In his comment on my previous post, "ed" hints at a very relevant issue. I was talking about plans for law enforcement access to Oyster and other travel-card databases. It's worth just unpicking some of the implications of that a little further.
The stated aim is to aid pre-emptive counter-terrorism by making it possible to mine the whole travel data trail for suspicious patterns of activity. However, as it is still possible to travel on urban public transport without leaving an identifiable Oyster audit trail - for instance, by buying a ticket - there is no guarantee that all potential terrorists will choose the option of using an auditable contactless card. So there's a serious flaw in the assumptions about how effective the mitigation can be.
Second, one has to assume that, in order to do the data mining, the security services will either have to be given access to the database, or a copy of it (or both). In terms of system design, that means that either an additional 'hole' has to be opened up in whatever secure perimeter currently protects the database, or that the data will be duplicated... potentially doubling the 'threat surface' which it exposes. Each of those represents a potential weakness to be exploited by an attacker.
Third, the original Observer article makes the point that this whole risk mitigation strategy is based on the assumption that attacks on physical targets (such as the Underground) are likely to be accompanied by cyber-attacks as a 'force multiplier'.
One set of implications is clear. If an attacker is able to get access to the same audit trail of identifiable journey details, several 'force multiplier' attacks become possible. For instance, how many of the decision-making civil servants, COBRA personnel, first responder staff and civil contingency teams depend on public transport to get to where they need to be in the event of a large-scale emergency? The same data as is being exposed and mined for security purposes could be used to identify and track those staff. Potentially, this could compromise their ability to respond precisely when they are needed most.
They must be working overtime down at the Ministry of Perverse Consequences.
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