Unless you've been living a solitary existence in a warm and cosy cave you'll no doubt have spotted the minor matter of a swine flu pandemic sweeping the world. And if you're in the UK, you'll also have heard about the National Flu Pandemic Service. You'll also probably have heard about how, immediately after launch, the website component of this service crashed and was taken offline for several hours due to "unprecedented demand". You'll have seen the comments from the UK Government about how well the service has worked, and from the Conservative party opposition about how bad and slow the response was. All very interesting.

However this post on Zero Flaws is to tell you one thing, and one thing only. The National Flu Pandemic service (website and call centre) wasn't suddenly created and put into action this year when swine flu began to rear its head. The massive demand for the service also wasn't unprecedented. The service was discussed and designed way back in 2008, after the H5N1 Avian Flu outbreak, and way back then the speed of response and anticipated volume of demand was known, discussed, and represented a huge concern to all involved - both to the Government, and to the companies they asked to tender for the service.

So keep that in mind when you hear reports of how well - or how badly - the service is operating. And that, I'm afraid, is all I can say on the matter.... (Read More)

Whilst I work on the next full length article for Zero Flaws I thought this merited a brief post. The Home Office has now released the consultation paper for the proposed communications monitoring system (as discussed in the previous two articles), called "Protecting the public in a changing communications environment". You can find the paper at this link, as well as instructions on how to submit your comments and response for consideration. The closing date for submissions is 20th July 2009, and rest assured Zero Flaws will be participating!

There's been a lot of noise about a recent UK Government proposal to store the details of email and web browsing activities by UK citizens. PCPro has covered the highlights and provided some interesting quotes on this new initiative, and the story has been reported by most of the national newspapers too. On the face of it this sounds like yet another mass invasion of privacy by the UK Government, regardless of the actual content that's being stored.

The stated reason for this proposal is as part of a crackdown on serious crime and terrorist activity, which of itself is fair enough, but there are two serious problems with the practicalities.... (Read More)

A few days ago I received one of those "Warning, new scam!" emails from an acquaintance. You know the type: the scam is so widespread and devastating you must immediately forward the email to 10 of your closest friends RIGHT NOW!!!111!!!oneoneone. Under normal circumstances these mails get dispatched to the great recycle bin in the sky (courtesy of an excellent Outlook add-in called Spambayes), but something about this one caught my eye.

The email in question explained a scam whereby the unlucky victim gets a phonecall from someone pretending to work in their bank's security department. The scammer already has the victim's bank card number and expiry date (as well as, presumably, the name and contact details of the victim), and they go through a convincing spiel to make the victim believe the call is legitimate. The email then explains the purpose of the call... (Read More)