Linlithgow property for sale

We have a 4 bedroom house in Linlithgow for sale, please contact the solicitors to arrange viewing.

Craig

Email security. But it is more secure than the phone

I just got another one of those Very Annoying messages. One where you send an email to the very useful customer service email address for a company and they respond with a stock template

"We are unable to discuss account matters via email, please call our contact centre".

Which is of course another way of saying "we live under the mistaken impression that email is less secure than the phone, so please contact our contact centre, press loads of irritating buttons, pay a premium rate, listen to annoying hold music and adverts and generally waste your time". Especially when I can send email for free then read the response at my leisure but taking up 15 minutes of my time listening to hold music on my mobile is certainly not free.

I wrote about this in 2003 and the arguments are just as valid today.

Since getting email in 1983 and sending on average 30 emails a day (would have been less in 1983, considerably more since 1987 when I've used it on a daily basis for my job) I figure I must have sent around 260,000 mails. In that time, I can't think of a single instance where one has been maliciously intercepted en route.

Consider those odds of 260,000:1 versus the odds of calling from an open plan office or in the street and everyone hearing the login details that you have to speak down the phone or indeed hearing the gist of why you are actually phoning and then using that to commit fraud.

I accept email isn't 100% secure. However, I believe the phone to be less secure than email. So why can't we move on and accept email as a valid communication channel for secure conversations and then build the appropriate support and encryption channels around this rather than sticking our heads in the sand and resorting to plain text expensive 19th century communications technology?

Craig

Bannockburn day 2007

With the event this year being attended by government ministers, perhaps it will grow in importance in the Scottish events calendar?

- original message -

Subject: Bannockburn update
From: "Ian McCann" <ian.mccann@snp.org>
Date: 08/06/2007 19:03

Dear Sir/Madam,

I write on behalf of the Young Scots for Independence and the Federation of Student Nationalists to give you more details regarding the Bannockburn Rally as promised. Please forward this onto as many of your members as possible.

It has been hard work and we've come across a lot of obstacles but we've made it! Bannockburn day for the SNP will be Saturday the 16th of June.

As in previous years we will assemble at 13:30 at Lower Bridge Street with the march kicking off at 14:00. The route will be the same as last year. We will be lead by the Edinburgh Postal Pipe Band.

After the march Nicola Sturgeon MSP will lay the wreath at the rotunda on behalf on the SNP. Nicola and Bruce Crawford MSP will speak to us about this important time in our history. For entertainment we will have some music - Eva Christie and Five Park Drive. Eva Christie is a member of the YSI and sings Gaelic songs as well as more traditional Scottish tunes. Five Park Drive is an up and coming indie rock band from Falkirk/Stirling.

his year Professor Christopher Harvie MSP will deliver the Allan Macartney Lecture. If you would like to come along the Lecture will take place at the King Robert Hotel, beside the Bannockburn field, at 16:30.

If you would like any more details or have any questions please contact us at contact@bannockburnday.com. Alternatively go to www.bannockburnday.com for more details.

Hope to see you there!

Gail Lythgoe
YSI and FSN