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A chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link.

That little padlock in the corner of your browser lost a little of it’s security yesterday. It shows that you’re talking to a web site via a secure, encrypted connection and that you’re really talking to who you think you are rather than someone nasty intercepting your username, password and credit card details.

Except that someone has broken in to a reseller account from certificate authority Comodo and generated certificates for several sites, including Google, Yahoo and Skype. And the fake Yahoo one has already been used on the internet, presumably to steal login credentials.

These aren’t fake certificates, so there is no way for your browser to know they don’t really belong to who they say they are. It’s akin to someone stealing the machine used to print money or driving licences and running off some fake ones. Luckily, in this case we know (Or hope we know) the serial numbers of the fake certificates so web browsers have already had patches released to keep an eye out for them, but it’s still illustrated a weakness in the system and it’s not clear how much data has yet been stolen as a result of this attack.

It’s possible the Certificate Authorities won’t be around for that much longer anyway, as a new technology (DNSSEC) could be used to give web site hosts a different way of ensuring their sites are secure and will mean we no longer have to pay a third party to prove to others – or fail to prove, in this case – who we are.

The attack came from Iran, although that doesn’t necessarily mean the attacker was in Iran – it could just as easily been a machine controlled by someone from Russia, North Korea or Peckham, London.

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There’s unease in some portions of the Trans community at the moment over how committed Channel 4 really are to their new Memorandum of Understanding. There’s a much longer post by Adam Smith over at Wrestling Emily Dickinson about this, but this excerpt sums it up nicely:

So in a similar way, as angry as I am with Peter Kay I find myself angrier at Channel 4 when I read that said channel – which, just last week, to general acclaim from the trans community, signed the Trans Media Watch Memorandum of Understanding – is planning to repeat the very programme in which Kay first aired his transphobic caricature, Geraldine. Yes: on March 26th, a grand total of twelve days after signing the MoU, Channel 4 plans to air a programme featuring a character and a performer universally reviled by trans people.

Adam has also set up a petition on the issue, which is worth a look.

But that’s not the end of it. At the TMW launch, Stuart Cosgrove (Director of Nations and Regions for Channel 4) said that the Trans community was still free to “shaft him” if he got it wrong. With they way they are acting at the moment, that shafting may come rather sooner than he expected, given the transphobic remarks in his BBC Scotland radio show, Off the Ball, this weekend. This from from just under 17 minutes in: (There’s another bit just under 42 minutes in but I’ve not seen the clip they’re referring to, so can’t really comment as I lack context)

So, Health & Safety. “Warning this product may contain nuts”
Said on what? A bag of nuts?
Airdrie lassie’s knickers! (Much laughter – Airdrie is a town in North Lanarkshire)

These are not particularly unusual remarks and typical of the usual kind of casual transphobia you will get in such circles. In the normal course of events, they would probably have passed unnoticed. But given that Stuart just helped to host a high profile event to tackle transphobia, should we not be holding him to a higher standard?

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Prisons and criminal law seem an eternally popular topic whenever I blog about them, attracting more readers and more retweets than almost any other topic. It’s probably not a good indication of the way Trans people feel about society as many of us are only too aware that we’re eternally only one prejudiced police officer away from a spell in prison, even when we are the victims.

This time though, it’s nothing bad at least.

Well, nothing that’s surprisingly bad.

Green MP Caroline Lucas asked a written question in Parliament (Hansard link) to find out who the Ministry of Justice had consulted on their new guidance. The answer was interesting, a little disappointing but perhaps not surprising: Asides from QUANGOs, government departments and those involved in running/inspecting prisons, it was just Unions, (Possibly including a:gender, but I fear not) the Gender Trust and the Beaumont Society.

For those not familiar with the Beaumont Society, it’s an organisation primarily designed to support crossdressers, not people who have actually transitioned. (Although many of it’s members do go on to transition, as is inevitable with such a group!) So, relevant organisations seem to have included, err, the Gender Trust, who were apparently selected because they “asked to be part of the consultation” or “on the basis of potential interest in the Instruction”.

It seems the Ministry did not publicly advertise the consultation, failed to mention any consultation in response to a Freedom of Information request and don’t consider that Freedom of Information request or a follow-up letter (To which I have not received a response) specifically asking about a consultation to be an expression of interest? How about prior work and submissions on the topic from both GIRES and Press For Change?

Does the Ministry of Justice and Ken Clarke actually care what we think?

Didn’t think so.

P.S. Brownie points, or the political equivalent, to whoever from the Green Party is briefing Caroline Lucas on Trans issues as you’re clearly doing an effective job. We need people doing this in all political parties. (Labour Party and Conservative Party members take note!)

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I find myself simultaneously amused and saddened slightly by the language in this article in the Independent. The piece reveals to us that some security guards now have the power to “request a name and address for a string of offences including criminal damage, begging and anti-social behaviour” around Victoria Station as part of a trial into increasing the power of security guards.

“Request”? The security guards have always had the power to request this, just as I have the power to request the name and address of the person sitting next to me on the Clapham Omnibus. As long as they don’t engage an anti-social behaviour, they’d equally have the power to tell me to go forth and multiply.

So it’s not that the security guards have gained any power to request anything. We, the public, have just lost the power to tell them to (politely) get lost without expecting “consequences”.

I wonder if the exact wording of that article was supplied by the department of spin press officer at the Home Office?

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There was a story in Pink News last week about trans pensions which struck me as slightly odd and has generated interest in some circles. From just the opening couple of paragraphs you could be forgiven for assuming that this was the problem of Trans women who turn 60 now not getting pensions because they’re unable to get a Gender Recognition Certificate. Certainly I’d be very concerned (And firing off emails and letters to all sorts of people) if they government had rejected any notion of fixing this as I’m hopeful the forthcoming Marriage Equality Bill will resolve a lot of this mess.

Reasons not to be able to get a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) one are surprisingly common and I’m often finding out new and innovative ways that the system has created that deprive people of recognition, but the tend to centre around marriage, which is why they can be fixed in a marriage bill. Currently, to get a GRC you must get an annulment. This isn’t something that everyone is happy doing as even though you can get Civil Partnered/Married again straight away, it’s emotionally quite a blow and has implications for tax, inheritance and pensions. With pensions, any annulment/divorce (Even if you remarry) can cause serious problems for a spouse if they survive their partner or result in other unwanted effects.

But fixing all that was not what was being discussed, and not what was “rejected” by the government in the House of Lords last week. (Hansard link) An amendment was tabled to promote discussion, the text of which would have granted transwomen who transitioned before the GRA was around the ability to retrospectively claim the pension they would have had between 60 and 65. (Basic state pension for 5 years is around £25,000, if adjusted for inflation, but can be more)

Lord Freud notes, in his speech on the matter, that he knew the amendment was tabled largely just to get an update on the ongoing issue and the amendment was subsequently withdrawn by the proposer. It is perhaps somewhat disingenuous to label the response quite so flatly as a “rejection”, especially as the update informs us that it is not a dead topic and is still being looked into.

There’s also a clue the amendment wasn’t seriously expected to go anywhere as it’s quite problematic in it’s practical outcome. It would not have mattered what age one transitioned at, as long as you transitioned more than 2 years before the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) became law. If so, you’d be able to claim your full state pension from between the ages of 60 and 65, even having transitioned at 70.

Not quite so good if you didn’t transition more than 2 years before the GRA as you would then still need a GRC. If you did divorce though, or were never married, and received a GRC within 2 years of the GRA you would again be able to claim full state pension between 60 and 65, regardless of when you transitioned.

Confusing? Yes, rather.

There’s also the problem of money. Lord Boswell, when proposing the amendment, reckoned on 50 individuals, which results in a cost of one or two million pounds. The HMRC suggests 750 people who could be eligible, which I can believe. There are at least 7,500 fully transitioned individuals in the UK according to their figures, rather more than the four thousand or so that GRC figures would suggest and this would apply to any trans women over about 70 who transitioned in 2002 or earlier.

That puts the cost anywhere from nine to thirty eight million pounds.

You can bet the inevitable Daily Mail headline will run with the £38 million, not the £9 million. “TAXPAYERS FUND SEX SWAP GRANNIES £38 MILLION WINDFALL” Unpleasant though it is to have to say it, I don’t think it would help to have such headlines in the run up to the consultation on the marriage equality bill, where much more is at stake.

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As some will know, it’s been reported today that RSA SecurID have been compromised in undisclosed ways. I don’t use them as I prefer the open-standard Feitian tokens via Gooze, but even then if Feitian or Gooze were compromised, the Bad Guys would know which tokens I had. (Even if they did not know what systems they were each for – I believe that to avoid this, Gooze at least destroy the keys after sending them to you)

I think Cryptocard provide the ability to reprogram tokens, but I do not have any myself and I believe it’s a commercial rather than open-standards system.

So, does anyone know of a source of reprogrammable open standard security tokens so that I am the only one that knows the secret keys? If not, anyone fancy designing and selling some?

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I’ve seen a few people around the place wonder why the census does not ask about sexuality or transgender status. I, for one, am glad it does not. You’re probably all aware of the Census Campaign, encouraging people to tick the “No religion” in response to the optional question on religion.

Religion is, compared to sexuality or transgender status, usually (But not always) a less controversial topic. Some may recall the ONS study, “revealing” that only 1.5% of people are gay/bisexual. That was with some careful work done to ensure that others could not overhear the answers being given. Despite that, it came out with a surprisingly low figure with a significant number of unknowns/won’t says.

In comparison, the census is relatively public and can be seen by other members of the household. Yes, you could request an individual questionnaire but if someone really fears being out to their housemates that much, are they really going to risk revealing they have something to hide? Simple human nature – procrastination – will mean they probably can’t be bothered anyway. They’re just go for the easy option and tick heterosexual.

We can’t expect everyone to be an activist.

And that’s without even considering the problem of identity. How many people have had a same-sex relationship, but regard themselves as heterosexual because they are now in an opposite-sex marriage? Or started out “straight” before having a couple of gay relationships, so would tend to go for “gay” over “bisexual”. Or just don’t know yet.

We do not need another ONS-type result claiming there are fewer LGBT people in the UK than there really are. Officials would base their funding allocations on these numbers and there will be less available in the way of LGBT resources, in much the same way as the skewed religion result causes problems.

Inaccurate data is worse than no data.

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Last night was the launch of Trans Media Watch’s Memorandum of Understanding with Channel 4, which for anyone used to Trans events would have seemed a little unusual, hosted as it was at Channel 4’s HQ in their James-Bond-esque underground bar and cinema. I do feel a little inadequate trying to explain the mood of the room and significance of the event as it really would need the eloquence of someone such as Laurie Penny to do it justice.

This was a novel event to be at because in recent years, when it comes to big LGBT events, I’m more used to standing outside waving a banner than being inside in the warmth with wine and canapés. But Trans Media Watch achieved something truly remarkable with this MoU, aimed to end transphobia in the media and promote more accurate, positive images of transgender people as a whole. As anyone who has been involved in Trans campaigning will know, we can be a very fractious and transient community so it’s good to finally have a cause that I believe everyone can rally behind.

We had several speeches not just from TMW, C4 and the BBC but also from a Government Minister (Yes, a Government Minister turned up and gave a speech about Trans issues at a Trans event organised by Trans folk! How cool is that?) and Channel 4 showed a few clips from “4thought”, a series of short vox pops that include trans folk and I understand will be going out during prime time some time soon.

It was good to finally meet up with many people I know from Trans campaigning that I have either not have the chance to meet or I have not seen for some time. As well as many people from Channel 4 and TransMediaWatch, we had Lynne Featherstone MP (LibDem, Minister for Equalities who gave a speech); Dru Marland and Richard Beard (Becoming Drusilla); Victoria Aitkin (Jason Costello, Hollyoaks); Juliet Jacques (Writes about her transition for the Guardian); David Allen Green (Lawyer, Journalist and Orwell Prize Judge, also gave a speech); Christine Burns MBE (“Just Plain Sense” podcast and co-founder of Press For Change); Dr Stuart Lorimer and Dr Leighton Seal (Charing Cross GIC); Roz Kaveney (Journalist, Author and ex-vice-chair of Liberty); Terry and Bernard Reed OBE (GIRES); Dr Richard Curtis (Transhealth); Dr Evan Harris (President of the LGBT LibDems); representatives from the Government Equalities Office and Scottish Governments; at least one person from the BBC (Who I understand will also be signing the MoU, if they haven’t already) and video clips from Caroline Lucas MP (Greens) and Julie Hesmondhalgh. (Hayley Cropper, Coronation Street). Apologies to anyone who was there who I’ve missed. There were enough people about that I’m sure I’ve neglected to mention someone significant!

And finally, two quotes from the event:
“There is no good reason why, just because a Trans person is caught up in a story, it becomes newsworthy” – David Allen Green
“This is game changing” – Everyone

Featured on Liberal Democrat VoiceI hope that these events will stop being unusual and the next time we all meet, it’s inside in the warm and not outside waiving banners.

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In some more and definitely good news, in the Scottish “Sex-by-deception” case I’ve been following, it’s now been reported that all charges have been dropped.

For those not familiar with the story, a woman was being prosecuted for “deceiving” other women into having sex by pretending to be a man, something that could have quite worrying consequences for any Trans folk in Scotland who are not out. (And being out to just your partner might not be enough, if you were not out generally and they later claimed otherwise) It’s not been reported why the charges have been dropped, but I would hope it is down to a point of law, as in “You can’t prosecute someone for this” rather than insufficient evidence.

Unfortunately, Brooks did have to spend some time on remand in Cornton Vale Prison prior to the charges being dropped.

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Creative Commons Witches Image via Jeff Hitchcock, http://www.flickr.com/people/arbron/For those who haven’t seen, the catchily-titled Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Mental Health Special Interest Group is holding a one-day meeting titled “Transgender: Time To Change” (Word DOC link) in May. There has been much grumbling about this behind closed doors for a while now and it’s now been officially confirmed with the speakers including the ever-controversial Julie Bindel.

Reading the line up, this meeting looks like it could be a welcome step for the wider Trans community as with the exception of Christina Richards, all the speakers are known for what can be regarded as outdated and controversial views. If those pushing these views have to have a meeting with such speakers, struggling to attract more progressive speakers that are now becoming mainstream, it points towards a day where their voice is ignored so much that they can only talk amongst each other in dark corners, not bothering the rest of the world.

Perhaps this is the beginning of a day where outdated concepts of Transsexualism are relegated to the shelf of history alongside witchcraft and “reparative therapy” for homosexuals. I certainly hope so.

(Oh, and I’ll note that the group is the LGB SIG – no T. Perhaps that too is telling?)

Updated: Here’s a nice little letter to the Telegraph co-signed by one of the speakers. I’ll give you a little taster here: “The recent judgment in the ECHR, in which a post-operative transsexual person was granted permission to marry in his adopted gender role, is a victory of fantasy over reality. … It is a measure of the urgency and desperation of their situation that they frequently seek surgery to make their fantasy real.” (Thanks to @earwicga for pointing me at this one)