police – Terence Eden’s Blog

Theatre Review: Accidental Death of an Anarchist ★★★★★

@edent — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 11:34:30 +0000

This play is exhausting. It is an absolutely relentless comedy. I don't mean a few scattered laughs, I mean a full-on assault on your comedy nerves. It starts as a high-energy farce and escalates and escalates and escalates until you can't trust your senses any more.

If you're unfamiliar with the plot - as I was - it's a remake of a 1970s piece of agit-prop theatre in which the death of a suspect in police custody is investigated. The titular Anarchist died after falling from a 4th floor window. But did he jump or was he pushed? What are the limits of police responsibility? Can you trust what anyone says? Is the cover-up worse than the crime? Doesn't sound like a laugh-a-minute show, does it? And yet...

Every line contains a laugh. The absurdity of trusting the police with anything is mercilessly skewered. As are we - the audience - for treating abuse of power as entertainment. It was amazing to see how a powerful script and top class actors can flip an audience from screaming with laughter to gasping in horror within a scene.

It is hard to describe just how maniacal Daniel Rigby is. The whole show is built around his incredible talents - to the point where it almost feels like the other actors are somewhere between supporting cast and props. He is an absolute lynchpin with complete mastery of physicality and total command of his audience - and he deserves to win every award going. As do the Director and Stage Designer.

Sadly, at times the play does descend into MEN SHOUTING AT EACH OTHER which is a little grating. Don't worry, they let a woman have a few lines in the second act. But they mostly SHOUT AT HER AS WELL. The play also tries to inject as much topicality as it can - with mentions of recent scandals in the world of police and politics. But, at times, it feels a little like a Wikipedia article reeling off facts and figure. The pace is so furious that the righteous fury never has a chance to build.

As is par for the West End, the theatre had plenty of empty seats. Theatres need to realise that £75 a seat just doesn't represent great value for money. Not in a cramped row with no leg room, a long wait for the toilets, and a £4 programme consisting of little more than an IMDb précis of the talent. There's also nothing in the theatre to build anticipation for the show or to transform a visit into an experience.

If you can grab one of the cheap ticket deals, this is 100% worth it. Easily the most shocking set of laughs I've had. As with all satire, I'm never sure if it will act as a flashpoint for action or simply make people think they're doing something just by watching.

Either way, you should see this show, and then visit inquest.org.uk/

Digital Court

@edent — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 07:08:26 +0000

This is the story of my encounter with our justice system. It's a personal post that doesn't necessarily reflect my employers' opinions.

September 2017 - I was standing by a bus stop when I noticed a man playing with his phone while driving. So I snapped a couple of photos of him and his car.

London's Metropolitan Police have an excellent, mobile friendly, web portal for reporting traffic incidents. www.met.police.uk/roadsafelondon/ I dutifully filled it in. There's no ability to add photos or videos to it though.

A couple of days later I received an email from the police - could I please send them the photos I'd taken?

Email is basically secure enough for this sort of thing, right? So far, so digital.

And then nothing. Not a sausage. I assumed that was the end of the matter.

Fast forward 6 months and I received this letter in the post. Would I be willing to attend court as a witness? Why yes, yes I would. And this is where my digital journey ended.

I was asked to fill in an attached paper form and post it off. There was no Stamped Addressed Envelope included, so I tried ringing the phone number. After 10 minutes on hold I gave up. So I dropped an email to the named officer. No reply.

A few days before the court date, I tried to look up details of upcoming cases online. They simply don't exist. There's an information dead-zone around local courts. So I rung up. After a mere 15 minutes on hold I was told the case was still on!

I turned up and sauntered through the metal detector. A lovely volunteer from Citizens Advice met me and took me to the waiting room. She checked my name (but not my ID), wrote it on a bit of paper, then disappeared.

She re-appeared a few minutes later. Checked the spelling of my name, checked the details of the case, scribbled them down, then wandered off to her office.

And then reappeared! She'd found the case at last. She read me a copy of their GDPR statement and asked if I was happy to be contacted afterwards. I didn't get an electronic - or paper - copy, but I agreed anyway.

I was shown a picture of the court to help me understand where I would be sitting. I say "picture" - it was a poorly drawn diagram which had be photocopied so many times as to be gloriously indistinct. It was also incorrect; the court I was to be in had a different layout.

I waited and waited and waited. Justice takes time. But there was lots to read in the waiting room.

The prosecutor finally met me. She was sorry for the delay, but the defendant wanted to plead guilty to a lesser offence. His phone had merely fallen off the cradle and I'd caught him as he was putting it back.

"That's not what the photos show," I said.

"Oh? Really? I've only got black and white copies..." And, indeed she had. Somewhere between the Met and the CPS, my statement had been printed out and either scanned or faxed.

I showed her the full-colour and full-resolution photos on my phone.

"You can clearly see that he's holding the phone and pinch-zooming it."

Her eyes lit up. "I'm not accepting that behaviour! Wow! You can see it so clearly! I'm going to ask him about that. Are you happy showing the magistrates your phone if they ask?"

I said I was, and she dashed out of the room never to be seen again. Half an hour later, Witness Services collected me. The accused had plead guilty and I was free to go, without the trauma of testifying.

A few days later I rang the court. I wanted to know what the outcome of the case was. The friendly lady at the end of the phone line said "Oooh! I can't tell you that. Because of... errr... data protection?"

Aside - no, GDPR does not give criminals the right to have their sentences kept private.

I rang the next day and got someone competent. The driver was fined £230, had to pay £30 as a victim surcharge, and £250 costs.

Most importantly, he was instantly disqualified from driving.

So, lets recap:

Report crime online - excellent!
Send evidence via email - good.
Request to be a witness via post - annoying.
No easy way to reply digitally - inconvenient.
Court hearing information not online - bad.
Witness check-in all paper-based - disappointing.
Evidence not sent digitally - very bad.
Court case outcomes not reported online - bad.

The justice system as a whole has to do better at being digital.

Watching The Detectives

@edent — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 14:22:43 +0000

The British State's desire for its citizens' private data is becoming unquenchable.

As part of a minor act of disobedience, I decided to send two Freedom of Information requests. The first to the Home Secretary asking for her email metadata. The second to the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey asking for her web browsing history. After all, if they can spy on me, why can't I spy on how they're using their taxpayer-funded computers?

Unsurprisingly, the Home Office rejected my request saying that it was "vexatious" and it was a "scattergun approach and seems solely designed for the purpose of ‘fishing’ for information without any idea of what might be revealed."

Well duh! Of course, in so doing, they rather eloquently prove my point - trawling vast troves of data with no idea what you're looking for is a dangerous pursuit.

What was more surprising is that Surrey Police approved my request!

(I have to declare that I know some of the people within Surrey Police - having worked alongside them at various hackdays and BarCamps. That said, I doubt that influenced their decision to publish.)

I started out by making an FoI request on Twitter (a perfectly valid way to make a request).

After a few delays...

I received the answer...

~~You can download the entire report as a PDF.~~ This link no longer works and isn't in the Internet Archive.

A few points to note...

Fair play, I wasn't expecting them to release this! It does somewhat undermine my argument that the state keeps secret information it desires from its citizens.
It's a PDF - so not quite open data - but good enough.
I'm not convinced that the data are entirely accurate. Doesn't seem like a lot of usage - and a suspicious lack of tracking data is reported (although that may well be hidden by their automated reporting tools).
It's possible to draw some (incorrect) conclusions from the data.

@jjaron @edent @SurreyPolice I visited it to be interviewed for child's project - so no inference needed. I was looking for directions Tweet from NCA_LynneOwens

The Government want a lot more data that this - and will give it to potentially hundreds of organisations. The risk of your late night browsing sessions leaking remains high.

If you're interested in joining the fight against the Surveillance State, please become a supporter of The Open Rights Group.

Another GOV.UK XSS Flaw

@edent — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 11:36:52 +0000

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) are the police who police the police.

As the Police policers you'd expect their website to be copper-bottomed. That they would detect anything amiss when inspecting their thin blue links. Mind you, some web developers are a law unto themselves.

Yeah, yeah, these puns are unbearable.

Fine. Whatever.

Amusing photo by kind permission of the inimitable Paul Clarke.

As I was responsibly disclosing the flaw, the HMIC team were busy moving to a shiny new website which is mercifully free of the problem.

If you're running a website - especially a Government one - please take the time to understand the risks involved.

It only remains for me to ask the eternal question: quis custodiet ipsos custodes custos telam?

Evenin' all.

Read more about "The Unsecured State", a series of blog posts examining security mishaps of UK Government websites.

Secure The Police!

@edent — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 10:55:29 +0000

Imagine, just for a moment, you suspect that a friend of yours is a criminal. Perhaps they are running an illegal proxy, or hosting a search engine, or maybe criticising a dangerous cult, or even taking suspicious photographs.

These are all - apparently - within the remit of The City Of London Police. Better report such heinous crimes to them. As a high-tech policing unit, they encourage you to report crimes online.

The more astute of you will have noticed that the form is insecure. There's no https:// at the start of that URL. This means any confidential information that you send is transmitted across the Internet in the clear. Anyone sat between you and the police can intercept the data you send and - potentially - change it.

This is sub-optimal - especially for a police force which is seemingly tasked with protecting us from online meanies.

Being the "helpful" chap that I am, I called them out on it. Only to receive these very disappointing responses.

Secure communications between the public and with websites is important. I want to know that all my dealings with the police are treated securely. I want to ensure that the data I send them is unmolested in transit. I want the state to take online security as seriously as they take physical security.

So, let's take a look at every UK Police Force website and see which of them have a secure connection.

I've taken the list of forces from the excellent data.police.uk - along with a few more I found along the way. I've specifically looked at their online crime reporting / contact us pages. Ideally all of the site would be secure - but let's not run before we can walk, eh?

I've tried to be as accurate as possible with these data - corrections and updates gratefully received.

Force	Main Site	Report / Contact	Notes
Avon and Somerset	✓	✓
Bedfordshire Police	✗	✗
Cambridgeshire Constabulary	✗	✗	Available, but not forced.
Cheshire Constabulary	✗	✓	Main site has https - but not forced
City of London Police	✗	✓	Now fixed - see update below
Cleveland Police	✗	✗	Available, but not forced.
Cumbria Constabulary	✗	✗
Derbyshire Constabulary	✗	✗
Devon & Cornwall Police	✗	✓
Dorset Police	✗	✓
Durham Constabulary	✓		No online contact.
Essex Police	✗	✓	Available, but not forced on main site.
Gloucestershire Constabulary	✗	✗
Greater Manchester Police	✗	✗
Hampshire Constabulary	✗	✗
Hertfordshire Constabulary	✗	✗	Available, but not forced.
Humberside Police	✗	✗
Kent Police	✗		Online reporting no longer available.
Lancashire Constabulary	✗	✓	Certificate expired on 01/02/14 10:55
Leicestershire Police	✗	✗	Available, but not forced. Contact Us under construction.
Lincolnshire Police	✗	✗
Merseyside Police	✗	✓	Available, but not forced on main site.
Metropolitan Police Service	✗	✓
Norfolk Constabulary	✗	✓
North Yorkshire Police	✗
Northamptonshire Police	✗	✓
Northumbria Police	✗	✓
Nottinghamshire Police	✗	✓
South Yorkshire Police	✗	✗
Staffordshire Police	✗	✗	Available, but not forced.
Suffolk Constabulary	✗	✓
Surrey Police	✗	✓
Sussex Police	✗	✓
Thames Valley Police	✗	✓
Warwickshire Police	✗	✗
West Mercia Police	✗		Available, but not forced.
West Midlands Police	✗	✓	Available on main site, but not forced.
West Yorkshire Police	✗	✓	Available on main site, but not forced.
Wiltshire Police	✗	✓
Northern Ireland	✗	✓	Hate Crime reporting goes to an untrusted site.
Police Scotland	✗	✓
Dyfed-Powys Police	✗
Gwent Police	✗		Available on main site, but not forced.
North Wales Police	✗	✗
South Wales Police	✗	✗
Ask The Police	✓	✓
British Transport Police	✗	✗	Available, but not forced.
Civil Nuclear Constabulary (formerly UKAEA Constabulary)	✓		Now part of GOV.UK
Ministry of Defence Police	✗
The National Crime Agency (NCA)	✗

You know what - that's a lot better than I was expecting, but it's still pretty dismal.

Several forces - even small ones - routinely secure their entire site. It's good to see that several make a point of securing the contact / reporting pages. Some larger forces need a bit of a push to get their websites in order.

Depressingly, some sites do use https - but the user needs to manually type it in to their URL bar! Why bother having https if you don't automatically redirect your users to the secure site?

In this day in age, there's no reason to encrypt only certain areas of your site. The technical overhead of secure communications is trivial and reinforces the idea that security is important to the police.

If the police want to be taken seriously as high-tech crime fighters, they need to ensure their websites meet basic security standards.

Update - 15-August-2014 Have just heard back from the City of London

... the City of London Police have fixed the problem and the relevant forms are now secure and live. We’ll continue to test them to ensure they stay that way and this doesn’t happen again. Thanks for taking the time to contact us

Hack Da Police (and other emergency services) #UKBLC14

@edent — Mon, 12 May 2014 07:12:38 +0000

This is a necropost - resurrected from the now defunct blog of a previous employer.

I've just come back from an amazing BlueLightCamp 2014 - held in the splendid offices of the Ordnance Survey.

Themed unconferences are nothing new - but I think this was one of the first that I've been to focussed on such a vital topic - the Emergency Services.

You can read a full write up of all the sessions on the official blog, or you can read Ben Proctor's take on the day.

Here are my scattered thoughts, interspersed with tweets from the event.

999

It's funny how little the basic 999 / 112 service has evolved from the caller's perspective. Is there any way it can be made more useful to the caller, dispatch, and the arriving teams?

Video and images is thought to be a great, practical way to assess a situation before the police / ambulance / fire crews get there. The immediate fear is that people will send in pre-recorded video (possibly from TV shows) in an attempt to scam operators. There needs to be a guarantee the video is live and - if possible - a way to communicate back to the person filming.

Even more challenging - it has to be cross platform and quick. Downloading apps isn't easy in an emergency situation.

I showed off a demo of WebRTC which can do live video from the phone's browser.

There was some suggestion that footage - as well as being useful in court - could also be a revenue generating front. Although that's not without its issues.

The texting of 999 is mostly used by those with hearing impairments. But there's a crazy situation at play

Amanda from Pesky People is working on better ways for Deaf people to communicate in an emergency.

Wearables

How do you feel about cops wearing cameras? Does Google Glass present too large a barrier between service provider and citizen?

Quantified Self toys like FitBit are also useful for monitoring the general health of the workforce. They can also be used to detect elevated heart rates, and other things which could be very helpful in realising if a worker is in danger.

Ultimately, emergency services workers take their own phones with them on calls - it won't be long before Glass (or its generic equivalent) will be sneaking its way into the ranks.

Drawnalism

The day was illustrated by the fabulous Drawnalism.

Rapid Innovation

I ran a workshop on Rapid Innovation, and how we practice it here in The Lab. There's a great write up on the BlueLightCamp blog.

The essence of my message was that:

JFDI is a valid strategy.
If you can't get a prototype working in 6 weeks, you won't get anything done in 6 months.
Ask forgiveness (and a little bit of permission).
Show your wider team that you're experimenting. Let them know that it's ok for them to try new things.
Be open with your failures. People can't learn from your mistakes if you bury them.
Innovate in the open. We built a 3D printer in the main entrance of our HQ precisely to get people asking "Why are you doing that?"

Drones!

Drones are a reality. The technology is now at a price where reliable drones can be used for surveillance, rescue, and intelligence gathering.

As a demonstration, Simon Orr flew his drone for us all to see.

As well as the regulatory issues - don't fly them near nuclear power plants - we are going to have to contend with multiple drones sharing the same airspace.

Hacking

Ultimately, I didn't use any police data in my hack - but I was able to get some open data from the Environment Agency tweeting :-)

Final Thoughts

Brilliant day, fantastically organised, gorgeous building, well catered, and some very stimulating conversation. I'm already looking forward to #UKBLC15!

"Let's ban tiny phones!" - UK Government

@edent — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 10:55:57 +0000

The BBC is reporting that the Government is so afraid of prisoners having access to concealed mobile phones, they want to introduce a ban.

UK officials are considering banning the sale of small mobile phones designed to resemble car key fobs.
A government spokesman told the BBC that it was discussing the issue with the National Trading Standards Board and the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
It follows a report by the Times suggesting some of the Chinese-made products were being advertised with prisoners in mind.
Having a mobile phone in jail is a criminal offence.

The article goes on to conflate a number of issues. As well as the illegality of having a phone in prison, there is the trading standards issue that some of these devices have unauthorised logos on them!

How exactly does one go about banning tiny phones? Two years ago, I reviewed the S16 watch phone. As the name suggests, it's small enough to comfortably fit on one's wrist.

A large percentage of the size is taken up by the touchscreen and the bulky battery. Since I reviewed it, sizes have shrunk dramatically - as have prices. You can now pick up a wrist worn phone for around £30. Now, all of the above are 2G phones. For 3G phones, there's the Micromax Modu. At around £50, it's a svelte 76 x 46.5 x 11 mm and features a reasonably competent Web browser.

Is the Government really going to try to introduce a ban on technology under a certain size? Or technology which looks like some innocuous other item?

Or is this just some sabre rattling to make people thing "well, at least they're doing something!"

Surrey Police and the Case of The Misleading Pie Charts

@edent — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:30:10 +0000

Surrey County Council have sent every household in the county a booklet explaining how our council tax is being spent. Within it is a highly political comment from Kevin Hurley, the newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner.

He presents a pie chart showing how the police force spend its money. Take a look at it and ask yourself this question: what percentage is spent on "Employees".

~~Please use this poll to record your guess - answers at the end of this blog.~~

Pie charts have a long and noble history. They were popularised by Florence Nightingale and were hugely effective in helping politicians understand the causes of death among soldiers during the Crimean War.

As we understand more about the human brain and how we perceive shapes, it is becoming clear that pie charts are ineffective for representing complex information.

2D pie charts can still serve a useful purpose in limited circumstances. The real problem is with 3D pie charts. As far as I can tell, these abominations were popularised by Microsoft's Excel charting software.

3D charts distort the view of the data in such a way that it becomes increasingly hard to understand the information being presented. A picture being worth 1000 words, allow me to demonstrate:

So, just how bad is Surrey Police's Pie Chart? In an extremely scientific study of asking half a dozen people, they all guessed between 75% and 85%. That's quite a wide range considering it's a multi-million pound difference.

On the opposite page to the pie chart is this summary of spending.

In slightly more readable format, it is:

Category	£	%
Employees	£181.70	81.9%
Premises	£8.00	3.6%
Supplies	£27.20	12.3%
Transport	£5.00	2.3%
Total	£216.90	97.7%

A few interesting things to note here.

Firstly, how do we calculate the percentages? The total spend isn't mentioned in the report (£216.90). If we use that, "Employees" accounts for 81.9% of spending.

If we take into account the gross expenditure (£207.70) the figure jumps to 87.5%.

Secondly, if we do assume that we're using the unreported total spend - there is at least 2% missing. Some of which can be explained by rounding - but I wonder what the rest of the money is spent on.

Given the above, I don't think the provided pie chart allows Surrey residents to see an accurate view of how their hard earned money is being spent.

Hopefully, this side-by-side - of the above data - will show you how 3D pie charts distort data and end up misleading their audience.

With this overlay, we can see the distortion much more clearly. The smaller sections of the chart look disproportionately larger. It's time to announce a zero tolerance crackdown on dodgy data representation.

Crowd-Sourced Tracking of Unmarked Police Cars

@edent — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 13:00:53 +0000

As I was driving to work today, I noticed I was being tailgated. The driver seemed distracted by some electronic gizmo and wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings. I started to take a note of the car's numberplate when all of a sudden the front grill exploded with flashing blue lights, a siren started howling, and the vehicle sped off.

"Ah," I thought, "so that's what an unmarked police car looks like. I wonder if there's a way to tell if a car belongs to the police..."

I suspect that if I issued a Freedom of Information request for the licence plates of all unmarked police cars, I would be swiftly rebuffed.

That set me thinking. If I were a nefarious criminal, how hard would it be to crowd source the information?

Assume, for a moment, that I am a modern day Fagin with a veritable army of feral children to do my malicious bidding. I position the children in crime hotspots and ask them to note down the number plates of any unmarked police car which has its "blues and twos" on. The children - armed perhaps with smartphones - could faithfully record the number plate, make and model, any specific markings, and take a photo of the car.

(As an aside, there was a reasonably popular thread on the PistonHeads forum which tracked unmarked cars for a while.)

Ok, so now we have a fairly comprehensive database of unmarked police cars. What can we do with it?

Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) is the technology used by the police to spot cars and recognise their number plates. The police - or travel authority - can look up the number plate, issue fines, see if their insurance is valid, etc.

Optical Character Recognition is a complex technology, requiring massive computing power. Luckily, that power is readily available in modern smartphones.

So, as Fagin, I equip all my cars with two Android smartphones - one for the front, one for the rear. Have them continually run numberplate recognition, look up those plates in a remote database. Alert the driver if a suspected police car is near.

For more complexity, the app could check to see if the colour, make, and model match those on the database.

At the moment, one would need to have a considerable need to avoid unmarked cars and be prepared to expend a significant resource to generate the data needed in order to make this an effective counter-measure. For now, it's probably the preserve of well funded nation states.

But, buy a few autonomous drones to fly around the city - and the need for hiring expensive criminal children disappears. Computing power is only going to get cheaper, bringing this sort of activity well within the grasp of criminals everywhere.

Sousveillance is the opposite of surveillance. It's the act of watching the watchers. The above is an example of a potentially criminal use of ubiquitous computing to power a tracking infrastructure.

For people interested in civil liberties, sousveillance is a great way to keep tabs on the state - it will often use commodity hardware, crowd sourced participation, it is easily scaled, and very hard to defend against.

Technology is fundamentally morally neutral. It's our actions which determine whether a tool is used for good or evil. As technology drops in price, the infrastructure which was previously the preserve of Governments becomes available to the common man, and the common criminal.

The above could be considered an example of a movie-plot threat - it's probably not practical now, but it will be soon.

We will be living in interesting times indeed.

Blue Screen Bat'leth

@edent — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:20:43 +0000

Last year, I quickly created a blue-screen cut out of a strange photo of the police.

Today, I was alerted to this rather lovely photo. Apparently, some 6 years ago, the police confiscated this "deadly martial arts weapon capable of decapitating a man."

Well, I couldn't resist! Perhaps this can become one of my blog's traditions?

So, here's a quick and dirty removal of the bluescreen.

If I think of any more funny images, I'll stick them in this imgur gallery.

British Transport Police - Pickpockets QR Code

@edent — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 11:24:01 +0000

Terence Eden specialises in helping organisations craft amazing QR campaigns. Contact Terence for a consultation

Wander around the London Underground and you're likely to see safety posters from the British Transport Police (BTP). This is the first one that I've seen with a QR code on it.

It's a fairly good poster. A good call to action, a URL in case your phone can't read QR codes, and the code itself is well sized and has a high level of error correction.

Scanning the code, however, leads to a rather disappointing user experience.

A non-mobile mobile site

Here's what the user sees when they land on the BTP's "mobile" site.

The site is incredibly poorly formatted. It is evidently not designed for mobile, nor has it been tested on a wide range of phones.

No viewport has been set, meaning most phones will show the site zoomed out.

The images are all fixed at 480px wide, so any phones with a smaller screen may have difficultly rendering the page.

The Videos

The videos themselves are well produced, but almost totally unsuitable for mobile. The videos are around 30 seconds long - yet weigh in at around 3.6MB!

Even on 3G, that's a a long wait for the file to download. On 2G? Forget it.

The files aren't streamed - they have to be downloaded. Finally, the resolution is fixed at 640*360, and so the videos are not adapted to each device's screen resolution.

Click To Call

If you are the police, you probably want people to be able to phone you. So the BTP place their phone numbers on their site. There's only one problem - you can't click on the number to call them! So, you're left in the annoying situation where you either have to remember the phone number, or borrow another phone to call them.

Making telephone numbers "click-to-call" is really easy. Literally, all you need to do is write

Call us on 0800 40 50 40

Hey presto! Users can click on your phone number and place a call from their mobile phone.

The Stats

As I discussed in an earlier post, using a URL shortner means that anyone can see your QR statistics!

So let's take a look at how the BTP have done.

At the moment, they're averaging 12 scans a day for this poster (I don't know if other posters have the same code - I suspect so). Naturally, iPhone is at the top of the scans, with BlackBerry following close behind.

Is this a good result? I don't know. If there was just a URL on there, how many visits would it get?

Making It Better

This is such a brilliant idea for a QR poster campaign. With only a little work, it can be made really useful for Londoners.

Create a responsive mobile site.
Use click-to-call for all phone numbers.
Optimise the videos for mobile download and viewing.
Consider streaming the videos - perhaps using a service like YouTube.

If you would like a bespoke QR consultation, contact me.

Police And Blue Boxes

@edent — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:00:56 +0000

The journalist Shiv Malik took a rather intriguing photo at the recent student protests.

It appears to show a group of police officers gathered around a blue box. No one seems to know what the box is for. I'm sure it's got a rather prosaic function - but that doesn't stop the speculation!

As soon I saw it, I could think of only one thing; chroma-key! (Or Colour Separation Overlay if you're the BBC). It's more commonly known as "blue screen". It's the special effect which allows you to remove the background and replace it with something else.

So, using my rather unimpressive GiMP skills, I created this version of the image with the blue box removed.

Mike Stead created this quick image.

And I produced this (rather obvious) effort.

You can download the original image or my alteration with the transparency.

Why Hoax Emails Refuse To Die

@edent — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 08:30:34 +0000

A rather persistent hoax has been floating around blogs, Facebook, and Twitter recently.

The "warning" alleges that a company put a flier through your letterbox claiming that they were unable to deliver a parcel - and that you need to contact them on 0906 6611911. Apparently this will immediately charge your phone £315.

Before we go any further, this "warning" is a hoax. The original scam was closed in 2005!

So, why is this propagating now? One reason that I can find is that this misinformation is being spread by Surrey Police.

When people normally receive a chain email they - I hope - do a little bit of research before spreading it to their address book or social network. But when it comes from a highly trusted source like the police, most people would assume that it's a legitimate source of information.

That said, there are a few "howlers" in this email that should cause anyone to think twice (and I don't mean the use of Comic Sans!).

Firstly, the CrimeStoppers URL - http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/crime-prevention/helping-prevent-crime/scams/postal-delivery-scam - doesn't work! Clicking on it redirects you to the front page of the website. There's a tiny box on there about the scam. That redirects to http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/fraud/types-of-fraud/common-scams/postal-scam-email-from-parcel-delivery-service-65455465 - which confirms it's a hoax.

It would be really good if CrimeStoppers could make the hoax warning more prominent on that page.

Secondly, if the police, Trading Standards, and the Post Office all know about this scam - why haven't they simply shut the number down?

Finally, it's always worth double-checking, no matter what the providence. A quick Google for 0906 611911 shows hundreds of reputable sites (and the Daily Mail) showing that this is a hoax.

From the perspective of memetics, it's interesting to see how a highly reputable source can be used for spreading the "infection" of a false meme.

Hopefully, Surrey Police will publish a retraction.

Police, Camera, Action...

@edent — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:11:46 +0000

As I was walking home from work, I spotted an unusual sight - a police van parked in a disabled bay near my local train station. I snapped a picture of it.

Police van in a disabled bay

As soon as I had taken a shot, PC Smith (40144) came out from the train station and asked to speak with me. She asked why I'd taken a photo of her van. I told her that it was parked in a disabled bay. She told me that she'd been called because a woman was self-harming on the station and that was the only place she could park.

Fair enough, I said. Then a funny thing happened. She asked me to delete the photo.

To my mind there are only two logical reasons she could have for wanting me to delete the photo.

She genuinely thought that the photograph was likely to be useful in the preparation of a crime.
She had committed an offence and didn't want there to be any evidence.

I asked her why she wanted the photo to be deleted, she told me that "in the current climate" the police had been asked to stop people from taking photos of sensitive buildings and of the police.

That isn't true - and I told her so.

She asked to take down my details. I asked her why she wanted my details and whether I was obliged to give them. At this point, I asked if I could record our conversation - she agreed.

I won't post the video because, frankly, it makes both of us look like arses. I've got shakey hands and a wobbly voice, she rings her sergeant and gets told she isn't allowed to demand my details. Neither of us are left exactly covered in glory.

She was told by her superior that she could take down a description of me. I told her that asking to delete photos was silly because they can be easily undeleted. I also thanked her for not escalating the situation. I left. As I left, I allowed my phone to post the photo I'd taken to twitpic.

There are several interesting points

Police still believe - or are still being told - that people aren't allowed to photograph "sensitive" subjects.
Police are still asking for the destruction of private property (photographs). Know your photographic rights.
Many people still don't understand that digital images live forever - whether on the Internet or as fragments on a memory card.
Police still use common sense and are willing to listen if you put your case politely and firmly. That's very reassuring.

I want to make it quite clear that I have no reason to disbelieve PC Smith when she said that she was attending a genuine call. I'm not going to pursue the parking in a disabled bay matter any further. I am going to pursue the matter of the advice my local police force are given regarding the photography of them and their vehicles.

Remember, if you are taking photos that you think are genuinely important - upload them as soon as possible from your camera. If you're asked to delete a photo - it may be wise to do so; photos can be easily recovered.

Many thanks for all the retweets - it's good to know that I'm not alone in thinking that this is a farcical situation.

People retweeting my photo

Edit: Thanks for all your kind words and also to Boing Boing for picking this up.

FoI BTP

@edent — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:21:00 +0000

Following on from my encounter with the police, I decided to file a complaint against Office 4825 for refusing to show me his ID via the BTP's public complaint form.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Office 4825 of the British Transport Police refused to show my his ID or Warrant Card when asked. I had been stopped under S.44(2) of The Terrorism Act 2000. The incident happened at around 0854BST on 19/08/2008.

The officer was, I consider, rude and unprofessional. He made a protracted phone call using what appeared to be a private mobile phone (not on the TETRA system) indicating personal information about me and my whereabouts. He would not give me any information about the call.

I have captured the incident on camera and you may view it at politics.phreadz.com/p/15ROH206TI2T/

I would like the following
1) Confirmation that this man is indeed a member of the British Transport Police.
2) Details about whether this man was correct not to show me his identification.
3) Details of the phone call he placed concerning me. Please let me know if I need to submit a separate FOI request for this. [In retrospect, I think I should be asking under the DPA not the FOIA]

Many thanks

Terence Eden

I was impressed with their speed of response. Less than 24 hours.

Mr. Eden

I can confirm that Officer 4825 is a British Transport Police Officer.

If an officer is in plain clothes he is obliged to show identification

In respect of the telephone call that was made, I cannot assist with that.

Regards

William Farrell

PSD Office Manager

It is correct, so I discover from investigation, that uniformed officers don't have to show ID. I think that's a shame. If they've got nothing to hide, they've got nothing to fear.

I really don't think I can be bothered chasing this with the BTP any further. I've stood up to authority and survived. I will continue to write to my MP and keep the money flowing to Liberty.

Many thanks to Cory at Boing Boing for featuring my story. To QIK for providing a streaming service. To Kosso at Phreadz for creating a fantastic video discussion forum. Thanks also for all those who've blogged and digged this (sorry if I missed any). Please keep the comments, tweets and jaikus coming in - it's been fascinating to read both the positive and negative views people have of my actions.

Finally, a huge amount of love and respect to my wife, Liz, for not making me sleep on the sofa last night ;-) She understands me like no one else.

This blog now returns to wittering about QR Codes, mobile phones and Shakespeare.

Am I A Dick?

@edent — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:59:00 +0000

Well. Yes, probably. I have a small character flaw. I don't like authority. I question authority. I overreact sometimes.

This is me being stopped under Section 44(2) of The Terrorism Act 2000. I informed the police that I would be videoing and streaming to QIK. The video was cross posted to Phreadz and discussed on BoingBoing.

(Note - the Qik video service died in 2015 and I rehosted a copy of the video on YouTube. The video is missing a few minutes from the end.)

So, is my antagonistic whining at the police useful in any way? In my twisted mind, I see this as a good thing... sometimes. I believe it's up to all of us to occasionally turn around and say "Are you allowed to do that?" To say "Why?" I'm not trying to be melodramatic, but I don't think that enough people perform checks on authority. Power, so they say, corrupts. We've seen how police can be used against the population in Zimbabwe and other countries.

Now, I'm not naive enough to claim "OMFG POLICE STATE!" to being stopped - annoying and distressing as it is. Britain is a hell of a lot better than many other countries. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to make it even better.

A lot of people (especially those whose parents escaped Europe during the war) are vigilant - perhaps over vigilant - against the return of fascism. And the first step towards that kind of rule is to stir up fear and hate in the population and use the civilian police for political purposes. Hence, I suppose, the emotional response.

The UK is not a police state. But it's up to each of us to make sure it doesn't become one. It's up to us to vote, to talk to our MPs, to expose violence and intimidation.

Let me make one thing clear; I have enormous respect for the police. They do a tough job and get a lot of abuse for it. I'm too much of a coward to put myself in harm's way every day like they do. The Security Services' failures are very public - and their successes are very private. We often only get to see the "bad" side of them. That distorts our perception of the work they do to keep all of us safe.

Some people have said that I'm a dick, that I'm looking for my 15MB of fame (excellent turn of phrase), that I'm goading the police for a reaction.
Others think I'm highlighting security theatre, a citizen journalism hero, that I was perfectly reasonable.
Those are a selection of people's thoughts. There are more on digg.

Ultimately, I'm conflicted. I feel that it's right to highlight the silliness of these random searches. I feel that my right to free speech has been exercised and I'm hugely grateful that I live in a society that values and respects the free discourse of ideas.
However, I should have handled it better. I should have been calmer and more professional. I don't think I was in any serious danger of being carted away - but it terrifies me that had I slipped and made comment too provocative I'd now be in jail for 28 days.

I'm grateful to James Bridle for filing a Freedom of Infomation request to the Home Office, via What Do They Know. If these "random" stop and searches result in a significant number of arrests and prosecutions; I'll accept that I'm a hysterical moaner and let them get on with it. If, however, all it accomplishes is to piss off innocent citizens.....

Please, if you care about your freedoms in the UK, join Liberty.

Night all.

(This post comprises a distillation of a number of tweets, comments on digg, phreadz and conversations with people. I'll update it with trackbacks to other blogs covering this when I get some free time.)