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The irony of this story neatly mirrors the inconsistencies in the UK government's recent response to a petition to "to abandon all ideas of trying to ban strong

by n4r9 11y ago

The irony of this story neatly mirrors the inconsistencies in the UK government's recent response to a petition to "to abandon all ideas of trying to ban strong encryption": https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/106369?reveal_response=yes https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/106369?reveal_respo... . The government's response boiled down to 1) The Government is not seeking to ban or limit encryption. 2) The Government is clear we need ... to ensure that ... the police and intelligence agencies can ... access the content of communications of terrorists and criminals. Not too surprising that around 26 of the 650 members of Parliament have degrees in science or technology.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
>Not too surprising that around 26 of the 650 members of Parliament have degrees in science or technology. // Is that particularly unrepresentative of the population as a whole?
- porsupah 11y ago
  Per the Office of National Statistics: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_337841.pdf http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_337841.pdf == The population we have used in this report is all adults living in the UK who were not enrolled on any educational course on the survey date. The age range we have focused on is women aged between 21 and 59 and men aged between 21 and 64. The lower age limit of 21 is used as most people will not have been able to complete a graduate level qualification before this age. However, please note also that educational systems are different across the countries of the UK. Upper age limits were used because we wished to focus on people active in the labour market. These particular ages were chosen to maintain consistency throughout the report as some sections consider time periods before changes to state pension ages. In 2013 there were 12 million graduates in the UK In April to June 2013 there were 31 million people in the UK who were not enrolled on any educational course. Breaking these people down by the highest qualification they held: • 12.0 million, or 38% were graduates • 6.7 million, or 21% stated that their highest qualification was of an A level standard • 6.6 million, or 21% stated that their highest qualification was equivalent to an A* to C grade GCSE • 3.1 million, or 10% had “other” qualifications not categorised in the UK • 2.9 million, or 9% had no qualifications
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    It was more the field of educational accomplishment I was interested in. It's good IMO that MPs have higher qualifications in general than the norm but I was really wondering what the distribution of qualifications per field was. The 26/650 in tech and IT seemed like it might match the populations in general, but I don't know.
    - n4r9 11y ago
      That would be interesting... this article has something along those lines: http://subtleengine.org/2014/06/28/mps-degrees-what-do-they-know/ http://subtleengine.org/2014/06/28/mps-degrees-what-do-they-... I'm not sure which is the more relevent statistic: proportion who hold STEM degrees, or the ratio of STEM degrees to humanities degrees?
dingaling 11y ago
I don't think those two statements are contradictory or inconsistent, when you Think Like A Civil Servant . From gov.uk's perspective encryption plays a necessary role in enabling the digital economy by encrypting data in transit. They won't interfere with SSL / TLS, for example, because that would chase billions of £ of business out of the UK. But they intend to strong-arm communications providers into giving access to the at-rest data. Whether that is encrypted or not is orthogonal to the discussion; a court order will be served, and the provider will have to respond. Whether the provider is BT or Mr Joe Bloggs hosting his own e-mail is also irrelevant; it will be a criminal offense to fail to respond with the demanded data. Bonus points for GCHQ if this means that providers simply don't encrypt data at rest, for simplicity's sake.
aries1980 11y ago
What about the so called social sciences?

by n4r9 11y ago

pbhjpbhj 11y ago

>Not too surprising that around 26 of the 650 members of Parliament have degrees in science or technology. // Is that particularly unrepresentative of the population as a whole?

porsupah 11y ago
Per the Office of National Statistics: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_337841.pdf http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_337841.pdf == The population we have used in this report is all adults living in the UK who were not enrolled on any educational course on the survey date. The age range we have focused on is women aged between 21 and 59 and men aged between 21 and 64. The lower age limit of 21 is used as most people will not have been able to complete a graduate level qualification before this age. However, please note also that educational systems are different across the countries of the UK. Upper age limits were used because we wished to focus on people active in the labour market. These particular ages were chosen to maintain consistency throughout the report as some sections consider time periods before changes to state pension ages. In 2013 there were 12 million graduates in the UK In April to June 2013 there were 31 million people in the UK who were not enrolled on any educational course. Breaking these people down by the highest qualification they held: • 12.0 million, or 38% were graduates • 6.7 million, or 21% stated that their highest qualification was of an A level standard • 6.6 million, or 21% stated that their highest qualification was equivalent to an A* to C grade GCSE • 3.1 million, or 10% had “other” qualifications not categorised in the UK • 2.9 million, or 9% had no qualifications
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  It was more the field of educational accomplishment I was interested in. It's good IMO that MPs have higher qualifications in general than the norm but I was really wondering what the distribution of qualifications per field was. The 26/650 in tech and IT seemed like it might match the populations in general, but I don't know.
  - n4r9 11y ago
    That would be interesting... this article has something along those lines: http://subtleengine.org/2014/06/28/mps-degrees-what-do-they-know/ http://subtleengine.org/2014/06/28/mps-degrees-what-do-they-... I'm not sure which is the more relevent statistic: proportion who hold STEM degrees, or the ratio of STEM degrees to humanities degrees?

dingaling 11y ago

I don't think those two statements are contradictory or inconsistent, when you Think Like A Civil Servant . From gov.uk's perspective encryption plays a necessary role in enabling the digital economy by encrypting data in transit. They won't interfere with SSL / TLS, for example, because that would chase billions of £ of business out of the UK. But they intend to strong-arm communications providers into giving access to the at-rest data. Whether that is encrypted or not is orthogonal to the discussion; a court order will be served, and the provider will have to respond. Whether the provider is BT or Mr Joe Bloggs hosting his own e-mail is also irrelevant; it will be a criminal offense to fail to respond with the demanded data. Bonus points for GCHQ if this means that providers simply don't encrypt data at rest, for simplicity's sake.

aries1980 11y ago

What about the so called social sciences?