Really, Friend Computer, I must have missed that message while we pursued the traitors, undercover, through the NKD Sector’s officially sanctioned Happy Loyal Naturists Parade…

Data relating to almost half the population of the UK swimming around in an envelope somewhere… what would an unscrupulous individual do with it all? Someone pointed out this morning that a truly canny individual could sit on this data for years and use the name/birth date information of the children on the disks for nefarious ends. All manner of criminal elements could take a stab at scams to get credit with this information – or, like spam-peddlers, sell the information on to hundreds of wannabe scammers rather than risk using the information themselves.

Think what the average Secret Society could do with this information? A wealth of personal data and details of credit accounts, perhaps throw in C-Mail addresses as well… Think of the scams, the desceptions, the opportunities to fix citizens up good and proper for actions and activities they would never dream of doing themselves. How would CPU cover up for their incompetence and blame the disaster on someone else? Perhaps get the Troubleshooters to deliver a dummy package when the error first comes to light and disseminate enough information about the transit job that one or more Secret Societies make a grab for it…