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Adam Laurie claims that he has been able to clone the ID card made by the government to serve as a UK identity card, but despite his offers to show the Home Office how easy this process has been completed, the Home Office refuses to meet with him.
Investigative journalist Steve Boggan, who worked alongside Laurie, stated that the Home Office has not made any contact about looking at the flaws in the design, despite Laurie’s repeated offers.
On the other hand, the Home Office claims that it asked Laurie to show them the cloned card and when he did not show it to them the hacking claim was disregarded.
The Home Office also stated that a story by Boggan that reported Laurie was able to change personal details on the cloned ID card was ‘rubbish.’
Laurie however stated last week that the Home Office has not extended an invitation to him to show how he discovered the flaw and that he felt it was crazy for the Home Office to make up a claim that they requested evidence that he failed to provide.
Laurie continued to say if the Home Office has a paper trail that shows they did in fact issue an invitation, he would like to see it.
He continued on to say that he only worked on cloning the card in the interests of the UK people and that he works through a process of ‘responsible disclosure.’
Furthermore, the only reason he published the story in the papers is because the Home Office will not address his concerns and he wants to ensure that ID cards are more secure in the future.
On the other hand, the Home Office claims that it asked Laurie to show them the cloned card and when he did not show it to them the hacking claim was disregarded.
Of course he can’t do that because the volunteer who let him clone their card would them be punished by having their visa withdrawn. This is another version of the Home Office avoiding the demonstration that it directly refused to have done on one of its own cards at its own offices.
The Home Office also stated that a story by Boggan that reported Laurie was able to change personal details on the cloned ID card was ‘rubbish.’
No it didn’t. You are unfamiliar with Home Office statements, so you make the common mistake of assuming they have to make sense, and are importing the idea that they denied what he actually did into your reformulation. (Almost all Home Office statements use this technique of misleading: they are literally true word for word, but do not apply to the context in the way most people expect, so encouraging you to deceive yourself through paraphrase and interpretation.) What the Home Office actually said is:
“We are satisfied the personal data on the chip cannot be changed or modified and there is no evidence this has happened.”
That is, they did not deny that cloning had taken place, nor that a clone could be changed. They denied that the original chip had or could be changed, which was never claimed.