Saturday 24 October 2015

This post is a barrel of laughs


The past few days (and nights) have been taken up with pub politics, attempting to prevent the management from installing CCTV cameras inside the peaceful, family bar.

I think the UK has the most camera surveillance in the world (even more than the hot-spots which could really use it) so it has been nice to go for a couple of pints in the local without being observed and recorded. Of course, I have to pass under about 8 government cameras to get there from our house, but - sad to say - I have sort of got used to them. I don't want to have to get used to them in the pub as well, even if I have nothing to hide.

The crazy thing about the street cameras is that they do not prevent late-night violence within their line of sight, nor do they deter it. They don't even bring a swift response from the police, even though they are monitored by humans in a basement. There aren't many police in Bath at night in any case, and pretty soon there will be no police station either.

If a particularly serious crime takes place and is likely to be on film, the police will trawl back through the footage to examine it, and the image quality is usually so bad that they have to resort to looking at the CCTV footage of nearby shops to see if they have anything of better quality. Considering these cameras are installed at a cost of about £40,000 each, it might be better to spend the money on night patrols than Mickey Mouse cameras.

I am one of those TalkTalk customers whose data has been snitched by a Russian Jihadi group of criminals, so now I am waiting for my overdraft to be cleared by them, and my cards to be maxed-out to the limit. TalkTalk are unable to confirm that the personal data had been encrypted, which - in layman's language - means that they certainly have not. I would like to go into the homepage and change my password (unless it has already been changed for me) but right now, the Metropolitan Police are going through the virtual procedure of pulling out all the drawers and emptying the virtual contents upside-down onto virtual desks.

It could well be that I will find myself funding ISIL in the very near future, and the scale of this rip-off is so great that I cannot see the authorities actually getting my overdraft paid back by the banks who they are so keen to protect, and TalkTalk itself may even go under, so there may be a break in service as far as this particular blog goes.

Come to think of it, I may not be able to afford to go to the pub shortly either, so what do I care if there are cameras installed in it or not?

14 comments:

  1. Luckily I have absolutely no banking details on my computer - mainly because it was all too complicated rather than not wanting to put them on. Perhaps it now turns out to be all for the best.

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    1. How do you pay for your internet service? You don't give them a cheque, do you? Do they have direct debit details or a card number to take payments?

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    2. I pay for my internet service by cheque, btinternet, it just gets added on my phone bill and I send a cheque every quarter. I imagine Weave is the same.

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    3. Are they written on parchment?

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    4. Yes, and I seal the envelope with wax.

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  2. I do all my financial transactions online, with the exception of paying my rent ,which still requires an actual paper check in the mail. I've had online banking since it became available. I've always felt that if the government has my personal details they are necessarily not secure, so I might as well enjoy the maximum convenience that comes with that lack of security. I don't know what TalkTalk is, but any organization whose name relies on baby talk is already suspect.

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    1. Right. Just googled TalkTalk. Still - stupid name.

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    2. I always hated the name too, but they once did a cheap deal which hooked me.

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  3. I think of the several places my "information" allegedly was stolen from and have decided I must be mighty small potatoes in the world of finance--no one has tapped into my buck ninety eight. Knock wood.

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    1. Give me your passwords. Everyone has to experience this once in their lives.

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  4. In all the many British Crime TV-films I have to watch (and a lot of them I also like, so it is not a burden) they use those surveillance cameras - of course when the police then looks at one of those films, there is always an important part missing - didn't know that fiction is so near to reality! In Berlin the police always waits to publish photos of an evil doer for over half a year -- protecting his data, hahaha, and when they finally publish it, he will be gone by sure. Examplary, my dear Watson.

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    1. In this country, we shoot (film) and ask questions later.

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  5. I don't really object to CCTV cameras; but like you I find their lack of quality quite ridiculous. Even those bloody road-side cameras can take a decent enough photo of your number plate.

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