Much simpler and less intrusive system is what the French have on the autoroutes - pay cash or credit card if you wish, transponder on the windscreen and monthly billing if you wish. More-or-less dodgeproof, and no Big Brother* implications.
*Ref: the Orwell novel, not the C4 slobfest, a distinction that the people I work with seem not to have heard of.
Also much more harder to dodge I'd have thought, I can't see how they can stop the black box being messed with, if it's GPS based, some tin foil will sort it. Of course "black box" could mean "transponder" in media-speak. But then why bother with any of that when we've already got number-plate reading cameras all over the place.
Anyone remember the gnome that was "kidnapped" and sent its owner postcards from around the world ( photos of itself by landmarks).
Well I wonder how the charging software in big brothers computer would handle one of these trackers being posted around the wourld ??? :-)))
Lets face the fact every time this shower decide to use a computer system it costs between 3 and 10 times the original ( grossly overpriced) figure doesnt work and crashes repeatedly, That they still do it makes you think they have shares in a computer company or haven't the faintest idea about the real world or no idea what a computer actually is . Derek
just for interest the following have sponsored Tonys boys Bill Bottriell Director of Solutions in Staffing & Software Gave £2,000 Richalis Ltd (software ccompany) Gave £8,000 QSP Ltd (web hosting) Gave £8,000 (March) Dr David Potter (Psion) Gave £90,000 Compaq Computers Ltd Gave £7,500 Alan Sugar Chairman of Amstrad and Executive Chairman of Viglen LtdGave £200,000 and of course stinker murdoch and friends
|| "Richard Brookman" wrote in || message news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net... |||
|| Lets face the fact every time this shower decide to use a computer || system it costs between 3 and 10 times the original ( grossly || overpriced) figure doesnt work and crashes repeatedly, That they || still do it makes you think they have shares in a computer company
Don't be silly, Derek. They wouldn't be that obvious. However -
Rod Aldridge, Executive Chairman of Capita, gave New Labour £1m. He said this was a "personal decision on my part".
Capita has won millions of pounds' worth of public contracts, including the Criminal Records Bureau, collection of TV Licence fee, and provides IT support for the London Congestion Charge, Driving Standards Agency and National Rail. All of which, funnily enough, get their business through a legal requirement on the general public. In other words, give Tony Bliar enough wodge and he will shovel paying customers your way, by law. Nice one.
The Rebecca riots helped rid the country of toll roads once before in 1839 so only an idiot would think modern citizens would look more kindly on extensive tolls...........................
Huw
It'll never happen. I've never seen a piece of electronics that cannot be bypassed somehow. They'll have to come up with a better solution than that. Who is going to pay for all these black-boxes to be retro-fitted to every vehicle in the UK?? The motorist I suppose.
This is all very well if they abolish VED to compensate. Also doesn't help those poor sods that have no choice but to use their cars. My father travels 10 miles to work every day in the countryside, there simple is NO alternative. He isn't adding to congestion - there is none on the rural roads! yet from what I saw they want to charge a fee per mile on *every* road. Not that I care what happens in the UK on the roads now! :-) Mind you, in 3 years the road tolls I pay on my regular routes in France have doubled. Difference in France is that there are decent alternatives should I decide not to bother using the Autoroute, which I find myself doing more often now I have to say.
Matt
If you think i'm dressing up as a bird just to fight the tolls then you can think again! unless it's a Saturday night........
Davina
They'll try. The same technology can be used to automatically track your every movement and levy automatic fines as well as tolls. If the general public give one inch to allowing such technology they deserve all they get in terms of the erosion of major civic liberty. The income generation for the State is a secondary concern though a very serious issue.
Imagine, if you would, that a less benevolent Government was to gain power somehow. It could keep track and suppress any opposition so very easily. The power of today might assure us in so many ways that this is not the aim of the technology and that it could and would never be used for such purposes, but come on, of course it would. Surely the public is not that daft?
Huw
On average yes they are, it's what they rely on to keep control 8-( Greg
Well then *they* will soon have a grand tool for control of the public and whatever other ingenious measures or social engineering solutions they wish to employ. There could only be one step further and that would be to implant spying devices in each individual human being with income generating functions plus a method of deploying sanctions on it [and I use "it" advisedly], including perhaps the ultimate sanction. Not so far-fetched with today's technology and tomorrows computing power.
Huw
Ah are you meaning the sort of totalitarians That would imprison you without trial or charges for 3 months? That would have you arrested for speaking your mind about immigrants or freedom fighters ? That would go to war against all the advice of the military? That would outlaw protest signs ( oddly and T shirts) because they are"insulting" ? That would have a pensioner arrested and thrown out of a party meeting for protesting?
some question of unoccupied stables and doors waiting to be closed I reckon Derek
Many already voluntarly carry such a device, it's called a mobile phone.
On or around Sun, 6 Aug 2006 23:01:38 +0100, "Huw" enlightened us thusly:
I find it increasingly hard to imagine a less benevolent government than the current lot. They're just better at disguising what they're up to than the plain simple dictatorship.
So what's up with George? Oh you mean Smiling Tony The Irrelevant.
Richard
That only works if it is switched on and used. It cannot yet limit your civil liberty or raise revenue based on where you are. A combined phone and tracker/revenue collector/sanctioning device implanted in a person is doubtless not very far away. We are on the verge of a nanotechnology revolution and such devices could be implanted by a dentist or with a vaccine.
Huw
That's the kind of thing, yes.
Huw
Why bother? Because the number-plate reading isn't good enough. People would get bills for every toe-rag with a fake plate, and there would be enough unreliability in the system that they'd win in court.
The Police know how unreliable it all is. They can work with unreliable info; the accountants cannot.
I saw an analysis years ago that says that we could store the postion of a person over their entire life, to a precision of 10 metres, in less than 10Gig.
Steve
Interesting. Is that based on the principle that most people don't travel very far and wide? I wonder what the granularity of time slice was (every second, minute, hour?)
Stuart
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