are 24? What about the concern of the parents?

Not very clear thinkers these people.

But there was someone with their brain switched to ‘on’:

Memorandum by the Young NCB (Young National Children’s Bureau)

1.  Young NCB, the young people’s membership network run by NCB, have submitted a set of comments on ContactPoint which the organisation has gathered from young people previously involved in DfES’ consultation processes on the scheme. Those concerned are all aged under 18.

Do you think that ContactPoint will adequately achieve its aim of “supporting more effective prevention and early intervention, to ensure that children get the additional services they need as early as possible”? If so, can you say what you think the benefits of ContactPoint are? If not, can you explain any reservations that you may have?

2.  I think it is possible in some cases ContactPoint will lead to earlier intervention, but I think the benefits are completely outweighed by the risks. The irony is that the people this system aims to help, those in danger of abuse, may not even be on the system if they don’t have a school or a doctor in which case they will still slip under the net.

3.  I think that ContactPoint will only achieve its aim if thorough and extensive training is given to all professionals using the system. If everyone concerned does not use and understand the system, it will fail. I think that to a certain extent ContactPoint will help, since it should encourage information-sharing and more contact between professionals.

Do you think that the interests of children, young people and families have been adequately taken into account in the proposals for ContactPoint? Can you give reasons for your answer?

4.  No, hardly anyone knows about ContactPoint, probably because the government are aware of what would happen if people did find out, i.e. a huge backlash and public outcry. They’ve spoken to about 15 people and when I worked with them I found them patronizing and unhelpful, they’ve clearly made up their mind regardless of what we think.

5.  The fact that children may refuse to allow their details to be on the index, but that this may be overridden suggests that this notion of a child’s ‘consent’ is practically meaningless. What is even more worrying is that young people will ‘not necessarily’ be told if their wish has been overridden.

6.  I am also not convinced about the security measures in place to stop the system being abused. Computer systems are never, ever completely safe; the threat of hacking is always there. Plus there is always the danger that a professional might use the system to gain personal details about a child or children. It would only need one or two instances of child abuse resulting from exploitation of the system being splashed all over the media for the public’s confidence (and most importantly young people’s and families’ confidence) in ContactPoint to be destroyed. It is worth thinking about whether this risk is greater than the potential benefit gained from the system. I think that extremely harsh penalties for abusing ContactPoint would need to be in place to help stop this happening, but even that could not be wholly successful.

7.  I am also worried that young people’s personal liberty will be hugely undermined by this system. Dozens of people in their local area – perhaps more – will be able to access personal details and, possibly, very sensitive information about them.

8.  I also do not think that a wide-ranging enough consultation has been carried out for ContactPoint. The huge majority of children and young people have absolutely no idea about the proposal, and so when ContactPoint arrives they will have no time to voice their concerns.

If you have other comments to offer, feel free to do so.

9.  The flaw in this system is not the system itself rather human nature, in that with access to this system people can make all sorts of harmful assumptions, particularly when people are ‘flagged’ or seen to be using sensitive services. The other big worry is that knowing people will potentially have access to this information will stop people using sensitive services, and considering we have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe and binge drinking is on the rise that’s not a risk we can afford to run. The system is too big to be safe, too many people have access to private information and children’s right to privacy is being completely disregarded, a very dangerous situation to be in.

Ah yes, intelligence!

Another group that bought a clue:

Security of data:

27. ContactPoint is a national database partitioned into local authority areas. Although the regulations will specify the categories of practitioner to be granted access, the final decision as to who may do so will be left to local authorities. The government expects that around 330,000 people will have access to ContactPoint.

28. It is impossible to create a system on this scale that is both functional and secure. The government tacitly acknowledges this by advancing an intention that the records of celebrity children and those who are, for example, escaping domestic violence will not appear on ContactPoint. Nonetheless, the government insists that the system will be secure and points to the fact that everyone with access will undergo CRB checks; access will be by two-factor authentication and an audit system will detect improper access.

29. Criminal record checks have limited value. Within the education and social care sectors, increasing numbers of staff are from overseas and it is not possible to check their histories beyond, at most, obtaining information as to whether they have criminal convictions. Schools are advised that:

‘If attempts have been made to make checks (through obtaining a Certificate of Good Conduct or similar) but it has not been possible then the school is not required to take further action.’ [31]

At best, CRB checks detect known criminals but it is well known that paedophiles have usually committed many offences before being caught, if they are caught at all.

30. The Criminal Records Bureau warns:

The CRB cannot currently access overseas criminal records or other relevant information as part of its Disclosure service. If you are to recruit people from overseas and wish to check their overseas criminal record, a CRB Check may not provide a complete picture of their criminal record that may or may not exist.[32]

31. Two-factor authentication does not protect the system from all outside attack, particularly as ContactPoint will be accessed via Internet protocols, nor does it prevent careless disclosure or the unauthorised sharing of login information. Last year The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust reported a ‘wholesale sharing and passing on of system log-in identifications and passwords’, recording 70,000 cases of inappropriate access to systems, including medical records, in one month.[33]

32. An audit system does not prevent all improper access. The Police National Computer, for example, has a substantial audit resource and yet the Independent Police Complaints Commission comments:

‘Every year sees complaints alleging the unauthorised disclosure of information from the Police National Computer. Forces have reviewed their methods of preventing unlawful entry but there will always be a few officers willing to risk their careers by obtaining data improperly.'[34]

33. Given the scale of what is proposed, it is vital that ContactPoint does not go ahead until Parliament has ensured that all of the security issues are resolved. Indeed, consideration of the regulations will be Parliament’s last opportunity to ensure that ContactPoint does not in fact endanger children and their families.

34. ContactPoint is not essential. The traditional method of finding out who else knows a child is to ask the child or parents. If professionals are competent and ensure that families have their contact details, this system works well (unless there are genuine child protection concerns). It also leaves control of personal information with parents and children in accordance with their Article 8 rights to respect for their private and family life and freedom from unnecessary state interference.

And finally, the a last gasp of common sense from The Lords:

The Government intend to use the system to improve the care of and provision for children. Their intentions are of the best kind and are shared in principle by all noble Lords. Yet it is the very system that they seek to rely on that risks stigmatising children and discouraging them from seeking help where necessary.

The Minister said that the regulations had the backing of many children’s welfare organisations. However, the majority of young people and parents consulted by the DCFS oppose the measures, and the major children’s charities—the NCB, the NSPCC, Action on Rights for Children and a coalition led by BAAF—have voiced serious objections. Noble Lords will have received the excellent briefing from the Independent Schools Council.The ContactPoint system, we are told, is intended to prevent another Victoria Climbié situation. However, that is not quite accurate. The agenda for the collection of children’s data began with the programme originally called “identification, referral and tracing”, which predates the Laming inquiry and does not mention child protection in its original criteria. Moreover, the child protection specialist Chris Mills has already ascertained that the system would not have applied to Victoria Climbié, given her temporary residency in this country.

We all wish to see an end to the horrors that befell Victoria Climbié and others. Inasmuch as the system will create a culture of over-reliance on what will always be a flawed database, it would divert attention from the children who most need protection from those who profess to care for them. It appears that the children of the rich and famous may be exempted if there is a risk of kidnap. While I fully understand why that should be the case, it strikes me as the most damning admission of the inability of the system to protect the details of children, not to mention the injustice of treating one set of children differently from the rest.

Indeed. My emphasis…. and yet, it passed.

[…]

http://www.publications.parliament.uk

Reading through all of the submissions makes ContactPoint seem like even more of a nightmare, if that is possible. Because people are so very stupid.

The response from Barnardo’s is astonishing in its complete lack of any real understanding about this system and what it will really do and the real issues swarming around it:

8. The trailblazer authorities and DfES have consulted with children and families, particular on matters such as confidentiality and security. Barnardo’s experience within the trailblazer project was that young people want to be able to access services when they need them and they make a connection between this and information sharing; we found this particularly in cases of young people with disability, where they did not want to tell their story over and over again.

9. ContactPoint will contain no case data, simply demographics to help practitioners verify that they are working with the same person. It will be up to practitioners (as is the case now) to decide what they can share, with whom and how much. Again, work in the trailblazers (Sheffield in particular) illustrated that young people are happy for their information to be shared where they and their needs are respected and where information is shared appropriately for purposes which they understand.

So they don’t want to tell their story again and again, yet the DB will not hold these stories. Amazing.

What also shocks me is the fact that children were consulted about something that is beyond their capacity to fully understand and that will have consequences not only for them both as children and into their adulthood, but for their parents and the next generation of children. Every aspect about consulting children over ContactPoint is wrong; the only people who should have been consulted are parents, since ContactPoint will hold the data of people who are not legally responsible for themselves.

Perhaps ‘consulted’ is not what they really mean; its more likely that they ran some focus groups to see what the reactions were.

I am amazed that organizations dedicated to protecting children are FOR contact point; they must be amongst the most delusional people out there, and their total disregard for human rights is breathtaking. These people act like children are created in hatcheries and are a form of state property, without parents, families or any rights.

What a terrible business!

Capgemini (Euronext: CAP) is a major French company, one of the world’s largest information technology, consulting, outsourcing and professional services companies with a staff of 75,000 operating in 30 countries. It is headquartered in Paris (Rue de Tilsitt) and was founded in 1967 by Serge Kampf, the current chairman. CEO Paul Hermelin has led the company since his appointment in December 2001.

Capgemini’s regional operations include North America, Northern Europe & Asia Pacific and Central & Southern Europe. Services are delivered through four disciplines for Consulting, Technology, Outsourcing and Local Professional Services. The latter is delivered through Sogeti, a wholly owned subsidiary.

Wikipedia

So that is who got the contract to build ContactPoint.

The children of Britain sold to a French company that operates n 30 countries.

The database set to contain information and carers’ contact details for every child in England will cost £41 million (US$84 million) a year to run on top of its £224 million implementation costs, the government has admitted.

Capgemini was awarded the £40 million, seven-year contract to set up and manage the ContactPoint database and online directory earlier this week.

But children’s minister Kevin Brennan has revealed that the ongoing costs of the database — accessible to more than 330,000 education, health, social care and youth justice professionals — will dwarf the contract price.

ContactPoint will contain basic identifying information about all children in England from birth until age 18, along with contact details for their parents or carers and for professionals providing support services to them.

Brennan confirmed that the total costs of implementing the system are estimated at £224 million, with £28.4 million already spent on the project in 2006-07 and a further £11.2 million in the first three months of 2007-08.

The implementation costs include the price of adapting the government IT systems that will supply the data and the adapting of systems used by professionals working with children so they can access ContactPoint, Brennan said in a parliamentary written answer. It also includes the cost of ensuring security and data accuracy, along with staff training.

“Running costs thereafter are estimated to be £41 million per year. Most of this will go directly to local authorities to fund staff to ensure the ongoing security, accuracy and audit of ContactPoint,” Brennan said in response to questions from shadow children’s minister Tim Loughton.

By the end of next year, ContactPoint is expected to be available to all English local authorities, child protection agencies and a group of children’s charities.

An initial deployment will roll out the database to 17 early adopter authorities and Barnardo’s in April. “Progress towards readiness to receive access to ContactPoint is on track” among local authorities, Brennan said.

[…]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,134926-c,kidsteens/article.html

So, ContactPoint will cost:

224,000,000 / 11,900,000 = £18.82 per child

and then

41,000,000 / 11,900,000 = £3.46 per child per year

What a bargain!

Of course, this is not what these numbers really mean. What they really say is this is the price that HMG puts on the heads of every child in this country when they come to sell them to the highest (or lowest) bidder to be fleeced en masse.

That this database will violate children is beyond dispute. What is astonishing is that ContactPoint will contain data that is worth far more than £18.82 per head.

Data brokers would pay ten times that amount for the database, because they would be able to sell it again and again and again; and lets remember, this is going to be the closest thing to a complete database of all children and their parents, it will be without precedent, unparalleled.

At least, not for long.

You can find out about how data brokers work by trying to get hold of or buy a list of all the schools in the UK. The dfes has a list, but they are not allowed to sell it to you or give you access to it because doing so would compete with the data brokers that rent these lists commercially. They sell the lists at £100 per thousand entries, and then you do not get to keep the data, you only get to use it for a single purpose.

Imagine how much money ContactPoint will be worth in this case. Once the data escapes ContactPoint, companies will rent it over and over in small parcels, with sets of data sorted by postcode, age single parent or not, you name it. It will be a license to print money, and the junk mail that families will begin to receive will be indistinguishable to the mail-outs that they already get; they wont even realize that they have been ‘ContactPoisoned’.

The only people who will be immune to all of this are the celebrity families and VIP families who will not be in the ContactPoint system “for their own protection”.

Now read this:

A £224m national database of all 11 million children in England, which is being set up in response to the murder of eight-year-old Victoria Climbié, is to be designed by Capgemini.

The national Information Sharing Index is due to be ready by the end of 2008. The database, which will cost £41m per year to operate, will include addresses and telephone numbers for children and their parents – and will enable social services and doctors to share vital information about a child’s health and education across local authorities.

The child database was recommended in a report by Lord Laming after Climbié was killed by her great-aunt despite having been examined by social workers, doctors and police.

The Department for Education and Skills awarded the contract to Capgemini under a long-term agreement between the two organisations which began in 2002 and which is annually benchmarked for value.

A fully-costed design of the technical architecture is due to be completed by the end of this year.

Silicon dot com

My emphasis.

No database will prevent crime. Full stop. The sad story above shows that even when the social services are in full contact the bad stuff still happens. It happens very very rarely, and ContactPoint is no proper response to this.

And finally, a good comment on this story:

Name: Anonymous

Location: Midlands

Occupation: IT Developer

Comment: Lets see now…

Server 2,000
Oracle Lic 1,000
DBA for day 1,000
CapGemini profit 223,996,000
========
Total 224,000,000

That’s how it works, is it?

Right on the money!

Here is a post on Dare To Know featuring ‘Tony Mooney’, and another more important one on Gloucestershire’s Local Authority who are telling the DfES that visits to home educators must be mandatory or at least that the LA should have automatic rights of access.

Tony Mooney is the Bogeyman of HE in the UK. Sadly there is no organized professional PR effort to debunk his rentaquote nonsense. Whenever they (BBC or anyone in the media) want someone who is against HE to provide a ‘balancing’ argument they call him, and he is the only one they ever call.

There is widespread ignorance about HE in this country both in terms of how well it works for children and families on every level and how well it is performing abroad. Sadly, most people get their misinformation and opinions from newspapers – this includes MPs.

I have argued before that we need a permanent professional PR company to promote the facts about HE in this country as a long term educational strategy (!!) focussed on getting everyone in the UK to understand what HE is.

Look at this clipping from the Washington Times:

More and more colleges are actively recruiting homeschooled students; each year there are an estimated 50,000-plus homeschool high school graduates who find work or go to college, and thousands of new curriculum products have become available over the past five years. Meanwhile, the number of homeschoolers continues to grow by 7 percent to 15 percent each year; more states are reforming their laws to remove the burdens from parents who want to home educate, and homeschoolers continue to excel in national competitions as well as on standardized tests. In short, homeschooling is a major success story.

Now, for the first time, homeschooling has been recognized in an opinion by a U.S. Supreme Court justice as a viable educational alternative. Morse v. Frederick, which recently made national headlines, involves free speech and whether a public school can regulate what a student says. The 5-4 decision said that the school principal, Deborah Morse, did not violate the free speech rights of Joseph Frederick when she took down his pro-marijuana banner, which said “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” The student had violated school policy and was advocating illegal drug use.

While the Home School Legal Defense Association agrees with the ruling in this specific case, it is a reminder to all families that when your child enters the public school, you have virtually ceded your parental rights to the public school.

The clearest explanation of this view was expressed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Fields v. Palmdale, when it said, “While parents may have a fundamental right to decide whether to send their child to a public school, they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child.”

This is the reason many parents have chosen to homeschool, especially those parents who have a religious worldview, because they know their children will be taught secular values by the public system.

In Morse v. Frederick, however, Justice Clarence Thomas said, “If parents do not like the rules imposed by those schools, they can seek redress in school boards or legislatures; they can send their children to private schools or home school them; or they can simply move.”

This is the first time the Supreme Court specifically has recognized homeschooling as a viable educational alternative. HSLDA has worked for 24 years to advance a parent’s right to homeschool and to promote homeschooling to the general public.

After 24 years, it is gratifying to read the words of a Supreme Court justice who rightfully placed homeschooling on a level playing field with public and private schools. This kind of recognition is tremendously significant to the homeschool community.

It’s another step on the long road to raise homeschooling to the point where, when the terms public, private or homeschool are used in the same sentence, they all will be seen as mainstream educational alternatives.

[…]

Washington Times

Now in the UK, journalists are still writing about the doubts concerning HE, when in fact, there are only positive things to say about it, and it is growing wildly in the US, so much so that it is transforming the way people think about education.

Very soon in that country, the the underachievers will come predominantly from the state school system as parents switch en masse to HE.

The control of perception and growth of HE has not happened by accident. It has taken place thanks to the hard work of the HSLDA and other professionally run HE groups whose work has actually created new law to protect the rights of HE families.

The quote from this article says it all:

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history. — Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons, May 2, 1935

We should not be waiting for the next interview with Tony Mooney; we should be preemptively pushing out the HE message with a dedicated team of professional PR workers so that, say, in five years there will be no one in the UK who does not agree with HE, because they already understand what it is all about.

It will then be much more difficult for MPs to pull shenanigans in the House of Commons to whittle away our rights, though they might certainly try.

It is important to understand how newspapers and the media work when considering this argument. Newspapers get their stories and features almost exclusively through PR companies trying to promote a product or idea. Imagine there is a special filter through which you can see different types of media and imagine that this special circle of glass highlights all articles placed in newspapers by PR companies red. If you were to look at a newspaper through this special piece of glass, you would find that a paper like The Guardian is a dense patchwork of red.

Most of the articles in a newspaper or even at a website like the BBC are placed by PR companies. Journalists sit down and have material fed to them on a constant basis, and depending on the combination of the relationship they have with the person ‘selling the story’ at the PR firm, the hotness of your story idea and the slowness of the news at the time, your story either gets in immediately or is deferred.

This symbiotic relationship works well for the PR company and the journalist, who is eager to fill her quota of words and who also wants to be the person who wrote a very widely read and syndicated story. Hot stories can start in one paper, get read by other journalists who then pick it up and repeat its ‘facts’ verbatim in their own papers; the original source however is usually a PR company who provided the original material in the form of a press release or story idea.

There is absolutely no reason why this tool, professional PR, cannot be used by people wanting to promote HE. All it takes is some money and the will to do it. I have often asked HE people if they would pay a small amount of money after the enacting of some bad legislation restricting Home Education in the UK to reverse it, and the universal reply is ‘yes’. What these people need to understand is that it is better to spend that money in advance of such an attack to prevent that legislation being drafted in the first place. I don’t think £20 a year is too much to pay towards making bad legislation an remote possibility, and something of that order spread between 1000 families would more than do the job.

As HE grows in the UK, the government will feel obliged to step in and control it. They do not like anything to be outside of their influence, and something as fundamental to the national character as education will not go unregulated if a large percentage of the children of the UK begin to home educate. It is therefore imperative that the awareness and perception about HE is steered by the people who are practicing it, and not the people who are pathologically hostile to it.

The proportion of HE families vs schooling in the UK is relatively huge, and the law in the UK very liberal compared to some of the other countries in this list:

Australia

Bulgaria

Cambodia

China

Dominican Republic

Guatemala

France

Hong Kong

Hungary

Indonesia

Kenya

Malaysia

Netherlands

Poland

Singapore

South Africa

Thailand

Ukraine

Bahamas

Brazil

Canada

Chile

Czech Republic

Germany

Ireland

Israel

Japan

Lithuania

Macau

Mexico

New Zealand

Philippines

Romania

South Korea

Switzerland

Taiwan

United Kingdom

Germany and Brazil stand out immediately as countries where HE is banned outright.

Your rights in the UK are precious and need to be cherished and defended. You should not take it for granted that you have these rights, and you should work to preserve them using all the tools available to you.

When the consultation document is published, if it the complete opposite of what you require, what are you going to do to undo it? Only a few people have submitted their opinions out of the many tens of thousands of parents that are out there; what would you pay to undo the bad things that are on the horizon?

That is what you need to ask yourself.

Phishers go after two-factor authentication systems

By Eric Bangeman| Published: July 11, 2006 – 01:49PM CT

One of the problems with passwords is that they can be compromised relatively easily. While brute-force cracks are possible, it is much easier to convince users to willingly part with their passwords using social engineering. That’s how phishers operate, by tricking users into entering their passwords—along with other personal information—on convincing-looking but spoofed web pages. Once they have that information, bank balances shrink while credit card balances grow.

Two-factor authentication has been touted as a solution to the problem of users giving up their passwords too easily. One group of phishers is determined to prove otherwise, as a recent attack demonstrates.

On the surface, two-factor authentication is a relatively simple solution. In order to log in to a protected site, users must enter a password as well as a second bit of information. In the case of Citibank and a handful of other financial institutions, users are given a USB dongle which displays a passphrase or string of numbers that updates every 60 seconds. It is only when the correct password is paired with a valid passphrase generated by the token that the user is granted access to their account information.

A group of phishers operating out of a Russian website attempted to trick Citibank customers in the customary manner, by directing them to a lookalike website and asking for the usual personal information. As an added bonus, the phishers also asked for the passphrase generated by the token. Once they had both pieces of the authentication information, they would presumably then transmit it onto Citibank within a 60-second time period and go about their nefarious business. It’s a simple adaptation of existing methods: just add an additional field to existing forms and they are all set.

The phishing attacks demonstrates one of the weaknesses of two-factor authentication: it’s still quite vulnerable to “middleman” attacks. If a malicious site is able to pose as the genuine article, collect the necessary authentication from the unsuspecting user, and act on it quickly enough, it is not much safer than traditional password-only attacks.

Some banks and other institutions have already made substantial investments in developing and deploying two-factor authentication systems. The central theme in marketing the systems to customers is added security. Microsoft had even planned to natively support it in Vista, although that ultimately met the same fate as other features originally planned for its new OS. However, as the latest bit of phishing demonstrates, it’s not a cure-all. When used in conjunction with other antiphishing tools, it can be more effective. But as long as there are gullible users, no combination of security measures will be completely foolproof.

[…]

ArsTechnica

My emphasis.

As we know, password abuse in the NHS is endemic. Gullible or simply exhausted users will be tricked into revealing their passwords and token numbers, and then ‘Russian Hackers’ (the media’s latest bogeyman) will get in and start to copy ContactPoint entries, i.e. the private and sensitive details of children. This will be automated, so they will have a system to harvest accounts in place that will allow them to quickly create a working copy of the live ContactPoint database.

ContactPoint access, according to the Draft Contact Point Guidance – Version 1 (65 pages – PDF 388kb), is going to be granted to authorized users by ‘secure token’, username and password.

They define it as:

Security token – an item or device which provides one of the elements of information required for authentication. Examples include a frequently changing numerical code generator or a single-use numerical sent to your phone.

I have seen one of these random number tokens in use by a director of Chase as he accessed his work account over a dialup telephone line while using his laptop.

They work by using time to synchronize a random pin number on this token, to an authentication server on the system where your account sits. You have to use your user name, password and the random number displayed on your token to gain access. This part of the authentication keeps out people who write scripts to try and brute force accounts.

This is the most expensive version. Obviously if you are going to roll this out to 330,000 people, HMG will be loathe to order all of those tokens at, say $69.50 per user. And since they expire every three years they will all have to be replaced regularly.

See below for what this means. Meanwhile, lets look at the ‘Security Principles’ part of the document:

1.10 Security

Keeping the information on ContactPoint safe and secure and ensuring that it is only accessed by people who have a right to access it is of paramount importance, this too is a requirement of the Data Protection Act. Everyone who uses, administers and manages ContactPoint must act in ways that preserve the security of ContactPoint.

What this actually means is that the 330,000 people who will be given access to ContactPoint will be given the responsibility of keeping the data safe and secure. Since all of these people will be able to access all of the ContactPoint data, it effectively means they all have superuser status to look at everyone’s accounts no matter who they are or where they live. On a UNIX system, only the superuser can look into everyone’s files; individual users can only look at their own files, and in the case of a Local Authority (for example) they should really only be able to look at the details of people who live in their catchment area, if we were to agree to the principle of ContactPoint in the first place. It is insane that all 330,000 users can see every record.

2.1 Security Principles

Security of ContactPoint and the information held on it is of critical importance. Everyone who uses ContactPoint must take all practicable steps to ensure that their actions do not compromise security in any way.

This is crazy. Imagine if your bank allowed its all of its users to access bank details from any computer at any time over the internets. That would be a recipe for disaster, just like ContactPoint is. Banks that take security seriously, only allow access to their network from terminals inside branches, which are private networks. Of course, even if the architects of contact point specified that terminals must be inside secure buildings, that would not make ContactPoint OK because it is a compulsory system that violates your rights.

Some might say that being on this database is no different to being on the database of people who own passports. The difference is that having a passport allows you to travel, entitles you to consular services when you are abroad, and the database is used only to administer the issuing of passwords, etc etc; in other words, you get something out of it. Everyone on ContactPoint gets nothing out of it, in fact, you LOSE your privacy in return for absolutely nothing.

2.2 To ensure that only legitimate users access ContactPoint, a password and a physical security token (see Glossary), are both required to authenticate identity. This is known as 2 factor authentication.

This is better than a username and password, but it does not eliminate the problems associate with databases and the nature of data. The ‘things you must not do with ContactPoint’ bears this out:

2.3 A number of key principles should be observed, as a minimum, by everyone with access to ContactPoint. These are:
• Adhere to any local organisation policy/guidance on IT security;

What does this mean exactly? If you can access it from anywhere, it doesn’t matter WHAT guidelines are given; you are free to break them whenever you like.

• Never share user accounts, passwords or security tokens with others;

This is going to happen. We KNOW it is going to happen. ContactPoint tokens are going to have a monetary value, multiplied by the number of searches you want to do. There cannot be a single person who does not believe that ContactPoint will not be abused from the first day that it goes online…if it goes online.

• Do not write down your password and take care when entering it to ensure your keyboard is not overlooked;

We all know that shoulder surfing is done all the time. If someone is accessing ContactPoint from their laptop, their home computer or anywhere where there are people around, shoulder surfing will happen. As for writing down passwords, if they are going to use secure tokens, writing down a password will not be useful, since the token number changes every minute. Do they really understand what all of this means?

• Keep security token with you or securely locked up;

People are going to keep their ContactPoint security tokens on the keychain that they use for their house. Many of them are sold with metal rings to facilitate this. No one is going to keep their token in a safe or some other such place. Secondly, they have to deliver 330,000 of these tokens to the users. If even one of them goes astray in this distribution process then copies of the entries can be made. It is well known that identity theft and credit card fraud happens because post is stolen in transit.

• Never leave ContactPoint logged in when you leave your desk;

So, if someone has accessed 100 ContactPoint records on their laptop, and it is stolen, and these records are kept in the browsers cache, then those 100 children are compromised. This will happen.

• Ensure any reports or information you print from ContactPoint are stored securely and destroyed when no longer required;

On the first day that ContactPoint goes online, and all the 330,000 tokens have been distributed, a minimum of 330,000 children will have their records accessed. If these are printed out, they have escaped the database and are in the wild. Unless they are going to supply 330,000 secure shredders to all the ContactPoint users, you can guarantee that these printouts will be lost, sold and misused.

• Do not let others read ContactPoint information from your computer screen, particularly if working within a public environment; and

This will happen. Also, machines that are compromised will be turned into copying stations where ContactPoint information leaks into the hands of bad guys. By the way, every time I use the phrase ‘ContactPoint information’, or ‘ContactPoint entries’ or any other such phrase, remember we are talking about the private and sensitive information of children.

• Do not use public terminals (e.g. internet cafes, public reception areas) to access ContactPoint.

This will happen. For sure. And there is no way for ContactPoint admin to know when this has taken place.

2.4 Users It is your responsibility to prevent others from gaining access to, or making use of, your account. You must not share your password or security token with others. If you intentionally facilitate unauthorised access to ContactPoint, it is likely you are committing an offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (see A10). You are likely to be committing an offence under this act if you make unauthorised or inappropriate use of ContactPoint yourself.

None of this will stop abuse of ContactPoint. No sanction will put the data back in the database, or repair the harm done to a child after the fact.

You must keep your password secret and look after your security token. Failure to do so may result in suspension or closure of your ContactPoint account. You may also be subject to your organisation’s disciplinary procedures. If you forget your password or cannot gain access to the system, contact your user account administrator – they will reset your password if appropriate.

If the token is the password, then this is not correct. Is this three factor authentication (username, password and token) or two factor authentication? see the comment below for the precise reason why this paragraph is here, and how it makes ContactPoint and this method of authentication even more insane.

If you think your password may be known to others, or you have lost your security token then you must inform your user account administrator immediately to enable them to take appropriate action. Any access using your password or security token, will register in the audit trail as activity carried out by you.

So all you have to say is that your stuff was stolen for 48 hours as your account is used to trawl through thousands of records. This is unacceptable by any standards, and of course, once the data is out there, it is out there for good. Or evil, as in this case.

2.5 Staff Managers You should ensure that all users you manage are aware of the importance of security, understand good security practice and act in a way which will not compromise ContactPoint. If you suspect a staff member is breaching security, you should contact the ContactPoint Management Team to discuss necessary steps, which may include disciplinary action.

Horse. Stable door. Bolted. Get me?

2.6 ContactPoint Management Team LA and partner organisation user account administrators – You are responsible for administering user accounts and the security arrangement related to user accounts. User accounts and security tokens must only be issued to individuals who meet ContactPoint access requirements (See 2.7).

so the distribution of the tokens is not going to be centralized, but farmed out to LAs and ‘partner organisations’ whatever that means. This gets worse by the line.

Where a user reports the loss of their security token or the possibility that their password may be known by others, you must suspend the user account immediately to prevent any unauthorised access. You can only reactivate a user account after the user has been provided with a new, secure password and/or token as required.

And the data returned to the database.

2.9 The requirement to have an enhanced CRB disclosure which is renewed every three years is specific to ContactPoint and does not replace existing organisational policies for non-ContactPoint users. Individuals who do not have an enhanced CRB disclosure or have one which is more than 3 years old will have to apply for a new disclosure to become ContactPoint user. Applications for enhanced CRB disclosures should be made in sufficient time to receive it before access is needed (or a previous disclosure reaches 3 years). If evidence of a renewal is not received before the 3 year period the user account may be suspended.

MAY be suspended?

3.9 Misuse of ContactPoint

Using ContactPoint for other purposes than to support practitioners in fulfilling specific duties (see 1.6) or in a manner contrary to this guidance is likely to be misuse (see flowchart at B13). For instance, it would not be appropriate for ContactPoint to be used to assess applications for school places, or to pinpoint an adult suspected of tax-evasion. Nor is it appropriate for ContactPoint users to access records of their own children, or those of their colleagues, friends and neighbours, unless they have a legitimate professional relationship as a provider of services to that child.

There is no way for ContactPoint admin to know why a record on a child is being accessed. They are basically trusting that the 330,000 who will have access will not disobey the guidelines. This database is going to be used for everything and you can guarantee that there will be a special class of account that has no audit trail, for use of the ‘security services’ and the police. If anyone thinks that ContactPoint users will not access the records of their own children, they are COMPLETELY INSANE; that is the first thing that every new user will do. They will check to see that their children’s records are not incorrect, then they will check on all of their relatives and friends. This is a perfectly natural reflex reaction to being in front of a system like this, and there is no way that any admin will be able to sift through the tens of millions of log entries to find these ‘abuses’. This system, because it is accessible by 330,000 people will rack up audit trails into the tens of millions within the first two weeks of it being online. It will be impossible to police, and even if they do catch someone looking at the records for their own children, then what? are they going to gaol them for doing so? kick them off of the system? suspend them? fire them? I don’t think so, and of course, once the violation has happened, it cannot be undone.

These are some of the things that will go wrong are wrong with ContactPoint:

Stolen token access
People will have their tokens and usernames and passwords stolen. All it will take is a few minutes to compromise the system and put children in danger.

Reproduced printouts
No matter what arrangements you have to secure access, if the data is on a screen it can be copied and printed. This means that ContactPoint can never be secure, and any child in it is in danger.

Insider breaches
Insiders will leak information from ContactPoint. This has happened in every other government database, and ContactPoint will be no different.

Rich still able to opt out
This proves that ContactPoint is not and cannot ever be secure, and that its users are not trustworthy and can never be trusted. The rich and famous will be able to opt out of ContactPoint. If ContactPoint were secure, there would be no need for this opt out option for the rich.

One insider mega breach is all it takes
All it takes is for one person to leak the database and then it will be out there forever. No matter how secure the access arrangements are, this will always be true.

Tokens for sale: the new money
As I said above, the tokens to access ContactPoint will become a sort of currency. People will sell and rent them to gain access.

Tokens shared over phone in the one minute window
Depending on how it is set up, people will be able to share the random number on the token over the phone. When the session expires, the person selling access can sell a new random number to the scumbag who wants to get access to the data. In this way, the ContactPoint user can keep her token, limit access to her black market data clients and still remain in the system on a long term basis.

Finally, all of this is VERY expensive (expiring tokens needing to be replaced etc), and will not solve the any of the problems associated with child protection; it will in fact cause more problems, and the worst thing about it is, once they decide that ContactPoint is a bad idea, it will be too late; the data will be out there circulating on the black market forever. It will be impossible to shut down or erase. This is the main problem with this idea; it cannot ever be taken back.

Philosophically ContactPoint is indefensible. It usurps the role of the parent, and replaces the parent with the state. No parent should be denied the right to opt out of this system, especially since children of rich will be out of it.

You have every right to remove yourself from this Database, and you should do everything in your power to make sure that you are not put into it.

By Sharon Gaudin InformationWeek July 3, 2007

A senior level database administrator for ContactPoint is being accused of stealing and selling sensitive information on 2.3 million British children.

The now former employee whose name was not released allegedly took the information and sold it to a data broker, who in turn sold the information to several direct marketing companies, according to a press release posted by Capita, which is the company that won the contract to operate ContactPoint.

“As a result of this apparent theft, the children and families affected are received marketing solicitations from the companies that bought the data,” said Renz Nichols, president of Capita, in a written statement. “We have no reason to believe that the theft resulted in any paedophiles getting hold of children, and we are taking the necessary steps to see that any further use of the data stops.”

Capita noted its researchers believe that about 2.3 million children have been compromised, with approximately 2.2 million containing health information and 990,000 containing other sensitive information on the parents. They’re still investigating when the alleged theft occurred.

The database administrator who worked on ContactPoint had access to the information as part of his job responsibilities but did not have the authority to actually remove any of the information, according to Capita. The administrator has been fired and Capita filed a civil complaint in the High Court against him and the marketing companies that bought the information. Capita reported that it is seeking the return of all the consumer information, as well as an injunction against its use.

The company also said in the release that it is pushing authorities to file criminal charges.

Capita, which runs many government IT services, including the London Congestion Charge, maintains bank account information to help merchants decide whether to accept checks as payment. The company also maintains check and credit card information in connection with its other operations that are designed to help businesses provide customers with access to funds.

Capita said a parent reported suspicious solicitations and marketing materials. An investigation found that the company’s security systems had not been breached, so they called in the U.S. Secret Service, since the British Government has no expertise in this area, who often investigate financial crimes. The Secret Service, according to Capita, then traced the leak back to the database administrator.

Information Week

[…]

And there you have it.

There are some interesting lines in this story:

“…we are taking the necessary steps to see that any further use of the data stops.”

Just how are they going to know if the data was not sold on again? They cannot know this, and if the data is partitioned into small stripped parcels, whoever bought a stripped parcel will have plausible deniability. There are many data brokers out there who sell data aggregated from many sources. All they have to do is strip out all the data that makes the stolen database identifiable as ContactPoint data (the unique numbers and everything else, leaving just the names and addresses) and then they can add this data to their current databases and claim that what they have is simply what they were using previously. Lets say you choose to buy only the subset of ContactPoint where the children are exactly seven years old. You would be able to send a mailout to these families without raising too much suspicion.

The bottom line is, data in a huge database is like pandora’s box; once you open it and let it out, its out there forever.

“The administrator has been fired and Capita filed a civil complaint in the High Court against him and the marketing companies that bought the information.”

Firing the administrator, hanging drawing and quartering him and then feeding the remains to pigs will not put humpty dumpty together again. No penalty, not matter how severe can erase all the illegal copies taken from a database. That sort of magic is just that, magic and not part of the real world.

The only way to prevent theft like this is to not put the sensitive information of private people in a database in the first place.

“Capita reported that it is seeking the return of all the consumer information, as well as an injunction against its use.”

This is so absurd it beggars belief that they have the gall to say it in public, let alone in writing.

If ContactPoint is rolled out, it will be the single greatest threat ever foisted upon the children of a country. Never before will a government have deliberately put so many children in danger in a single stroke. It is an act of monstrous stupidity and evil. Period.

James Meikle
Friday June 22, 2007
The Guardian

Misuse of an electronic database holding sensitive information on 11 million children in England could lead to millions of breaches of security each year, it is claimed today. Privacy campaigners and independent schools have warned of the “enormous” potential for abuse of the huge IT system to be launched next year.

In a letter to the Guardian, they appeal to the government to reconsider “this hugely expensive and intrusive scheme”. The Guardian revealed on Monday how the system would be open to at least 330,000 people as part of an effort to prevent deaths such as that of Victoria Climbié by helping children’s services work together.

Critics fear it will breach the right to privacy and are concerned about security. It will be accessible through the internet with a two-part authentication.

But today’s letter, signed by representatives of the Independent Schools Council, Action on Rights for Children, the Foundation for Information Policy Research, the Open Rights Group and Privacy International, says that the problems of “a potentially leaky and inadequate system” must be solved before the plan goes further. It claims that evidence from Leeds NHS trust last year suggested that in one month staff logged 70,000 incidents of inappropriate access. “On the basis of these figures, misuse of the ContactPoint system could run to 1,650,000 incidents a month.”

[…]

The computer illiterate Guardian

My emphasis.

Firstly, these moronic journalists have no idea about how to tell these stories because they are computer illiterates. Only a computer illiterate would use a phrase like ‘two-part authentication’ in this context. The correct phrase is:

‘only a user name and password’

When you use the correct phrase, it is then easy to paint a picture of people sharing usernames and passwords to gain entry into this system, which will be live over the internets.

This means that anyone with the url, a leaked username and password and the intent, can get onto the system, and then start to copy the entries one by one.

In fact, a smart person could write a simple PHP script to scrape the entries one by one over a long period of time, prompting the user for an alternative username and password should the one he is supplied with cease to be useful.

Everyone knows about Bugmenot, the service that supplies you with usernames and passwords to many sites on the internets. I’m sure that the Bugmenot Admins would NEVER allow usernames and passwords to ContactPoint on their system, but what Bugmenot demonstrates is that it is easy to not only share usernames and passwords, but it is possible to automate the sharing of these usernames and passwords.

Of course, none of this is in this article. It is not vivid in even the most simple area, that of using the correct terminology, which everyone is familiar with since most people in the UK have some contact with internet accounts and logging into them with a user name and a password.

Even that journalist must have experience of logging into his email account; how is it that these people cannot make the insight jump to the next logical point in the argument against this?

Because they are THICK AS SHIT.

330,000 users to have access to database on England’s children

• Family campaigners raise concerns over security
• Index is intended to avoid another Climbié case

Lucy Ward, social affairs correspondent
Monday June 18, 2007
The Guardian

A giant electronic database containing sensitive information on all 11 million children in England will be open to at least 330,000 users when it launches next year, according to government guidance.

A final consultation on the plan reveals that the index, intended to help children’s services work together more effectively following the death of Victoria Climbié, will be accessible through any computer linked to the internet, whether at work or at home, providing users have the correct two-part security authentication.

Guidance on the £224m project warns those authorised to use the system not to access it in internet cafes or on computers in public reception areas, and instructs them never to leave the database logged on in case of unauthorised use.

Though it stresses the sophistication of the electronic security surrounding the databank, it acknowledges: “No system can be 100% guaranteed against misuse.” The government was warned by family campaigners that parents would be concerned about the number of people able to search the database, and about the potential security risk.

Mary MacLeod, chief executive of the Family and Parenting Institute, said: “Our research with parents suggests they will have great anxiety about the proposals.”

The universal database, forecast to cost £41m a year to run, has prompted controversy since the government set out its legal underpinning in the 2004 Children Act. Ministers argue the system will help prevent the lack of communication between children’s services revealed in the Laming inquiry into the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbié, and will boost early intervention where children need it.

However, critics argue it breaches a child’s right to privacy, while others have raised concerns about security.

The database, named ContactPoint, will store basic identifying information including date of birth, address, name of parent and an identifying number for each child up to the age of 18. It will also hold contact details for services involved with the child, including school and GP practice but also others, though consent is required for details of sensitive services such as sexual and mental health.

No one will be allowed to opt out of the database, but children or their parents will have the right to ask to see information about them and challenge it if it is wrong. Children’s details can also be electronically “shielded” if they are considered to be at increased risk – an exemption which, controversially, could extend to the offspring of high-profile figures.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2105187,00.html

Every Child Matters, but it seems, some children matter more than others.

The right to CHALLENGE information if it is wrong is completely different to being able to CHANGE information if it is wrong, and if this insanity goes ahead, you can imagine the horrible process that would be involved in any such ‘challenge’.

And of course, they will use these unique numbers and roll them over into the NIR, creating a system that automatically populates it from birth from now (2008, if they manage to create this database) on.

This is pure evil, and the fact that they are going to ‘shield’ the identities of the children of the rich and famous proves that this database is dangerous to every child.

From the policy document:

Objectives of ContactPoint

4. The objectives of ContactPoint are to:
• help practitioners identify quickly a child with whom they have contact, and whether that child is getting the universal services (education, primary health care) to which he or she is entitled;

and then:

Which children and young people will be covered?

9. ContactPoint also supports the policy objective of identifying early those children with additional needs which should be addressed if they are to achieve the Every Child Matters outcomes, and then addressing those needs swiftly and effectively. It is estimated that at any one time 3-4 million children have such needs.

10. ContactPoint will cover all children and young people in England.
This is because:
• it is not possible to predict in advance which children will have needs for additional services;
• any child or young person could require the support of those services at any time in their childhood; and
• all children have the right to the universal services (education, primary health care), and the basic data will show whether or not they are receiving, and will then, as necessary, support local action to ensure they do receive them.

What this says is very clear; every child has the right to education, and this system will make sure that they will be forced to receive these ‘rights’.

If it is shown that a child is not receiving the ‘right’ to go to school, then the system will flag them, and the ‘right’ to attend school will be enforced.

Note how they justify putting EVERY CHILD in the system because, “it is not possible to predict in advance which children will have needs for additional services”, in other words, every parent is a potential criminal, and every child is a potential victim, and so we must put everyone under surveillance.

They understand that people do not like to be surveilled:

In order to ensure universal coverage, and also to ensure that the most vulnerable children have a record, inclusion of a child or young person on ContactPoint will not be subject to consent. However, where a practitioner is delivering a sensitive service to a child or young person, inclusion of that practitioner’s contact details on the child’s record will be subject to the informed and explicit consent of the young person, or, in the case of a child, the parent. Access to this information, once placed on the child’s record, will also be tightly restricted. Sensitive services are specific services in the fields of sexual health, mental health, and substance abuse. The purpose of this approach is to prevent children and young people being deterred from accessing these services.

Once everyone with a sensitive medical problem understands that touching this system in any way marks you forever, they WILL stay away from it, becauase they will understand that anyone can find out everything about them. And this will be carried over into adulthood:

ContactPoint will cover children and young people up to their 18th birthday. To help ensure that the transition from youth to adult services is managed smoothly, it may also be desirable to make provision to retain some basic information for young adults with multiple needs, (for example care leavers and young people with disabilities), beyond their 18th birthday, with their consent.

So, your consent to be kept on this database can be asked if you are 18; does this mean that the records pertaining to each child as it reaches its 18th year will be deleted?. Also, why is it that parents cannot opt out of this system on behalf of their children, but children themselves can do so when they reach 18? If it is good for you when you are less than 18, surely it is good for you after you are 18; why should you be given the choice to opt out then, and not before?

Parents have the absolute right to care for their children in the way that they see fit. By saying that the parent does not have the right to opt their children out, the state is taking on the role of the parent in saying what is and is not of benefit to the child which is totally unacceptable to any decent person. They are making the children of the UK into property.

Parents have an obligation to protect their children from harm. This database constitutes real harm, and so, all parents who object to it, should opt out of it by any means necessary.

People with money (people with means) will now have to find private doctors who use only paper to keep records, and who are true to their Hippocratic Oath. This database violates the privacy of children, puts them in harms way, damages them and their families and so therefore, all doctors should refuse to engage with it in any way.

And the people without money? I guess they will just have to vote Tory next time round.

How are they going to populate this database?

To avoid double-inputting of data and to ensure high standards of accuracy, information will be drawn from and updated through, a range of existing national and local systems, using proven technology.

This means that it is going to be a total mess. Which is a good thing, because if it does not work, eventually it will be shut down as non cost effective.

And what if people abuse the system? (other than the hackers who will be able to own this system within 15 minutes of it going live)

A range of sanctions are available to manage inappropriate use, and can include disciplinary action, fines and custodial sentences.

Of course, none of these sanctions will put the data back in the database. Once it is out there, it is out there forever, and no amount of prison time, fines, disciplinary action or any thing else will change that.

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of data, and it also shows a lack of understanding of the risk such a system poses.

By assembling this system, they are putting ALL THE CHILDREN OF THE UK AT RISK because a statistically small number of children are being mistreated. By creating this system, they are abusing ALL THE CHILDREN OF THE UK, where they were not before being abused and violated.

This government has, through this project, become the single biggest abuser of children in the history of Great Britain.

And finally:

18.

During the implementation phase, each Local Authority will be funded to provide a small team to support data migration, matching and cleansing during roll-out. There will also be a role for authorities to communicate and consult widely in their areas and to locally promote ContactPoint. Each Authority will maintain a small team to support ongoing data migration, matching and cleansing, and technical support for authorised users. This team would be responsible for service management, systems administration, data management, professional support and administration of local access. Local authorities will be supported by the central project team through this process, and will receive training, guidance and support to carry out this important role.

So there will be hoards of people given access to this database as it is being created, who will sift and sort through everyone, looking through everyones personal details as they ‘match and cleanse’. This is a total nightmare.

LEts think about some security breach scenarios, many of which we have discussed on BLOGDIAL before:

Casually shared login details:
We all know about the sharing of logins and passwords that is rampant throughout many systems world wide. All it will take is one person to allow their account to be used for the entire system to be compromised, and of course, once the data is out there, it is out there FOREVER.

Hackers Owning the DB:
I guarantee you that some hackers will own this database within minutes or days of it going online. They will then do an SQL dump of the whole database, and then all of it, records of every child in the UK will be out there, FOREVER. This is a scenario that WILL take place.

Duplication by increments:
This database and its entire contents will be duplicated over time, as every small breach and copying of a record means that particular record is out there forever. Over 10 years (if this nightmare goes ahead) we will see near complete copies of this database in private hands.

This database is not only extremely valuable to sex monsters, but it is literally millions of times more valuable to toy, clothes and book manufacturers who would pay anything (even fines and jail time) for access to the clean database of names ages, genders and addresses of all the children in the UK, so that they can market to them directly and individually. This database represents a business opportunity without precedent. And you can guarantee that the selling of it will be proposed as a way to offset the cost of running it.

Bad insiders:
Bad insiders; we have talked about them on BLOGDIAL before, and there is nothing that you can do about them. No amount of ‘enhanced criminal records checks’ will be able to predict which of these 330,000 people will crack under pressure. Criminal records checks only tell you the people who have not yet committed a crime, they cannot predict the future.

This government is totally insane to be doing this. No doubt about it.

The ultimate question for all parents is, what are you going to do to protect your children and to keep them out of this database? How far are you willing to go to do it?

We read in today’s Guardian that (the) UK housing market has reached (a) tipping point.

There is a much more interesting tipping point that has been reached however.

This Blog, BLOGDIAL, as well as many other blogs (some of which are in our blogroll) have reached a tipping point; any time you read a story like the one below, one of our blogs has covered the story in detail previously, and at a much higher quality level than any national newspaper.

Take a look at the usual boring, insufficient, stylistically dead, threadbare, dim witted, one dimensional, stupid, dead-end, pointless and imagination-less dross in this piece:

Civil rights fears over DNA file for everyone

Campaigners say Whitehall wants even litter-droppers on crime database

Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
Sunday May 27, 2007
The Observer

Civil liberties groups are warning that the details of every Briton could soon be on the national DNA database, raising fresh concerns of a ‘surveillance society’. Controversial plans being studied by the government would see the DNA of people convicted of even the most minor, non-imprisonable offences, such as dropping litter, entered on the national database.

The proposals are part of a wide-ranging government review of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), which campaign groups warn may have profound ramifications for society. ‘The danger is that if we start adding the details of people convicted of these sort of minor offences to the database we’ll come to a tipping point,’ said Gareth Crossman, director of Liberty. ‘The government will say: “Actually it’s a bit unfair some people aren’t on the database; maybe everyone should be on it.”‘

The DNA database is already proving controversial with some politicians and police officers raising concerns about its use. Liberty claims that, per head of population, the UK has five times as many people on the DNA database as any other country. The government estimates that even if the database is not expanded to include the details of minor offenders, some 4.5 million people will still be on it by 2010.

[…]

Observer

and then do a google search for “Blogdial litter DNA” or “litter dna infowars” or “litter dna “police state” blogger” you are returned many posts, all of which outperform the Guardian/Observers drivel by any metric you care to apply.

So what does this mean? It means that the power of Bloggers and networked, intelligent writers needs to be applied. Thinking right off the keyboard, it probably means swarming of some kind, enabled by mobile devices (phones).

If we do not do this, what history will show is that we were like passengers on the Titanic who saw that the ship was sinking but who did not try to escape. We saw what was coming, did not avoid the ice berg, felt the crash, saw the water gushing in, and simply described what was happening eloquently as we all drowned.

No donning of life jackets.
No rowing away in life boats.
No Mayday signals.

And you can be sure that the captain and officers will not go down with the ship.

Even RATS know when to leave a sinking ship; if we do not act, galvanize and eventually destroy this emerging police state before it gets settled into place, those who cannot afford to escape will be VERY SORRY that they did not do something.

I used to often say, when speaking to people about Home Schooling, “would you pay £100 to restore the present situation and remove all the draconian measures HMG is proposing if they should be put into place?”. The answer is always an instantaneous ‘yes’, and yet, these same people are insanely reluctant to mount a professional pressure campaign because they don’t want to dip into their own pockets or ‘put their head above the parapet’.

I’m not making this up obviously.

This is the nature of the worst of the modern British; cowering, frightened, beaten down, fear soaked, gutless, in love with being stupid, hypnotized, and thick as shit. Even when you prove to them that something is worth doing, they cower away because of some illusory ‘thing’ that might come and get them. Its rather like the Shortwave Magazines that refused to publish logs of Numbers Stations for fear of ‘someone’ coming to their publication and doing ‘something’. Of course, that fear was totally unfounded, as are many of these self restricting fears; and the police state relies on the self control and automatic fear response of the public for the majority of its power. Think of it as a Sterling Engine of Control; the heat of your own body runs the engine that keeps you enslaved (check out that video of the Sterling engine running at the bottom of the page).

The Guardian is one of the worst criminals in the fight against the police state.

On the one hand, it wines in its very boring style about the erosion of civil liberties, and then in the very same paper, publishes opinions (that are total lies) that can only facilitate the establishment of a police state.

Take a look at this utter, unmitigated rubbish:

Should going to school be compulsory?

Interviews by Hester Lacey
Tuesday May 22, 2007
The Guardian

Angela Fuller
Teacher, Staffordshire

I considered educating one of my daughters at home. Home schooling offers relative freedom to construct an appropriate, non-Sats-driven curriculum, and sidesteps problems of bullying and peer pressure.

At the same time, I can see why there is concern. It encourages mutual over-dependence. Parent and child can suffer the sense of isolation that affects other home-workers. It is difficult to switch off and relax when home doubles as a classroom. Schools have facilities such as science labs, music centres and sports facilities that would not be available in a home setting. The deciding factor for me is the limited opportunity for a home-schooled child to socialise with peers. Do I think that going to school should be compulsory? No, but there had better be a darn good alternative.

Lie number one “It encourages mutual over-dependence”
Lie number two “Parent and child can suffer the sense of isolation”
Lie number three “It is difficult to switch off and relax when home doubles as a classroom”
Lie number four “The deciding factor for me is the limited opportunity for a home-schooled child to socialise”

There is a better alternative you IMBECILE, and as we have been saying, millions of people are taking advantage of it. Obviously ‘Hester Lacey’ knows nothing about home schooling, to the extent that she has never looked it up on the internets, otherwise, she would never let the ignorant ranting of someone who obviously knows NOTHING about home schooling to appear as an informed opinion.

Teachers are always rabidly anti-home schooling, because it is a direct threat to their personal status. People like this ‘Angela Fuller’ do not care about the welfare of children; if she did, and she saw that home schooled children outperform state schooled children in every way, she would endorse it because it is better for child, but instead she is against it because home schooling takes the meat from her machine, and diminishes her value as a person (in her mind).

This is like asking a cyclist if the congestion charge is a good thing or not. How utterly stupid.

Adam Alderson
Parent, Birmingham

I can’t think of a good reason why it shouldn’t be. Children who don’t go to school miss out on social interaction. Also, there’s the quality of teaching. Secondary school teachers are specialists in a range of subjects and you would have to be exceptional to cover all that. And there’s the discipline.

When you’re a parent, particularly in the early years, you wonder what your child is up to – it’s the first time they’ve been away from you for that length of time. Sometimes they will meet something they’re not happy with, but they have to face up to it, because they will meet adversities later on in life.

Lie number one “Children who don’t go to school miss out on social interaction”
Lie number two “Also, there’s the quality of teaching.”
SUPER LIE “And there’s the discipline.”

I have never read such ignorant, piss poor arguments against home schooling in all my trawls of the internets. The previous two people must have been scraped from the bottom of an street bums seven week old beer can filled with spit, insects and cigarette ends.

Anyone who would let this sort of drivel through their ‘editorial process’ is either ignorant, delusional or fanatically against home schooling….or all three.

Lindi An Edis
Aged 15, from Barnsley

I can see both sides. Going to school, you get the social skills you need, as well as the academic side. But for some people, going to school wouldn’t help them socially, and I can see why they wouldn’t want to go. If a child isn’t going to gain anything extra from school and is going to come home upset, it’s perfectly fine to be taught from home. School can have a negative side; there can be bad influences as well as good.

I can also see why some people would say school should be compulsory. If a parent isn’t qualified or doesn’t know enough about the subject, you won’t have the same start in life. I’m coming up to GCSEs and I’ve had a lot of input from my teachers: they mark your work, show you where you’ve gone wrong, and help you see the mistakes you might make in the exam.

A half lie “you get the social skills you need”
A clever lie “If a parent isn’t qualified or doesn’t know enough about the subject, you won’t have the same start in life.”
another clever lie “I’ve had a lot of input from my teachers: they mark your work, show you where you’ve gone wrong, and help you see the mistakes you might make in the exam.”

This one is a bit more clever than the other two; hers would be clever ‘Guardian level’ lies if she were not 15 years old; by saying that you won’t get the same start in life, implies that going to school puts you on a level playing field, which does not exist in this or any other Universe I’m afraid. Being 15 years old means that you probably would not know that. The other subtle misunderstanding implies that parents who home school do not mark the work of their children once again, a deep misunderstanding about the reality of home schooling, to be forgiven since the respondent is 15. What is totally unforgivable is using the words of an innocent 15 year old like this to make a cheap and nasty anti home schooling point.

Hester Lacey may intone that she was approaching the subject from three different angles ‘to present a balanced view’, but the fact is this is a BBQesqe propaganda technique, where different voices are presented, all from the same side or totally ignorant, that on the surface appear to be different and diverse, but which are in fact all on the same side; the side of the editorial prejudice.

[…]

Guardian Education Weekly

The fact of the matter is the Guardian is ostensibly against the police state, but then it is FOR compulsory schooling, which requires universal registration of all children for 100% compliance, the entry point for NIR, ID cards and the police state.

With friends like this, we do not need enemies.

The Guardian Education Weekly is an astonishingly ignorant part of the paper, run by people who clearly do not have the ability to educate themselves about the very subject that they are in charge of. If they were able to do this, simply by using the internets, they would never allow these bald faced lies to appear in their section.

They write as if the internets do not exist, and as if the outside world does not exist; only what they think in their office is real, which is why ‘home education means poor socialization’, when of course, the opposite is true. But then again, the Guardian is not about the truth, it is about ‘Guardian Truth®’, and whatever that is, it has nothing to do with liberty or anything that we believe in or that is real.

If there is a tipping point that needs to be reached, and quickly, it is that of the popular disgust with the emerging police state. If this tipping point is not reached before the tipping point of total control is reached, then all is lost.

Should ‘our’ tipping point come first, the police state and all of its apparatus will be demolished and permanently outlawed, out of fear of a vengeful violent and virtuous population that has simply had enough. Should ‘their’ tipping point be reached first, it will forever (or at least for a generation) prevent ‘ours’ from happening. There will then be a final brain drain from this country, where everyone with common sense, decency and a real human spirit will flee for their lives.

What will remain will be the weakest minded, least British population ever on this beautiful island. Britain will cease to exist, as all its best people will have escaped to places where real people still live and breathe. Britain is nothing without these people. And you know it.

And this country will be a tramp in a dingy concrete underpass, singing about this once great place as he is being kicked in by those remnants.

Or not…

A German network of home educators have asked us to please write to the minister below and put international pressure on them.
Thank you Leslie

Dear Friends,
we want to inform you that again a homeschooling family in Germany is under severe pressure. The Dudek family from German state of Hesse is threatened to be send to prison because of homeschooling their children. Different from most of the other German states in Hesse, homeschooling fulfills the facts of a criminal offence. In most of the other states it is only an administrative offence.

The following information is a translation of an article which appears yesterday in the local newspaper. Especially consider the last sentence in the article. It is striking. We will keep you informed about the case. Perhaps we need again international help.

It is embarrassing that German officials put parents into jail whose children are well educated and where the family is in good order. We personally know the Dudeks as such a family.

The responsible minister of education of Hesse is:
Hessisches Kultusministerium
Mrs. Karin Wolff
Luisenplatz 10
65185 Wiesbaden
06151/17120
E-Mail: ministerin@hkm.hessen.de

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Joerg Grosseluemern
Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit – Network for Freedom in Education

Dudek family to go before court once again.

By Harald Sagawe

Prosecutor Herwig Muller has appealed against the verdict in the case of Rosemarie and Jürgen Dudek. The couple from the German town of Archfeld in Herleshausen was sentenced to fines at the beginning of May. In the meantime the prosecutor in Kassel has applied for jail sentences of three months each, without probation, for the parents of six children.

Rosemarie and Jürgen Dudek were sentenced because they did not send their children to school, for religious reasons. The parents, Christians who closely follow the bible, teach their children themselves. Two years ago the court had also dealt with the Dudeks. That case, dealing with the payment of a fine, had been dropped. An application for the approval of a state-recognised private school – which, according to experts, has no chance of success at any rate – has still not been decided by the school authorities.

“It’s a terrible thing, to lock up a family that hasn’t done anyone any harm,” says the accused, Jürgen Dudek.
The prosecutor, Herwig Müller, is currently on vacation. Chief prosecutor Hans-Manfred Jung confirmed the veto, but could not say anything about the reasons.

Jürgen Dudek is horrified at the idea that the prosecution wants to see him and his wife behind bars. “It’s a terrible thing, to lock up a family that hasn’t done anyone any harm,” he says, “especially now, with the legal situation looking the way it is.” He regards the matter as absurd.

The judge’s job is to pronounce a verdict and not mix himself up in administrative matters, says Arno Meissner, director of the education department. Meanwhile he makes it clear that his office will by no means leave the family in peace, not even temporarily. “We will enforce compulsory school attendance against the family as promptly as possible. First his office intends to talk with the family, then to set a time limit and if this is not met, it will once again open a criminal case against them. Not even the announcement of a move by the family will settle the matter, declared Meissner.

Meissner dismissed the criticism made by Peter Höbbel, the judge of the juvenile court, against his department. We won’t let ourselves be admonished by a judge in that way, he said. “His duty is to make a judgement when the prosecutor brings a charge and to stay out of administrative matters.” Höbbel had rebuked the education department because it has been sitting on the Dudeks’ application for the approval of a private school for two and a half years, with no decision having been made about it.

http://www.hna.de/

[…]

The bad guys never learn do they?

It looks like there has been a comprehensive victory for all Home Schoolers in the UK:

Going to school ‘not compulsory’
Councils in England are being reminded that parents have the right to educate their children at home if they wish.

Proposed Department for Education and Skills guidelines on “elective home education” stress that education is compulsory but schooling is not.

Councils should offer support to home educators, and parents must see that their children are suitably educated.

But the authorities have no right to enter people’s homes or make routine checks on children’s progress.

The department has been discussing the issue with several groups representing home educators and with local authorities.

It has decided not to propose any changes to current monitoring arrangements or legislation.

It has dropped plans for compulsory registration of home-educated children.

Instead it is proposing to issue guidelines for the first time, which point out that it is fundamental to the English system that the responsibility for educating children rests on the parents.

That same principle also applies in the devolved education systems in the rest of the UK.

What parents must provide is “efficient full-time education” suitable to their children’s age, ability and aptitude and any special educational needs.

Most do this by sending their children to school, but some prefer home education.

Nobody knows how many. Research commissioned by the education department said it might range between 7,400 and 34,400, while the guidance notes say it might be 40,000 and councils are working with half that number.

The proposed guidance says local authorities now have a duty to try to identify children in danger of missing education.

But it says they have “no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education on a routine basis”.

They could intervene only if they have “good reason” – it stresses – to believe parents were not providing a suitable education.

They could ask parents to provide information. Parents “are under no duty to comply” though it would be “sensible” to do so.

Serving a school attendance order should be “a last resort”.

Allegations

The aim should be to build a trusting relationship between families and local officials.

This is something that can be lacking at present.

Some parents claim local authorities have told people to educate their children themselves, to evade their responsibilities to provide for those with special needs.

And some local authority officials have said parents sometimes claim to be home educating to hide abuse.

The guidelines accept that local authorities get no money for helping home educators, but say they should at least provide written information and website links.

They say there will be diversity in people’s approaches to education.

“Children learn in different ways and at different times and speeds.”

‘Very good news’

Consultation on the proposed guidelines runs until the end of July. They have been welcomed by one of the main home educators’ groups, Education Otherwise.

“Confirmation from DfES that they have no intention of changing the existing legal framework, nor to make registration compulsory, is very good news indeed.”

Spokesperson Ann Newstead said they appeared to be “a welcome change to the kind of documents that home educators have seen used in the past by local authorities”.

Details needed to be checked. One of the accompanying documents said registering children educated at home would be made compulsory, but the department had assured her this was an earlier draft, published in error.

“These are the most positive statements that have been coming out from the DfES,” she said.

“It really is so heart-warming to families to have their choices recognised in this way.”

[…]

BBQ

This really is VERY good news!

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, so we will not take our gaze off of this, but for now, this is a perfect result. Government backs down and gets out of people’s business and everyone is happy and prospers.

Now everyone can get back to doing the job of designing experiments, planning trips, taking papers, revising etc etc….if that is the sort of Home Schooler you are of course.

BRAVO to all those who made the effort to get this magic done!

What is the best advice you ever received about hs or what is the best advice you would give someone starting out?

1. Help your kids learn to love learning.

Before PS or formal HSing, every kid was an inquisitive, question-asking, examiner of bugs, clouds, people, rocks, and all other things. Sometimes, especially if coming out of school, kids need a lot of time and a little bit of help to regain their love of learning. Give former PSers plenty of time to deschool- yes, a month per year of formal school is a pretty good estimate. Encourage all children to learn by allowing them to direct their own interests and learn from them. Reading can be learned just as well (and much more enjoyably) from a treasured comic book as from a dry textbook.

2. Kids learn in different ways and at their own pace.

So figure out their learning style and rejoice in their learning. Stop comparing them to a preconceived notion of having to learn XYZ by a certain grade or age. You are going to be with them a lot and you will know what they know and what they don’t know right away. No need to worry that they will graduate missing something essential.

3. Learning is a lifetime journey that does not end at age 18.

The real challenge is to help your children learn how to teach themselves. What they don’t know, they will take the initiative to teach themselves as the need arises. We naturally have to do this as adults, so let your children do this also.

4. If a child can learn it, so can you.

If a child can learn to read, you can teach them. If a teen can learn algebra, so can you. If you choose not to or are unable to learn together, then you can outsource a subject- hire a tutor, have them take a class, have a sibling teach them, even let them teach themselves.

5. The most important things children ever learn are NOT found in a textbook.

Yes, being a good reader, having basic math skills, and an understanding of the world around us are essential to “graduate” from homeschooling. BUT- just are important are things that are not found in the average textbook: honesty and integrity, a good work ethic, kindness and empathy, a curiosity about their community and world around them, a love of learning.

6. Socialization is knowing how to act appropriately in various situations and is best taught by adults who care about the child.

Socialization is not the same as having a social life. Remember this when you hear the dreaded “S” word from others. Your homeschooled kids will have as many friends and activities as they want and you allow (and likely more time than their PS peers to enjoy them).

They will be socialized by their parents and other caring people who will help them learn appropriate behavior in different situations- at home, in public, in informal and formal activities. They will have many opportunities to learn and practice social skills as they will be interacting with the real world on a regular basis.

7. There is no perfect curriculum.

Once you let go of that notion, you will save a lot of money and have peace of mind knowing that whatever you use, your child will learn from it because you can change and adapt any book, course, or activity to suit your child’s learning style and interests.

:-) Mrs. D.

About

Fora TV has a great clip of Milton Friedman speaking on the problems facing american schools. I found it on the Principled Discovery blog. He is a very funny man!

Principled Discovery rebuts the remarks in the clip adequately; its great however to hear a talk like this, by a seasoned speaker with vivid illustrations littered throughout the talk.

Your Employer is auditing the Inter-Office Email system and comes across a personal note between you and a coworker. You are required to stand at the podium in the next sales meeting to read it aloud to your coworkers. The Police knock on your door, and announce that because you and your neighbor have gotten so close, they’re separating you. You must move your home and your belongings to the other side of town, and you may only meet at public places on weekends.

You’re sitting at a booth waiting for a coworker to arrive for a scheduled lunch date. Suddenly a member of upper management sits down across from you and demands your credit cards. When your friend arrives, you just order water and claim you’re not hungry, since he stole your lunch money.

You’re applying for a job and in an unconventional hiring practice, you are made to line up with other applicants, and wait patiently while representatives from two competing companies take their pick from the lineup.

You’re taking your parents out for an anniversary dinner. After you find a table, a waiter tells you that pensioners have a separate dining room, lest they corrupt the younger members of society.

You go to Tesco only to find that since you are 32 years old you must shop at the Tesco for 32 year olds. It’s 8 miles away and they don’t sell meat because the manager is a vegetarian, but your birthday is coming up and soon you’ll be able to shop at the Tesco for 33 yr. olds.

You’d like to learn about Aviation History. You go to the library and check out a book on the subject only to be given a list of ?other subjects that you must read about before you are permitted to check out the aviation book.

You’re having a hard time finding what you need in the local Marks & Spencer. The sales lady explains that each item is arranged alphabetically in the store, so instead of having a section for shoes, you will find the men’s shoes in between the maternity clothes and the mirrors.

The BBC announces that anyone wishing to watch the FA Cup Final this year must log on a certain number of hours watching the Horizon before they can be permitted to watch the game.

You apply for a job only to be told that this job is for 29 year olds. Since you’re 32, you’ll have to stay with your level.

In a group project, your boss decides to pair you up with the person you don’t click with. His hope is that you’ll get learn to get along with each other, regardless of how the project turns out.

[…]

Lisa Russel

It all sounds horrifyingly familiar doesn’t it?

It is the sort of thing the murderous Bliar regime comes up with to stop this sort of garbage.

by Manfred B. Zysk
December 16, 1999

One of the silliest and most annoying comments made to homeschooling parents is, “Aren’t you concerned about how your child will be able to socialize with others?”. What is being implied here is that the homeschooled child is some kind of introverted misfit who cannot relate to other people, children, and the outside world. In reality, most of the homeschooled children that I have known and met are not only outgoing, but polite and respectful, too. This is a sharp contrast to the public school children that I have known, who can’t relate to adults and whose behavior is rude and inconsiderate. Realistically, there are some exceptions on both sides.

Isn’t it interesting that amid all of the public school shootings over the past few years, the only comment that opponents of homeschooling can come up with is the red herring of “socialization”? You may have noticed, there haven’t been shootings at private schools, or shootings inside of the homes of homeschooled children.

Opponents of homeschooling can’t complain about average test scores, since homeschooled children consistently outscore public school children, so they instead make a problem that doesn’t exist.

Who is responsible for creating this “socialization” problem? This myth has been perpetrated by sociologists, psychologists, public school administrators, the NEA (and local teacher’s unions), etc., whenever they comment on homeschooling to the news media. These are the same people who give Ritalin (a very strong narcotic) and other drugs to schoolchildren, in place of discipline.

A family member asked my wife, “Aren’t you concerned about his (our son’s) socialization with other kids?”. My wife gave this response: “Go to your local middle school, junior high, or high school, walk down the hallways, and tell me which behavior you see that you think our son should emulate.” Good answer.

In order for children to become assimilated into society properly, it is important to have a variety of experiences and be exposed to differing opinions and views. This enables them to think for themselves and form their own opinions. This is exactly what public education does not want; public education is for the lowest common denominator and influencing all of the students to share the same views (“group-think”) and thought-control through various means, including peer-pressure.

Homeschooling allows parents the freedom to associate with other interested parties, visit local businesses, museums, libraries, etc. as part of school, and to interact with people of all ages in the community. For example, my son goes on field trips with other homeschooling families in our community. He recently was able to visit an audiologist, a McDonald’s restaurant (to see how they run their operation), and several other similar activities. He gets to meet and talk to people of different ages doing interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) occupations. He spends a lot of his free time with kids older and younger than himself, and adults from twenty to over ninety years old.

Meanwhile, in public school, children are segregated by age, and have very little interaction with other adults, except their teacher(s). This environment only promotes alienation from different age groups, especially adults. This is beginning to look like the real socialization problem.

My wife and I like to bring our son with us when we are visiting with friends and other adults. How else will he learn to be an adult, if he never has contact with adults? He knows what kind of behavior we expect from him, and the consequences of his actions. He is often complimented on his good manners by friends and adults.

In conclusion, homeschooling parents choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons, but I have never heard any homeschooling parent say that the reason they want to homeschool is to isolate their child from all of society. But, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for homeschooled children to stay away from public school administrators, the NEA members, sociologists, and others who cannot properly “socialize” with children.

Go to your local public school, walk down the hallways and see what behaviors you would want your child to emulate.

Manfred B. Zysk has been homeschooling for five years, with the help and dedication of his wife, Margaret Zysk. They work with other homeschoolers in Idaho.

Snarfed from Lew Rockwell

Maybe homeschooling has really gone mainstream.

Homeschool Dad and McHenry County Republican precinct committeeman John Ryan of Algonquin knocked off the Carpentersville District 300 School Board President Mary Fioretti.

And up Route 31 in McHenry, Republican precinct committeeman John O’Neill, also from a homeschooling family, won enough votes to capture the third seat on that town’s grade school district.

Both candidates were attacked for not having their children in the public school system in whispering campaigns. O’Neill found this piece of poorly printed literature the weekend before the election. Ryan was under regular internet email attack by the District 300 tax hike committee, Advance 300.

Advance 300 had $42,200 left over from its one-year approximately $150,000 successful referendum effort, but announced it would not support candidates during the election.

There was no doubt from the group’s email blasts, however, that Ryan and his running mate, Monica Clark were not Advance 300 favorites. Ryan, especially, was savaged by Advance 300 spokesman Nancy Zettler in the comment sections below Northwest Herald articles.

Both homeschoolers are fiscal conservatives. Both won a year after their school districts passed large tax rate referendums.

District 300 Board President Fioretti, appointed GOP committeeman by McHenry County Party Chairman Bill LeFew (from the opposite end of the county), is closely aligned with Advance 300, which used about $150,000 in school vendor and developer money to pass both a 55-cent tax rate hike and a huge bond issue a year ago.

One can only guess what caused the backlash for Ryan and his running mate Monica Clark to place first and second.

Maybe it was

• District 300’s use of hugely inflated student population projections.
• conducting school business—like deciding to move a high school graduation site to another location—behind closed doors.
• banishing from school premises Stan Gladbach, a citizens finance committee member and frequent filer of Freedom of Information requests.
• the continuing and penetrating coverage by Daily Herald reporter Jeff Gaunt and, more recently, by the Northwest Herald’s David Fitzgerald.
• good campaigning on the part of the two elected Republican precinct committeemen.
• their Irish names.

And, the assistance provided by Jack Roeser’s Family Taxpayers Network to Ryan and Clark certainly helped, too.

Ryan says his goal is to immediately begin the process of opening the district’s activities to the public. He said he believes the board needs to immediately make the process of delivering information to community members far easier and friendly.

“We should never have a standoff with our community members over the information available to them.”

A third homeschool Dad, David Etling, lost his bid for the Prairie Grove School District 47 Board.

[…]

http://www.mchenrycountyblog.com/

When home schoolers get together, like any other group, they have alot of power. When they become a constituency, then that power can be directly wielded.

The worst thing that home schoolers can do is separate themselves into bickering factions; they all have one thing in common – they are parents who want only the best for their offspring after that, you can have any differences that you like. The overriding principle must be kept uppermost in the minds of all home schoolers, otherwise, the gaps between them will be the points of entry for the enemy.

Schools handing out morning after pill to under-age girls backed by Ofsted
By LAURA CLARK 12th April 2007

More schools will be encouraged to hand out the morning-after pill to underage girls after a strong endorsement of the service from Ofsted inspectors.

Around one in three children already has easy access to condoms and emergency contraception – without their parents’ knowledge or consent – thanks to sexual health clinics based at secondary schools.

Many more heads are expected to set up contraception services in their schools following Ofsted’s warm endorsement in a report published yesterday.

The education watchdog declared that school nurses ‘provide a valuable service’ distributing contraception and advising pupils on birth control.

Inspectors even complained that progress towards establishing the centres had so far been ‘modest’.

Last night family campaigners warned the initiative may simply encourage promiscuity.

They pointed out that more than 20 studies have failed to find a link between better access to the morning-after pill and a fewer teenage pregnancies.

By 2010, ministers want every secondary school to have access to a nurse providing emergency contraception and advice as part of a drive to reduce the number of teenagers becoming parents.

In its latest report on the state of sex education, Ofsted inspectors said handing out the morning-after pill was more effective at reducing teenage pregnancies than promoting abstinence.

‘There is no evidence….that “abstinence- only” education reduces teenage pregnancy or improves sexual health,’ their report said.

‘There is also no evidence to support claims that teaching about contraception leads to increased sexual activity.’

The report said: ‘School nurses can arrange visits from their colleagues in the community and work with them to promote health and improve young people’s access to health services.’

It added: ‘School nurses can also provide a valuable service, particularly in terms of providing emergency hormonal contraception and advising on other forms of contraception.

‘Progress towards establishing such centres has been modest, but many extended schools are now providing a good range of services.’

Norman Wells, of the pressure group Family and Youth Concern, was concerned about the resulting message to children. ‘In putting its faith in sex education and contraception to deal with high teenage pregnancy rates and the crisis in sexual health among young people, Ofsted is blindly following the dogma at the heart of the government’s teenage pregnancy strategy,’ he said.

‘Ofsted has swallowed the lie being peddled by the sex education and contraceptive industry that using contraception is the mark of sexual responsibility.

‘No less than 23 studies from ten countries have found that increased access to the morning-after pill has made no difference to unintended pregnancy and abortion rates, yet Ofsted continues to fly in the face of international evidence.’

Margaret Morrissey, of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said school nurses gave children the chance to talk to someone impartial outside the classroom, where they may be embarrassed to ask questions.

But she added: ‘When it comes to things like morning-after pills and condoms there are many parents who will be concerned if they are not informed.

‘The majority will be quite devastated if they suddenly found that their kids were on birth control pills and they didn’t know anything about it.’

Official figures show pregnancies among under-18s rose in 2005 to 39,683 – up from 39,593 in 2004 and much higher than the 35,400 recorded a decade earlier in 1995.

Children’s minister Beverley Hughes welcomed the Ofsted finding that the quality of personal, social and health education, which includes sex education, had improved.

But help was also needed on the homefront. ‘We are taking steps to improve the support we give to parents to talk about sex and relationships,’ she said.

Daily Mail

So, Ofstead makes a ‘societal preference‘ to promote promiscuity and by extension, call your daughter a whore, but this is all OK [whine] because its good for society to stop teenage pregnancy [/whine].

Consent of the governed, a SANE voice, says:

With the establishment of school health clinics and national control of education creeping its way along in our country, we will not be too far behind with the implementation of these kinds of programs, funded by our tax dollars. School clinics in some places might already give out birth control and abortion referrals. Some states have policy on this and others do not. As it is now, kids cannot and may not buy a coke from a school vending machine in CT (Connecticut), but they can get an abortion without parental consent. Something is definitely wrong with that picture.. it not only throws parents out of the picture completely but also may further enable kids to engage in risky behaviors, because they know they can just as easily abort the “consequence”. Many people will say.. well kids will have sex anyway, so let’s give them tools to deal with “the consequences” without their parents even knowing. How can the schools enable sex between minors which is also a crime in many states?

[…]

Putting the moral and religious issue of abortion aside, I think the minimization and exclusion of parents regarding this issue is reprehensible. Undermining parental authority and consent is just really wrong, in my opinion. Yet, parents are supposed to be held responsible if their kids break the law or go truant from school?? How come parents are responsible in some instances and not allowed to be included in others?

I would think that school boards should be held liable for the results from negligent referrals regarding “sexual health” of a child. What happens if a child is harmed by either referred procedures or school administered medication like the Morning After pill? Schools and taxpayers will naturally be averse to this type of legal and economic liability.

[…]

For me as a parent, it is yet another reason to homeschool our kids, and be able to more directly and effectively deal with our kids without government enabling of bad behavior and without government inserting itself into the picture.

[…]

Consent of the governed

A refreshing blast of cool fresh air on a fetid sticky stinky summer day in the city.

Now, there are those blockheads who say:

This is a sensitive subject, far more than truancy or otherwise. The addition of sex into the equation adds a completely new element. I can think of plenty of examples in which it would be in the student’s best interest to keep sexual activity from their parents. One notable example would be a fundamentalist religious family in which any child from the resulting pregnancy would be shunned along with the child’s mother, forcing both into a hard position as social pariahs.

Personally I would rather give students the ability to decide what happens in their body without pressure from parents who’s motives may not always be the child’s well-being.

And this is the problem. This man, this idiot, a commenter on Consent of the governed blog to this post, is clearly not a parent of a female. He probably isn’t a parent of any kind. No parent would think it is appropriate that their child was given access to these abortion drugs, let alone the information that accompanies them.

Each family, each parent is responsible for imparting this sensitive information in the way that they see fit. School should not have regularly scheduled sex education for minors. When you are doing your biology GCSE however, reproduction should be taught, but that is different to sex education which is what is being pushed in schools.

But I digress.

This MORON has a vote. He can vote and express his opinion that, “Personally I would rather give students the ability to decide what happens in their body without pressure from parents” which means anything from forcing your daughter to be implanted with sterilizing drugs without your consent to, by the doctrine of ‘societal preference‘, YOUR DAUGHTER being given abortion drugs without any referral to you as the parent. He can justify your daughter being taught things that come directly from pornography, without your consent.

Now, having thought about that, and being repulsed as a parent, you might think, “to hell with that, I am going to home school my daughter. I don’t agree with any of this at all, and since I can’t be there to monitor the class and swoop her out when these vile lectures begin, I have to remove my daughter from that system entirely”.

But some other brain dead schmuck has expressed his ‘societal preference‘ which means your daughter cannot be home schooled, or, that home schoolers must follow a state issued curriculum, so YOU end up teaching your 11 year old pornographic sex tricks, that she will be examined on by the state.

That is what happens when unthinking people exercise their ‘societal preference‘, for ‘the good of society’. Organizations like Ofstead, which cannot introduce programs to solve literacy and numeracy problems approve giving out contraceptives to children, because they ‘think its right’. And next, they want to go straight into your house to provide ‘help on the homefront’, i.e. telling you how to teach your children about the most vile and repulsive behavior imaginable, right in your own home.

These are the same people, the ones who blithely express their ‘societal preference‘ who then say that it is wrong that children are becoming sexualized. Once again, they want it both ways; they want the schools to be teaching pornography and perversion, they want children to have free access to abortion and contraception, and EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION, but they also want children to be children.

Its just plain stupid.

This is the TRUE problem of ‘societal preference‘. It is the means by which everything is dismantled and the all powerful state gets into every nook and cranny of your life…even your pants…your children’s pants and their minds.

Only the most sick, twisted, perverted and deluded of people think that any of this is correct.

You cannot be FOR ‘societal preference‘ and AGAINST schoolchildren being manipulated and brainwashed. Its is an ‘either or’ situation. If you are FOR ‘societal preference‘ then you are FOR these repulsive and diabolical schemes. If you are AGAINST ‘societal preference‘ then you are against the state:

• telling you what you can do in your own house
• controlling you as a parent in ANY way
• mandating that you can or cannot own a gun
• stipulating what you can and cannot ingest
• forcing your children to attend state schools
• issuing compulsory Identity Cards
• outlawing species of plant
• engaging in mass surveillance as found in the UK/USA
• using secret travel ban lists as found in the USA
• setting up random checkpoints

And all the other things that we really really and rightfully hate.

What is it that you REALLY want? What are the consequences of your ‘societal preference‘? This is what you have to consider VERY CAREFULLY before you give any control over to the state.