Wednesday, August 21, 2013

A parable on the stupidity of Government

They may not be smart, but at least they're busy:
The idea that the data on the hard drives hadn't been copied to backup systems in the offices or the cloud is so far beyond belief as to be risible. The GCHQ technicians must have been laughing up their sleeves, and the Guardian's computer expert chortling away up his. Both knew data copies existed, as the Guardian reports make clear:
The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, had earlier informed government officials that other copies of the files existed outside the country and that the Guardian was neither the sole recipient nor steward of the files leaked by Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor. But the government insisted that the material be either destroyed or surrendered.
The destruction is described as a symbolic act, but all it symbolised was ignorance and face-saving. It was petty and stupid, the action of an ignorant and frightened bully, and that is how the UK government's behaviour in this affair seems: petty, ignorant and bullying.

2 comments:

Alan said...

I wondered about that yesterday. Why the hell were they destroying the servers and drives?

The only thing I can come up with, other than yes they are that stupid, is that they didn't care about the data itself.

This was very much a, "This is a nice place you've got here. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it." message.

And given the websites that are shutting down and people that are curtailing their on line activity, I'd say that message is being received.

drjim said...

Can you say "Backup tapes"?

I knew you could.....