UK Online Safety Act

I'd like to make a statement about Peter Kyle, the Tech secretary. And before we get into it. Yes I realise the online safety act was initially sorted through by the previous government, but, it's still this government, and Peter Kyle that have seen it through and are defending it.

My background is of course tech. Currently in my 4th decade of slaving away at the feet of the machines from lowly developer to the heights of chief know-wots.

Mr Kyle is currently defending the new online safety act for the UK, using verbiage such as, if you're against it, you are siding with Jimmy Saville. A direct quote.

Let's examine Mr Kyles technical background. He
1) left school without any qualifications whatsoever
2) took 3 times trying to get into Uni whereupon he studied Geography
3) He then spent the years working in aid, charities and so on, none of which even slightly relate to tech.

Technically Mr Kyle has zero, and I do mean absolutely zero, knowledge, experience or even the slightest contact with anything from a technical perspective, and, academically is very much a bit of a donkey. He doesn't even have any of the hard sciences. No STEM. Worrying for someone in charge of all that shit for the government.

Also rather interestingly, despite having ZERO technical skills whatsoever, he was paid a sum of £36,000 by an AI company for his "technical expertise". Of which we have covered, he has none.

Shortly after Mr Kyle then went onto award that same AI company a £2.3 million pound contract. Obviously in his enlightened technical opinion, they offered some crucial element to the public.

I have said in the past that Elon Musk is technically a dumb ass. His various public bits of pontification on tech are laughably wrong. Ask any coder. But. The delightful Mr Kyle makes Elon Musk look like a tech savvy genius.

And here we are, watching a very technical and tricky topic of online safety, be overseen and championed by the technical equivalent of the village idiot, who thinks a classy debate is to just compare anyone that disagrees with him to be some kind of depraved sex offender, and whilst trying to balance on a shitty moral high horse, is of course absolutely open to accepting bribes and then awarding public contracts for said bribe. Oh. I'm sorry. I mean. He accepts technical expertise payments. And then just so happens to award multi million contracts to those same companies.

Also, whilst we're here. Not only does Pete Kyle reach Liz Truss levels of competency in the area of tech, one has to wonder what triumphantly smart bellend decided to put this mouth breathing IQ challenged idiot in charge of UK tech. Well. That would be our wonderfully competent UK government, who, after many many years in opposition, carefully drawing up plans and crafting the ultimate policies for the benefit of the UK have so far dithered around with their thumbs up their assholes before unleashing such brilliance as, cutting winter fuel benefit. Then changing their mind. Taking a giant step back for LGBQT rights by legally not recognising transgender people, and finally, with this sorry ass, easily circumvented, id leaking horror of an online safety act.

Of all the many issues that face us as a country, after a decade thinking about it, this is the best the current vapid, idiotic labour government have decided are the things they really should so something about.

Back to the online safety act. As an IT professional I would highly recommend you practice safe online activity for your identity. This does NOT involve you sending pictures of your mugshot across the ether to a number of private companies, who may or may not be dealing with your information in a robust manner, but whats the worst that could happen with your face id being sent out to the world. I'm not even going to get into the very real spectre of this also being used as a vulnerability, spoofed sites, fake emails and id checks, that will lure you into sending crucial id, under the guise of the "online safety act". This will absolutely massively erode your security as a citizen of the UK.

In a point of just how well researched the governments position is, if you dont fancy like sending your id out - some of which will be challenged for perfectly ordinary sites that have somehow managed to fall foul of "safety rules", you can either source a VPN provider, or, heres the really hilarious bit, JUST USE THE OPERA BROWSER which has a vpn built in. By using the Opera Browser the new UK legislation which you can only imagine cost millions of pounds to brainstorm and oversee, with such Geography Degree luminaries as Peter Kyle, is instantly redundant and does nothing for online safety.

I would suggest that any actually *competent* government that wants to make the internet a safer place should actually consult with, ooh, I don't know, at the very least someone that actually
a) knows what a computer is and
b) understands what the internet is
and make some recommendations and legislation about restricting ANY social media usage for those 16 or under, which is where the *actual* bulk of harm is happening.

As a final sign off I would like to state my professional technical opinion, as an as senior as it gets IT dude, that Peter Kyle is an absolute moronic bellend, and the people that put such a bellend in a position to mouthbreath his way through something that he is hopelessly out of his depth with, are also bellends and should be treated with the maximum of contempt.

I've had it with this government. All they do is fuck things up and sit on their ass, whilst earning a fat paycheque and giving their mates contracts.

Before anyone jumps in with a strawman of, oh, if you dont support Labour you must be Tory, I will follow up with the statment that the Tories are a bunch of useless assholes, championed by Badenoch who is not only a lunatic but everytime she opens her mouth she says something factually incorrect. A remarkable demonstration of just how shit you can be, and yet still earn a fat paycheque in some dusty historic place of government, playing verbal ass grab with your other fucking privileged mates.

And no that doesnt mean I am a Farage supporter either. He's an immoral ex merchant banker who would sell your gran down the river for another tranche of shares, a chancer of the highest order who flim flams his way from one pint of beer pub photoshoot to the next, trying to snakeoil his way into some position of power, but ultimately, self destructing every 5 minutes because he, and those like him, cannot actually stand each other as they are in fact, also, prime bellends.

I suspect Liz Truss was not an outlier after all, but is actually reflective of the current excellence to be had in the UK political system. Namely absolute self entitled, whiny faced, slack jawed morons.

One small nod to the ever shifty Farage is he did say, if I'm looking like the best option, what does it say about the others. At the very least, you can say he has some sense of self awareness and correct assessment of the state of UK politics.

I have no answers. But I know a bunch of bottom scraping, idiotic, unqualified, mouth flapping fuckwits when I see them.

Thank you for your time.

Bellends, bellends fucking bellends. They're all useless fucking bellends.

The only tiny crumb of comfort I take from all of this, is at least we aren't the fucking USA. So far.