Like many other HSBC bank customers, I get phoned periodically from 0800 7838422 and sweet-talked by someone in HSBC telesales. Of course they won’t come straight out with it and say “I’m from telesales and I’m phoning to try and flog you an HSBC financial product”. No, they say they are phoning to see if you are happy with the HSBC service - just a courtesy call - very chatty and friendly, but you know the way it’s going. They are going to offer you something. Personal loan, insurance, the usual “financial products” stuff. I imagine they have your bank account details on one side of their screen and a list of HSBC products and services on the other. The job of this friendly caller is to find an opportunity, close a sale and secure a bonus.

Well I can be very chatty and friendly too if you catch me at the right phase of the moon. I got into a very interesting conversation a few months ago with a Scottish lad who was about to go on holiday to some exotic Island in the Caribbean. What he didn’t realize was that I was up for some sport, so the tasty bonus he was expecting to take with him as a result of his half hour endeavours selling me a short term personal loan to cover my overdraft was never going to materialize. I had no intention of signing the paper documents to confirm the deal a couple of days later. I just wanted to see what the real rate of interest would be after they added an arrangement fee plus loan protection insurance, and compare it with the interest I was already paying on my overdraft. When the contract arrived I did the sums. The real rate of interest (including the extras) on the personal loan I was being offered was 50% higher than on the overdraft it was meant to replace.

HSBC like other banks are probably not allowed to “cold call” non-customers, so they call their own customers and pretend to be customer services. Sell the suckers another product, no matter how inappropriate and expensive it might be. Providing the new product has one identifiable advantage, the three disadvantages are ignored.

I have no intention of moving to another bank as a result of my annoyance as I have a fantastic branch manager and I love HSBC’s Internet Banking. Also HSBC aren’t unique in this practice, so I’d probably be simply changing one call centre for another. I just wish they would stop wasting their time on me, because nowadays I never answer when the 0800 7838422 number appears on caller display, and when the answer phone cuts in, they never leave a message.

ABC - Always Be Closing …

I can only speculate on how these telesales operatives are trained and motivated. David Mamet had some experience and wrote it into his play “Glengarry Glen Ross” later made into a brilliant film. Here’s a little pep-talk from super real-estate salesman Alec Baldwin to the struggling sales staff - Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin and Ed Harris - with Kevin Spacey the office manager hanging around in the background. For “real-estate” simply substitute “financial product” and kiss your money goodbye.

No cameras allowed? Weren’t we standing in a shopping mall bristling with CCTV cameras, surrounded by shoppers with mobile phone cameras? I could only conclude this was a vain attempt by their marketing department to prevent the wider world from viewing the stark awfulness of this cloistered hanger. Almost as a act of desperation, a large banner outside the building shouts “Welcome to the Shires“, as if we need to be reminded that they are pleased to see us.

The sterile interior of the Shires

A few yards across the road from the Shires, and a pleasant contrast in every respect, is Leicester Market, the largest covered market in Europe. Full of colour and life. So that’s my second interesting fact…

2. Leicester Market is fantastic - 300 stalls selling vegetables, fish, meat, clothing and cloth. The quality is excellent and the prices reasonable. Three mangoes for £1 - amazing! Apparently the market has been on the same site for 700 years.

My third interesting fact continues this vegetable theme…

3. The best vegetarian Indian food in Leicester can be found at Bobby’s at 154-156 Belgrave Road. Bobby’s had been recommended by my cousin. We arrived for a take-away at 6pm on a Saturday evening when it was very busy. I needed some help ordering so asked the guy behind the counter for advice. He left his post and ushered us to a seating area where he explained the family history of the business, the issue of ‘hotness’ and how Bobby’s focusses on bringing out the natural flavours of the vegetables rather than masking them with fried onion and garlic. He was right. The food was delicious and very reasonably priced. We’ll be back! - www.eatatbobbys.com

4. There is a great Big Issue seller in Market Street. This gentleman allowed me to photograph him. “A good face” one of my family commented when I got home. I thank him and wish him well.

The walk began at the Bedd Morris car park 1,000 feet above sea level and descended to the sea at Aberrhigian Bay through a network of ancient drovers tracks called green lanes. Some are sunken and flanked by dry stone walls. Many are gloriously muddy and contain streams! From the pebble beach of Aberrhigian Bay the route went along the cliffs half a mile to Aberfforest and then inland for the long climb back to the car

This 4 hour walk was taken from the book Bluestone Country - the Carningli Walks edited by Brian John [ISBN: 0 9524071 0 8].

Photos © Webs Wonder Design. For usage terms please contact me.

Update February 14th 2008: The TVCatchup website is offline. For those who never got a chance to try it, bad luck. It was excellent. Clear and simple controls - Easy to understand and use - worked on any platform or browser - didn’t gobble up your bandwidth. So now we simply sit back and wait for the BBC/Microsoft iPlayer to hit the DRM buffers then watch the emergence of something uncannily similar to TVCatchup. It’ll probably be called ‘BBCFinallyCaughtUp.com”

February 9th 2008. As I wrote my item on the shortcomings and annoyances of the BBC iPlayer back in September 2007, already a new service was launching, allowing people to view programmes after they have been broadcast. The difference between TVCatchup.com and the BBC iPlayer is that TVCatchup is cross platform, DRM free, and covers all ‘free to view’ channels, not just the BBC.

TVCatchup.com is a free, TV programme recording website which is exploits a legal provision (The TV companies would say a loophole) in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allowing the recording for private or domestic use of programmes for later viewing.

“The making for private and domestic use of a recording of a broadcast or cable programme solely for the purpose of enabling it to be viewed or listened to at a more convenient time does not infringe any copyright in the broadcast or cable programme or in any work included in it.”

TVCatchup will record programmes on your behalf and allow you to watch them later. You cannot watch them as they are being broadcast.

The site has a clear programme guide and a one click selection of programmes. Users are given 10Gb of storage. Programmes can be watched any number of times and are stored for a maximum of 60 days. The interface and usage are intuitive, the videos of good quality at 640 pixels wide. You will need a 1Mb broadband connection to view programmes without pausing for buffering, but that shouldn’t be a problem for most people. I haven’t found a way of saving the programmes yet, but I’m sure there are some. Maybe someone will let me know of how to do it.

Like Napster, which was closed down by a short sighted music industry which then spent years trying to reproduce the concept, TVCatchup will probably be closed down by the BBC and others, but re-emerge under the control of the TV industry big hitters in the future.

TVCatchup Player Screen

TVCatchup Programme Guide and Selector Screen

TVCatchup Saved Recordings Screen

Other articles on TVCatchup.com

• TVCatchup faces legal battle - Guardian
• Discussion on DigitalSpy.com

Update 9th March 2008: Truecrypt 5 was released last month. It can now carry out whole disc encryption amongst a host of other enhancements. The BBC reported this week on research from Princetown University showing that the contents of RAM memory (including encryption keys) can be recovered for up to several minutes after the power to a computer is turned off, thus enabling a disc to be decrypted. The implications of this are explained on the Truecrypt website. The important point to note is that in everyday practice, (as opposed to controlled laboratory conditions) this is a very very small risk given that the RAM only retains the information for minutes after the power is off, and providing (on Windows) that Sleep, Hibernation and System Restore are disabled on your laptop, so it cannot be rebooted with data in RAM. A thorough discussion on this topic with the Princetown researchers is also available.

This data retention in RAM memory has been known about for several years, and some commentators claim that the presentation of phenomenon is being over dramatized in order to attract further funding. For example:

“Also, it is slanderous to call this a “flaw in encryption software”. This has nothing to do with disk encryption software in specific, and telling people to “check with the maker of your disk encryption software to find out how to protect yourself” as is done at the end of the video, is sort of like telling people to call Toyota to complain about potholes. It smells like someone needed to prove they’re worthy of their grant, or is fishing for new ones.”

Original Post: Oh dear, another shed load of personal data has been lost by a UK Government institution. First of all in October 2007 it was Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs copying a database with 25 million peoples details onto a CD and sending it by snail-mail from HMRC offices in Gateshead to the National Audit Office in London. It never arrived. The £25,000 reward is peanuts compared to what criminals would pay for the information. Then last week the Royal Navy had a laptop stolen from a car. The laptop contained a database with details of 600,00 forces personnel including passport numbers, National Insurance numbers and bank details. It has now been revealed that two similar laptop thefts have taken place since 2005. The head of the Civil Service has today told Whitehall staff not to remove laptops with sensitive data from their offices. What a shambles!

Data security experts have been queuing up outside news studios to say that these digital disasters were just waiting to happen, because the powers that be just don’t get it when it comes to data security. Large centralized databases, sloppy procedures, inadequate training. badly advised management…The term encryption has now entered the mainstream media, so everyone now knows that these databases could have been rendered totally inaccessible to criminals if they had been encrypted before leaving their secure office environment. If highly paid government employees are failing to encrypt data, we might be excused for thinking encryption must be a complicated or expensive process - a dark digital art, the domain of nerds and spooks. Well I have some good news for you. It isn’t.

A short rant

Maybe part of the blind spot the authorities have with encryption is that the UK Government has cited the decryption of hard drives as an argument for increasing the time terrorist suspects should be held without charge. We are being sold the idea that encryption is something used by bad guys and terrorists and needs to be undone by good guys and MI6. If civil servants, Navy pen-pushers, priests and primary school teachers were seen to be using it routinely, (which they should be, given the fact that they all hold personal data about other people on portable computers) then the Government’s propaganda might be undermined.

TrueCrypt

So you want easy and free encryption? - use TrueCrypt - www.truecrypt.org. It is open source and available for Windows, Linux and soon, Mac OSX. It is easy to install and use and it can encrypt, and even hide, encrypted data on hard drives, CD’s and USB memory sticks.

I won’t go into too much technical detail here, as it’s all on the TrueCrypt website in extensive documentation, but for me the great thing about TrueCrypt is that it creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file (located anywhere on your hard drive) which it then mounts it as a real disk, with a drive letter.

So on my laptop I’ve allocated 20Gb of the total 80Gb as a TrueCrypt file which now acts like a separate Drive Z, (although I could have chosen any available drive letter). After logging into Windows I am asked for my TrueCrypt password (greater than 20 is recommended - I use a memorable phrase). Only then does Drive Z actually exist and the data “come to life”. Without the encryption password, no matter how the drive is accessed, scanned or recovered, the data on Drive Z is utterly scrambled and totally unrecoverable. The same would apply to a CD, DVD or USB memory stick.

As I drop a file into my Drive Z it is encrypted on the fly, in other words, in real time as it transfers. As I move a file out of Drive Z it is decrypted. I can also work on files in Drive Z in just the same way as on any unencrypted drive. I have the same setup on my office computer, and on this drive I store my customer details invoices and letters. I even run my email programme from that drive and store 8 years of email correspondence there. Thanks to TrueCrypt I know that should my computers be stolen, nothing more sensitive than my mp3 collection could be copied.

The Data Protection Act

Webs Wonder, like most other businesses holding customer information, is on the UK Data Protection Register. I am legally obliged to look after customer details and I could be prosecuted if I fail to do so. Encrypting information means that if my laptop does get stolen or lost, my data isn’t compromised, so I don’t have to explain myself to the Information Commissioner, or go through the expensive and embarrassing process of informing hundreds of customers that their passwords might be in the hands of criminals, then setting new passwords.

Thank you TrueCrypt.

More information on TrueCrypt

• Visit the TrueCrypt website
• Download TrueCrypt from this page
• Make a donation to the TrueCrypt project
• Listen to a useful webcast discussion on TrueCrype on Security Now. Right click to download or click to listen to the 18Mb mp3
• Watch this YouTube video on how to use TrueCrypt. (This isn’t me folks).

• Here is another video tutorial from YouTube in how to use TrueCrypt on a USB memory stick.

If data security is this easy, why can’t our Government do it?

Comments

Jeremy, I would be slightly less cavalier than to say “the data on Drive Z is utterly scrambled and totally unrecoverable.” In 2001 (and I haven’t heard any more about it since then) a quantum computer was built which succeeded in factorising the number 15 using Shor’s algorithm. Hmm… 5 x 3. Not a massive achievement but a demonstration that it can be done. If a large scale quantum computer could be built which could then factorise much larger numbers, then all existing encrypted data is vulnerable!

Estimates vary as to the feasibility of such a computer being built - ranging from “in the foreseeable future” to “never in the lifetime of this universe” so you pays your money and takes your choice ;-)

John Sutton

A domain name and website are now recognised legally as important assets of a company, but businesses which think they own both, often don’t…

A few years ago I was the chairman of the short-lived website developers organization “Web Pro Wales”. The lofty aim of WPW was to encourage and develop best practice in both the way we deal with our clients and the websites and software we sell them. I spent many hours in discussion with a small group of founder businesses trying to decide on the list of standards our members should either have already achieved, or should be working towards. Many of the proposed standards were contentious resulting in extended debate, but one was not. In essence it was that:

Unless specifically requested otherwise, domain names purchased on behalf of a client by the developer should always be registered using the name, address and contact details of the client.

In other words, never, ever, register clients’ domains in your own or your business’ name, because if you do, you will own the domain that they have paid for.

Domain ownership is not a trivial or merely technical matter. Ownership confers almost total control over the usage of that domain, including the right to sell it to anyone for any price, rent it, or simply “cyber-sit”, doing nothing at all with it.

I was reminded of this principle last week when I received a request to re-develop a website for a holiday cottage business on the West Wales coast. I thought I had better check when their domain needed renewing and so did a “WHOIS” database lookup using www.scl.co.uk/domains

I was surprised to find that the domain was registered as owned by their former website development company Wales Tourists Online, based in Bangor, North Wales. I emailed the company and explained that I was putting together a proposal for a new site and asked how much they would sell the domain for.

Bearing in mind that a .co.uk domain costs only £5 a year to keep renewed, and Wales Tourists Online had had a 6 year, and presumably good, relationship with my client, I expected a reply saying a tenner or some nominal amount for a domain which is of no use to them, as it refers to someone else’s business. The reply I got from Wales Tourists Online was a shock. It stated simply:

“The domain name is for sale @ £500.00″.

I replied, offering £75 for the domain and received this response from a Tony Thomas of Wales Tourists Online:

“We are no longer willing to sell the name. Should they choose us to host it we would be willing to let them use the domain free of charge”

Hosting with them he said would cost £120 a year.

I then did a Google Search for Wales Tourists Online and looked at the domain name registrations of some of their customers. Below is a sample of what I found. The domain names of a significant number of sites hosted by Wales Tourists Online are not owned by the business owner, but by Wales Tourists Online, just as my new client’s had been.

Any business which finds its domain name registered in the name of their hosting or website design company please be warned. Everything may be fine now, but if you decide to move, you might find it difficult, or expensive to do so with your current domain name.

The UK Domain Name registration body - Nominet - does have a dispute resolution service however there are hefty fees involved and it can take months. Certain specialist lawyers will also take up your case, but at £350+ per letter, that’s not cheap either. For my client, the simplest and least expensive solution was to buy a new domain (£30 for a .com and £10 for a .co.uk) and develop a new site at this location. Should they wish to move hosting company or change their website designer in the future, they have the power to do so, completely free of charge.

The Domain Name Lookups below were made on 13th December 2007. Current registration details can be checked at www.scl.co.uk/domains.

Llys Olwen

www.llysolwen.co.uk

Morfa Nefyn,
Gwynedd.
LL53 6BT

Domain name:
llysolwen.co.uk

Registrant:
Wales Tourists Online.

Registrant’s address:
Unit 8
BridgeGate Trading Mews
Bridgegate
Retford
Notts
DN22 7XB

Nant Newydd Caravan Park

www.nantnewydd.co.uk

Brynteg,
Benllech,
Isle of Anglesey
LL78 7JJ.

Domain name:
nantnewydd.co.uk

Registrant:
Wales Tourists Online.

Registrant’s address:
Unit 8
BridgeGate Trading Mews
Bridgegate
Retford
Notts
DN22 7XB

Celyn Brithion

www.celynbrithion.co.uk

Dinas Mawddwy,
Nr. Machynlleth,
Powys,
SY20 9LP

Domain name:
celynbrithion.co.uk

Registrant:
Wales Tourists Online.

Registrant’s address:
9 Swn Yr Engan
Gaerwen
Anglesey
LL60 6LS
GB

Glyn y Coed Hotel

www.glynycoedhotel.co.uk

Portmadog Rd,
Criccieth,
Gwynedd,
North Wales
LL52 OHL

Domain name:
glynycoedhotel.co.uk

Registrant:
Tony Thomas

Registrant’s address:
9 Swn Yr Engan
Gaerwen
Anglesey
LL60 6LS

Cwmanog Isaf Farm B&B

www.cwmanogisaffarmholidays.co.uk

Betws-y-Coed,
Gwynedd,
LL24 0SL

Domain name:
cwmanogisaffarmholidays.co.uk

Registrant:
Wales Tourists Online.

Registrant’s address:
Unit 8
BridgeGate Trading Mews
Bridgegate
Retford
Notts
DN22 7XB

The Oasis Hotel

www.oasis-hotel.co.uk

Nevill Crescent,
Central Promenade,
Llandudno,
North Wales

Domain name:
oasis-hotel.co.uk

Registrant:
Wales Tourists Online.

Registrant’s address:
9 Swn Yr Engan
Gaerwen
Anglesey
LL60 6LS

Dwy Olwyn Guest House

www.dwyolwyn.co.uk

Coed-y-Fronallt,
Dolgellau,
Gwynedd,
LL40 2YG

Domain name:
dwyolwyn.co.uk

Registrant:
Tony Thomas T/A Wales Tourists Online.

Registrant’s address:
9 Swn y egan
Gaerwen
Anglesey
LL60 6LS

Henllan Mill

www.henllanmill.co.uk

Llangynyw,
Welshpool,
Powys,
SY21 9EN

Domain name:
henllanmill.co.uk

Registrant:
Wales Tourists Online.

Registrant’s address:
9 Swn Yr Engan
Gaerwen
Anglesey
LL60 6LS

Garnedd Holiday Cottages

www.garneddholidaycottages.co.uk

Garnedd Ddu Holiday Cottages
Star,
Gaerwen,
Isle of Anglesey
Sir Fôn,
LL60 6AN

Domain name:
garneddholidaycottages.co.uk

Registrant:
Wales Tourists Online.

Registrant’s address:
9 Swn Yr Engan
Gaerwen
Anglesey
LL60 6LS

Pandy Cottage B&B

www.pandybar.co.uk

Llanfechell
Nr Cemaes Bay
Anglesey North Wales
LL68 0SW

Domain name:
pandybar.co.uk

Registrant:
Tony Thomas

Registrant’s address:
9 Swn Yr Engan
Gaerwen, Anglesey
Gaerwen
Anglesey
LL60 6LS

Dolgelynen Farmhouse B&B

www.dolgelynenfarmhouse.co.uk

Dolgelynen Farmhouse
Machynlleth,
Powys,
SY20 9JR

Domain name:
dolgelynenfarmhouse.co.uk

Registrant:
Wales Tourists Online.

Registrant’s address:
9 Swn Yr Engan
Gaerwen
Anglesey
LL60 6LS

Bryn Glo Guest House and Tea Room

www.bryn-glo.com

Capel Curig
Snowdonia
Conwy
LL24 0DT

Domain name:
bryn-glow.com

Registrant:
Thomas, Tony
Registrant’s address:
9 Swn Yr Engan
Gaerwen
Anglesey
LL60 6LS

Seaspray Guest House

www.seasprayguesthouse.co.uk

4 Marine Terrace
Criccieth
Gwynedd
North Wales
LL52 OEF

Domain name:
seasprayguesthouse.co.uk

Registrant:
Wales Tourists Online
9 Swn Yr Engan
Gaerwen
Anglesey
LL60 6LS

The Senedd doesn’t sit on Fridays - the Assembly Members (AM’s) hold their constituency surgeries that day. Maybe that was why the docks area was so eerily quiet. I’m not complaining, the lack of people made it possible to take some good panoramic photos. People moving across the scene often appear as ghosts, or in more than one place at once!

The photos which went to make up the shots below were taken with my Lumix DMC FZ10 on a tripod and combined into a montage. The first photo is taken from the centre of the Oval Basin. It is a 360º panorama starting and ending at the former dock entrance with the Millenium Centre towards the middle and the red brick Bute Dock Building to the right. The finished photo is 1,600 pixels high by 15,000 wide, the one below being a fraction of that. Just scroll sideways to see the full Panorama.

In certain browsers the picture will appear very wide and narrow. Simply click on the image to make it expand.

Please Note: These photos are copyright ©Webs Wonder Design. High resolution versions are available for use under a Rights Managed / Rights Reserved license (ie for specific named projects). Please contact me with usage requests.

Here is one just of the Millenium Centre. The slate-faced part of the building to the right is not curve-fronted like the main facade, it’s just the result of the panoramic shot. Also that the silver tower on the left did not have water cascading down it when I took the shot, which means that the reflection of the surrounding buildings is better and the sun is mirrored, refecting lines across the concourse.

Below is the Welsh Assembly Senedd Building with the Pierhead Building to the left.

Below is the entrance hall/concourse of the Senedd Building. At this level is the Public Gallery. On the level below is the Senedd debating chamber and on the level above is situated seating and a refreshments area.

From the floor of the top level - above the Senedd Chamber - the roof springs organically.

Below is the Senedd Chamber - viewed from the Public Gallery.

Below that is the debating chamber.

Update 27th February 2008

Took another trip to St Davids today on a blissfully clear and warm day to update my photo collection. The cathedral looked spectacular. They must mow the grass at least weekly as every time I’m here it looks beautifully manicured. With only 3 days to go to St David’s Day on March 1st (The Patron Saint of Wales), there is an extra splash of colour with house windows being decorated with flags and daffodils and leeks.

Politicians never lie. They use “terminological inexactitudes” or are “economical with the truth” and might even “seek to to mislead”, but lying they don’t, because it is not allowed in Parliament for one politician to call another a liar . The public, however are not constrained by such conventions. They soon become aware that they have been grossly misled or told deliberate half truths (or double-truths if you are an accountant like PM Gordon Brown) and they then brand all Politicians as “liars” - which they are not. The small number of lying politicians bring the whole profession into disrepute. Most Cabinet Ministers it seems have trained as lawyers, so their command of language seems to equip them perfectly for the techniques of putting an unhealthy gloss on the the actuality.

Welcome Adam Price MP who has just tried (Wednesday 17th October) to have debated his Private Members Bill, The Misrepresentation of the People (Prohibition of Deception) Bill, (reproduced below). the Bill is backed up by EDM 2091 tabled by Matthew Taylor MP.

Adam is Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, and has always been keen to see a spade called a spade, not a manual steel bladed reciprocal digging implement. This is the same Adam Price who tried to get former Prime Minister Tony (dodgy dossier) Blair indicted for Crimes against Humanity over the invasion of Iraq. Adam and a lamentably small number of other MP’s are trying to make a politician who knowingly tells a lie to the British public guilty of a criminal offence.

It is already an offence for business leaders to lie to their shareholders, and many professions are covered by such legislation, but not MP’s. Why not?

There has been a BBC2 Programme on the subject called “the Ministry of Truth”. Here is a YouTube trailer for it. (I should add that this has upset the owner of the original “Mininstry of Truth” website.

MSN also have a special page dedicated to this issue.

Why not write to your MP and ask him/her to support this Bill? The reasons they give for not doing so would be interesting…..

I don’t need to write. Adam Price is my MP.

Below is reproduced the text of the proposed Bill. You can also download it in PDF format.

The Misrepresentation of the People Act

A Bill to Ensure honesty, transparency and accountability from
the representatives of the People and their employees.

The obligation for honesty and transparency in matters of government by those elected to represent the People and their employees is absolute. They act on behalf of the People, their sovereignty flows from the people and is conditional upon such honesty and transparency.

s.1 Where an elected representative of the people or an agent employed on their behalf recklessly or with intent to deceive, publishes or causes to be published in their employment in office, a statement or account which to their knowledge is or may be misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular, they shall be guilty of an offence under this Act.

s.2 It shall be an offence under this Act for a representative of the people, or agent employed on their behalf to –

(1) Publish a statement, promise or forecast which he knows to be misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular, or

(2) Dishonestly conceal any material facts whether in connection with a statement, promise or forecast published by him, or

(3) Recklessly publish (dishonestly or otherwise) a statement, promise or forecast which is misleading, false or deceptive in a material manner.

s.3 It shall be a defence for any person charged with an offence under section 2 of this Act to show that at the time of the offence he -

(1) did not know, or could not have been reasonably expected to know that his act or conduct would create an impression that was false or misleading, or

(2) had no part in causing or permitting the publication of the statement or any part thereof, or

(3) could not reasonably be expected to have known that the statement to which the charge relates was inaccurate or misleading, or

(4) took all due care to ensure the accuracy of the statement, or

(5) acted in the interest of National Security.

s.4 It shall be a defence under this Act to provide full and frank disclosure in relation to the misleading, dishonest or reckless act. Disclosure under this section shall limit the potential liability under this Act to disqualification from holding public office. Such disclosure shall be provided (as a public document) within a reasonable time of becoming aware of the misleading, dishonest or reckless act.

s.5 Where a person causes any wasteful employment by knowingly making to a person a false report tending to show an offence has been committed, or tending to show he has information material to any police enquiry, he shall be liable for this offence on indictment only.

s.6 A person guilty of an offence of misrepresenting the people under this Act shall be liable upon summary conviction and or indictment and or be disqualified forthwith from standing as an elected representative of the people or their agent.