More Nonsense from the Braindead Brigade

The Times reports that officials have 'floated the idea' of compelling all buyers of new mobile phones to register their details on a government database. This is, apparently, to combat (you've guessed it) terrorism and crime. Because, as any fule kno, crims love prepay phones because they're anonymous, so the government doesn't know what they're up to. Except in the case of the Omagh bombers, where they were tracking two of them via their mobiles but still did nothing to stop them blowing up lots of people.

The idea is based on the IMEI number of each phone, not the SIM. This is programmed into the hardware and can, supposedly, be changed. Free software is available if you want to do this - which you might, just out of bloody-mindedness. Be warned, though, because changing the IMEI number of your own phone is ILLEGAL in the UK.

If you don't fancy the idea of having this extra layer of surveillance imposed on you, then you can keep on using your existing phone or only use old or recycled ones. Or perhaps not even bother with one at all.

Don't forget that soon all the details of all your phone calls (not the content - not yet, anyway), mobile, landline and internet, plus all your internet usage, will be logged and stored automatically. See my previous post on this.

Have a nice day.