UK Passes Surveillance Law For ISPs

NoiseLesion writes "The Standard has reports on a new bill granting surveillance privileges to a new arm of MI5. Carnivore looks tame compared to this."

Comments

Re:Encrypted Mail

[Anonymous Coward]

> If you have been following the progress of the
> RIP bill you will know that failure to hand
> over your encryption key leaves you in the
> position that you must prove you NEVER KNEW IT

If you have been following the progress of the RIP bill you will know that the House of Lords added some 50 admendments, one of which reverses this burden of proof issue. You won't have to prove you never knew it.

Don't get me wrong I think this Bill sucks and I hope it gets declared illegal (and the Data Protection Commissioner has already said that - in her opinion - this bill breaks the European Data Protection Directive). But lets try to keep up with the facts when we critise it.

Re:UK's E-mail Scan Is Avoidable

[Anonymous Coward]

For those residing in the UK, please have a look at FIPR RIP Information Centre for a load of interesting article on RIP from British publications. Of particular interest is the RIP Counter Measures! Read and follow!

AC

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a shame the people who funded the IRA don't know how importent this stuff is. They could fund a perfectly legal little effort to make shure that no email traveling between Irishmen went unencrypted.

I love the way you seem to think the people who funded the IRA are so good - personally I think anyone responsible for the death and maiming of thousands of innocents and for allowing entire generations to grow up in fear of their neighbours to be far more morally repugnant than someone reading my mail....

Freedom of speech is very important - the cornerstone of any democracy - but freedom to live without the threat of random explosions or punishment beatings or car bombs or any of the rest is far more fundamental....

Beside which - why do you think the Irish need any help from anyone else - we didnt get to be the biggest expoters of software in the world by accident you know...

Great timing

[Stormie]

Great, in two weeks time I'm getting on a plane to move to London, in search of work. Now I read that the government is passing bills which will persuade all the high-tech firms in the UK to leave the country. Great timing on my part. :-(

s/English/British/

[bkosse]

Happy now?

Call me dense, but....

[bkosse]

That was sarcasm, right? I mean, there's no way Britian's government would want to impunge upon an English citizen's privacy, right?

Yes, THAT was sarcasm, folks.

Re:Call me dense, but....

[thesparkle]

Caustic sarcasm of the SlashDot vein.

Dense.

There, request granted. Moving right along..

Same as Britian used to be.

[bkosse]

The Canadian government just hasn't gotten around to doing anything about it.

Sorry, the Brits don't have a 5th amendment.

[bkosse]

This is mostly from memory, so if it's wrong, let me know, but I suspect it's fairly correct.

Their government makes not even a token gesture to any sort of rights beyond those government can give. There is no idea of an "inalienable right," it's all what we call "priviledge." IOW: anything a British citizen does is by the government's leave. If the government were to decide that officials didn't need warrents to search, suddenly officials don't need warrents to search *AT ALL*.

There is no court deciding (in the U.S.' case, often deciding wrongly) whether something is illegal or not.

I didn't think you were property of the Crown

[bkosse]

Subjects, yes (and yes, you are), but I didn't think the two went hand in hand.

Re:Fine with me

[white]

Ok, now that's all very well, but think about this scenario: you have an acquaintance who, although you don't realise it, is a paedophile. He erroneously sends you some encrypted kiddie porn, encrypted with someone else's public key. The authorities trace the email, knock you up in the middle of the night, and demand that you give them the private key to unencrypt this mail, as they have the right to do under the RIP act.

If you won't give them the key, and can't prove that you don't have it, you can go to jail. You also aren't allowed to tell *anyone* that you were asked for the key, so it's hard for you to get help.

That's what's bad about this law.

Re:Those Brits...

[white]

I know it's a troll, but..

Bear in mind that we didn't have firearms that were *suddenly taken away*. Because we haven't been a frontier state for centuries, gun ownership has never been part of British life. That's why it's not such a big deal to us.

Re:Big Brother

[kraut]

As opposed to the US, where COPA of course wasn't passed as law because it was clearly unconstitutional, and didn't have to be sued out of the lawbooks by the ACLU.....

Not that I'm against introducing an explicit written constitution in the UK, preferrably with some drastic reforms, but it's not the only way. People just end up sueing the government in the European court of human rights instead.

Re:why encryption is taking so long

[Mawbid]

The warning on entering a secure session surprised me too. I think it's just a product of how the browser designers expect https to be used: very rarely, when collecting obviously personal information as you say. Given those expectations, the warning does make sense. It trains users to never assume they're in a secure session. If they haven't seen the warning, they know they're communicating in plaintext. Without this warning, it would likely be a regular occurrence for users to happily submit their credit card info unencrypted believeing it would travel to the server encrypted because they forgot or didn't know to check the key icon or whatever.
--

What happened in parliament

[Ben Hutchings]

The Register reports on how the bill was finally passed. A fine example of democracy inaction.

Re:Sounds to me like you're prejudiced...

[Nicolas MONNET]

Interesting ... it seems that even fascists can't always be wrong ;

A quick quiz for you

[Booker]

With all due respect to the gentleman who knows how to finely craft an argument, let's just try this out for size. Please select one answer per question:

1. During era of the Civil War, which ultimately led to the freeing of American slaves, I would have chosen:

a) freedom
b) stability

2. During the fight for women's suffrage, I would have chosen:

a) freedom
b) stability

3. During the civil rights movement, I would have chosen:

a) freedom
b) stability

Those are just a few examples - given that the government wasn't killing large portions of the population, so I assume that you would have chosen "stability" in all cases?

Re:A quick quiz for you

[Booker]

That's probably true, but there were certainly people who were happy with the status quo, and there were those who worked for freedom. Underground railroad, and such. My main point was that if you are afraid to rock the boat for fear of instability, you run the risk of giving up a lot. To me, leaving an entire culture in chains is a lot to give up in the name of stability.

I wasn't saying that the Gov't at the time was fighting for freedom, pure and simple. But some people were.

I was more interested in how Mr. Stability would have aligned himself during those times.

Re:A quick quiz for you

[kalifa]

> During era of the Civil War, which ultimately
> led to the freeing of American slaves, I would
> have chosen:
>
> a) freedom
> b) stability

FYI, the civil war was not about freeing slaves, it was about keeping the Union together. The slavery issue was just a narrative alibi. It was mostly about the northern Anglo-Saxon puritan and austere way of life enforcing its domination toward the more latin South. Northern had very few slaves because agriculture was in the South, plain and simple. And today, you hear assholes talking about freedom, 1st amendment and such and in the same time, seeing no problem in the censorship on American TV and movies when it comes to sex or to "explicit" vocabulary.

Ab. Lincoln said "If I should have saved the union without freeing any slave, I would have have done it". History has forgotten this sentence. As usual in America which has always been on the edge of historic falsification.

Re:Stability?

[Booker]

So are you saying that it's better to give up a little freedom and privacy, and let the Powers that Be listen to your phone calls, read your email, and go through your trash, on the off chance that some folk singer might get some people fired up to fight for a cause?

What is worth fighting for, and rabble-rousing, and upsetting the status quo? Or should we be complacent in the name of stability?

I mean, I get your point to a certain degree - stability is a very important thing. But what are you willing to give up for that? There are some pretty repressive regimes that are awfully stable. And perhaps the rougue militias won't come steal your food, but you just might "disappear."

UK Internet: RIP

[Koos]

Rest In Pieces.

The bad thing for me is that a lot of the transit traffic from the Netherlands goes through transit routers in London, UK. I hope ISP's will pick this up and start to route around the UK.

This also reminds me of the fact that this kind of taps might be very interesting for Echelon.

Re:Solution To Funding Government!

[Seumas]

Wouldn't matter. Suits are the only ones who would be dumb enough to go click-happy on advertisements. And for the rest of us, it wouldn't be much of a probably to insert parenthesised URL's next to tagged words -- annoying, but hey, when you're the government -- and when it has to do with making money, who cares who it annoys!
---
seumas.com

Full text of the proposed legislation

[caveman]

For what it's worth, Here is a link to the full text of the legislation passed by the house of commons.

to emphasize my point...

[Barbarian]

The damn thing is
smaller than an oil derrick...


--

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[ignatz]

I suggest you take a look at the European Convention of Human Rights, which overrides national law in pretty much every nation in the EU - including the UK - and then re-evaluate what you wrote.

There is no need for national level bills of rights in Europe.

S.

Re:Fine with me

[toriver]

Let's face it -- the people most likely to be affected by this kind of surveillance are the people who are doing bad stuff to begin with.

You risk that "bad stuff" includes criticizing the Government, being black or promoting extramarital sex. In America parents can be arrested on child porn charges just for taking pictures of their own children in the nude. So there are a lot of "child pornographers" who would not be called so in Europe.

After all, if you really trust your government only to do good things you would not be opposed to a China-style national proxy and control of domestic websites, would you? Would you be able to access a site like Slashdot? Doubtful.

Re:Stability?

[BJH]

I'm old (by /. standards, anyway), married, not particularly idealistic and I have a child. I still think you're taking out of your ass.

I'm half-convinced you're a troll, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Quite frankly, it's you who needs to wake up and look around at the real world. The government does not always act in the best interests of the people - indeed, in some cases it actively works against their interests.
BTW, your comment about how McCarthyism was justified because the US was in a period of instability and didn't need people stirring things up could be taken to mean that you would have preferred the government to arrest all those who supported Martin Luther King and imprison them in the name of "stability". I hope you're not that stupid.

Basically, what you're saying is that it's OK for the government to conduct surveillance on the citizens and arrest, torture or kill certain elements of the populace in order to preserve stability for the majority. You mentioned that no-one is more qualified than the government to decide who is or is not a criminal; if that's the case, why do most democracies insist on strict division between the legislative and judiciary arms of the the government? It's to protect the people from the whims of a particular government by placing a (theoretically unbiased) court system between the government and the people to act as a brake on short-term decisions regarding who is and is not a criminal.

Ahem.

[Requiem]

Dear Concerned Taxpayer,

Please bend over and take it like a good citizen. We really do know what's best for you.

Cheerio,
Tony Q. Blair, Prime Minister, Britain

Re:Its Needed coz Society is a Rathole

[Bongo]

Because what you've written is nonsense.

Which part of "society is falling apart" did you not understand? Look, please be specific. Yes. I agree that giving anyone, let alone the government, draconian powers is A Bad Idea. But my point is that the RIP bill is _not_ the issue. It's just a reaction to impending chaos. A chaos that is "under the surface" of what we see around us. We may have bigger houses and better stocked supermatkets, but we are also becoming more violent, dissociated and unconscious.

You don't feel it, because you can't see it. You don't see it, because you don't think it's there. What you "see" is the "state of the economy", the state of "technology" etc. but what you are asleep to is the disentegration of ordinary humaneness. Hence kids that are turning out as "little savages".

And unless people start working on mending these fractures, governments are going to react the only way they know how, ie. stupid laws.

Re:Its Needed coz Society is a Rathole

[Bongo]

The fact that kids are killing each other is nothing new under the sun.

Really? Have you asked you grandparents? What do they say happened? Did their generation have _children_ walking into schools commiting mass murders? Try asking them.

Its Needed coz Society is a Rathole

[Bongo]

Sorry people, but in case you haven't noticed, society has, at least since the industrial revolution, been falling apart.

Just look at the schools. In the previous generation, "problem children" meant kids that talked too much in class, while nowadays, the problem kids are out brutally murdering other kids, with guns or knives.

Just yesterday I read in the paper about three 13/14 year olds who ambushed another 14 year old, and did a 'Reservoir Dogs' on him. The paper said the Church community was "deeply shocked".

Like, is that it? People are just "shocked" and then carry on an usual? Shouldn't there be some all mighty alarm bells ringing? Politicians may jack off on talking about how they're going to spend more on police or education -- but doing more of the same is not going to help. The teachers are producing violent kids. The parents are producing violent kids. The neighbourhood is producing violent psychopaths, and almost nobody is asking why?

Neverhteless, governments are worried, so they are becoming more draconian. Just expect this trend to continue, as the levels of violence increase, and the psychopaths get organised, the govenment will need more power. Little good it's going to do us, mind you.

Re:Its Needed coz Society is a Rathole

[Bongo]

The point is: children kill each other. What's different that disturbed kids have access to automatic weapons, but the underlying nature of the kids has not changed at all. There is no moral decay you're crying about.

So you are confident that it has always been "like this". I suggested that you gather some data, like asking people from previous generations, to see whether there has been an increase in the numbers of "troubled kids".

Because we are talking about whether it's getting "worse", so we need some numbers -- we need to count, to be able to say, today there are 4-5 incidents of child killing child per year, but 50 years ago there were... how many? We need data to see the trend. Then you can add that data to your opinion, and see for yourself if it matches.

But someone has replied to my earlier post, saying that previous generations just "hid away" any problems. That most shocking child incidents would simply not have been reported. So this puts the debate in an impossible position. We can gather no data, it seems. So now neither opinion ie. "it's getting worse" vs. "it's no different" is provable.

Today nations have access to apocalyptic weapons such as the ICBMs with multimegaton warhead loads instead of spears and swords. The person pushing The Button is not very much different from the tribal chief in 2000 b.c. ordering extermination of the neighbouring tribe.

There is one difference. The "tribal unit" is a far smaller organisation than "nation state". A nation contains many tribes, just like an organ of the body contains many tissues, each tissue containing many cells etc. A country is not just a "big huge tribe", because members of the "tribe" were more identical than any two people you find in a modern nation (mix of race, language, religion, politics, professions etc.)

So modern society has a higher degree of integration, and continues to integrate ever more complexity (previously gays were outcast, but are now starting to be integrated). The highest level "unit" of integration we have so far achieved is the country. Logically the next step is for countries to integrate into some form of world government -- as today we have global problems that no one country can solve alone. But notice that where one country can direct violence at another country ("war"), one child directing violence at another child is a failure of integration at a very low level.

These are children who have not even integrated into their own family or tribe... let alone feeling a part of their country. Such low level dis-integration is also seen in biology. The "wayward" cell that stops doing its function in a tissue of a organ, and starts doing it's own thing, is called a "mutation". If many thousands occur, then it begins to affect the whole body (ie. cancer).

So my hypothetical question to you is, how many "wayward" children (ie. incidents of brutal violence) per year would it take for you to begin to recognise the "cancer"? Consider that analogy. How many? Before you would worry?

Re:Its Needed coz Society is a Rathole

[David Kennedy]

Sorry people, but in case you haven't noticed, society has, at least since the industrial revolution, been falling apart. You don't read a lot of history books do you? Because what you've written is nonsense.
How many people complaining about the RIP in this thread wrote to their MP over the issue? (I did.)

Where's the anti-US sentiment to go along with it?

[swb]

Usually when there's some stupid law being passed or proposed in the US, we hear all the Europeans chiming in with how awful the US is, yada yada yada.

Gee, I wonder where the complaints are now that the shoe's on the other foot?

I thought so.

Re:Where's the anti-US sentiment to go along with

[swb]

I didn't say the UK sucks. I'm just tired of all the +5 messages from Europeans generally about how shitty the US is and how Americans have no rights.

For once the hollowness of their arguments is shining through..

Re:Improvements and Martin Luther King jr.

[Photon Ghoul]

Faith? In people? Do I need to say more?

Re:why encryption is taking so long

[HiThere]

This would make sense if it weren't that many pages collect the information on an ordinary form and then change to a secure form just before they send it. Obnoxious, and you can't really tell that they are going to switch until after they do (well, you could read the source, and you might be able to tell, perhaps). But many sites do just that.

Probably some good in this...

[chuckw]

There's probably some good in this, in that it sets a precedent that can be used to combat similar cases in the US.
--
Quantum Linux Laboratories - Accelerating Business with Linux
* Education
* Integration
* Support

I will not make obvious jokes

[Shoeboy]

I am not going to use the phrases "connecting to an open socket" or "interfacing with an open port" as the basis for lewd sexual jokes in this post.
Really, I'm not.
It wouldn't be funny if I did anyway.
--Shoeboy

You are sadly mistaken

[vik]

I'm one of the people whose company has been taken for a ride by government agencies snooping on our e-mail and giving it to rival companies that they approve of. The rival companies then show our e-mail to our prospective clients with their doctored numbers by the side of it.

Encryption is the only way to go. They're not after pornograhpers; pornographers are just a handle to lever the laws past the ignorant general public (half of whom are below average intelligence, don't forget). They're really after people who could expose their wrongdoings.

Unfortunately, they've now passed a law which says you have to hand the decryption keys over on request or spent 2 years in a UK jail - even if you've forgotten the password. So, the UK cops can now say "Give me the password for this ZIP file you encrypted in 1988. Can't remember? Tough. Go to jail for 2 years."

I fled the UK because of lunatic guilty-until-proven-innocent laws like this and I can't see myself going back now.

Vik :v)

Re:You are sadly mistaken

[Dyolf Knip]

Unfortunately, they've now passed a law which says you have to hand the decryption keys over on request or spent 2 years in a UK jail - even if you've forgotten the password. So, the UK cops can now say "Give me the password for this ZIP file you encrypted in 1988. Can't remember? Tough. Go to jail for 2 years."

Hear, hear. And this also lends itself to certain abuses. Say you arrest someone suspected of doing something naughty, but you can't prove anything. Ok, after you nab his computer, just put a couple of encrypted files and emails on his system. Bring him in, demand that he disclose the passwords. Obviously, he won't be able to. Instant 2 years in the slammer.

--

Re:Hasn't passed yet...

[Teun]

Who's bubble, I feel you have an unwarranted believe or trust in democracy in Britain.

It's the only western country wouthout a bill of rights or a constitution, there are few other western countries where you can get a vast!! majority in parliament with only some 40% of the votes (~25% of eligible voters) as in the previous conservative governement of mr. Major.

Historically a country with a dubious democratic reputation: the largest Nazi party outside of Germany led by an associate of the royal family. A police force that has regularly put people behind bars on utterly false grounds. The highest number -per capita- of "security" video surveylance camera's anywhere. The motherland of the writer of "1984". A country where governement officers (customs) can enter and search your home without a court order. A recent study confirmed that the class system is still allive and kicking.

Who is surprised this is happening in the UK of all places......

Re:Not surprising.

[PhilA]

This is a troll, right? Furrfu

Re:third world countries

[PhilA]

see charter88 for people actually getting on with this...

Jurisdiction of encryption ban?

[murrayc]

This bill makes it a crime to use encryption and keep the keys to yourself.

If a US citizen communicates with a UK citizen, then visits the UK, does he get put in jail?

If a UK citizen living in the US uses encryption does he get put in jail when he goes home?

Re:Jurisdiction of encryption ban?

[AndrewD]

No, it's an offence not to decrypt material obtained lawfully by the police or security services on being ordered to do so in the proper form. The offence is almost certainly not extraditable, so it only works on people in the UK at the time the warrant is served and unable to get the hell out before they have to comply. Citizenship doesn't matter: the fact that you're within their reach is all that counts for criminal jurisdiction. Where domicile (not citizenship) matters is in your right to bail. If you can readily abscond by going to your home outside the jurisdiction, they won't give you bail without you surrender your passport and post a whopping surety.

Re:PGP international download

[murrayc]

And now illegal to use without giving your private key to the UK government.

Re:hm....

[artg]

Of course there isn't any film in the cameras. They're CCTV cameras !

What they mean is 'those cameras are recording events that we'll only consider when it suits us, and your break-in is way below the scale of the crimes we bother with'.

Re:Opress minorities - my arse!!

[spodpit]

Strange I thought we went to war because Germany invaded Poland (a country well known for being a colony state of the UK!) ...

Re:This isn't just a problem in the UK.

[spodpit]

True, however I'm sure MI6 might like to know ...

World's most inept technical legislation

[henley]

Ahhh... RIP. Conclusive proof that Her Magestie's Government couldn't tell a router from a hole in the head.

Guess I'll be implementing my RIP-avoiding policy now... There, done.

Steganography? Nope. PGP? Nope. ROT-13? Nope.

Just disable smart-host in sendmail.cf, kill -hup sendmail and bob's yer uncle.

See Here, amongst numerous other spots on yer friendly wibbly wobbly web, for more details...

Re:World's most inept technical legislation

[chevron]

However, wouldn't your traffic still be travelling through the fibres of a UK ISP, and so still be readable, both practically and legally?
(I don't see how they can sort the wheat from the chaff, when artificial intelligence is still at the moron level and looks like staying that way for some time to come. But thats a side issue).

Re:World's most inept technical legislation

[IIH]

Just disable smart-host in sendmail.cf, kill -hup sendmail and bob's yer uncle.

Try doing that on some ISP's and it doesn't make a difference. Login to some of the free isps, and try and connect to a remote host on the SMTP port, and you'll find you're connected to your ISP's email server, not the one you asked for. I've seen this happen with at least two ISPs, and heard evidence of more.

You turn off the smarthost? The ISP turns on packet forwarding.
--

Re:oh please

[Marcus Green]

"Hows the gun riddled USA looking now? Pretty good I bet". Hmm, still anoyne is very, very unlikely to be shot in the UK. Maybe it is not related to the draconian gun laws though.

Re:UK's E-mail Scan Is Avoidable

[Steve B]

How many years, months, or days will it take a group or an individual to find out how these boxes work and post information about them?

That's precisely why "security through obscurity" is a Bad Idea. If the basic system is published openly (while keeping individual keys secret, of course), flaws will be found and published. If the basic system is kept secret, it will be harder to find flaws, but the people who do find them are more likely to be criminal crackers who will quietly exploit them and reveal them only to their equally criminal associates.
/.

Re:Improvements and Martin Luther King jr.

[Steve B]

While they may have wanted to do the right thing, the only end result of their actions was the undermining of the people's respect for the government. This respect is absolutely crucial to maintaining any kind of non-dysfunctional state.

If you believe that respect for the government is a good thing in and of itself, then your only legitimate avenue toward that end is to encourage the government to conduct itself in a manner which earns respect.
/.

Re:One word:

[Steve B]

Singapore

Thanks for proving my point about the cause-and-effect relationship between excessive government power and kleptocratic corruption.
/.

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[Steve B]

For those ISPs that do not cooperate, the RIAA will have to apply a little more force (such as a federal law requiring ISPs to monitor customers).
Don't be so naive to think the government is the only fucking thing you gotta be worried about.

You lost me at that last 180-degree turn.
/.

Re:One word:

[Steve B]

I'd rather have corrupt leaders leading a well-off country

"Well, I've fallen from the hundredth floor to the tenth floor and I feel fine so far...."

When crooks get hold of the power establishment of a nation, it's a race between ruin and reform.
/.

Re:from the people who

[infinitas]

> BTW does a tv tuner card in your computer count?

Yes.

Re:from the people who

[timftbf]

Yes, TV tuner cards require a TV license. Any device capable of receiving TV transmissions requires a TV license. Displaying them is not the issue, leading the anamoly where, AIUI, you need a colour TV license for a B/W TV and a video.

Vendors are required to take your name and address when selling you a device capable of receiving TV transmission, to pass on to TV licensing to check that you have a license. They apparently catch a lot more people through this route than 'random snooping'.

I was amused when Tesco's insisted on taking my details when I bought my DVD player. I did try explaining that it couldn't receive transmissions, but they couldn't understand why I would want a 'new video recorder' that didn't receive TV pictures, so I gave up :(

Regards,
Tim.

Re:Don't even need encryption to avoid

[timftbf]

Demon customers only get mail directly to their machines if they've made arrangements to use something other than their *@*.demon.co.uk address, or the sender is using a broken MTA.

There are no MX records for foo.demon.co.uk pointing at foo.demon.co.uk - even when you are online, mail goes to Demon's mail servers first and then on to you. (Unless the mail's coming from the aforementioned broken MTA that delivers to A records rather than MXs.)

The advantage is that you have a fixed IP, which makes it easy to set up foo.demon.co.uk as the best MX for mydomain.org. This sort of thing is beyond the vast majority of Internet users, even the vast majority of Demon customers.

Regards,
Tim.

Re:Fine with me

[Tony Towers]

NO

Plaid aren't the Welsh equivalent of Sinn Fein, they're more akin to the SNP. I think the boyos whose names you're looking to tarnish are the Sons of Glyndwr.

Re:from the people who

[British]

Mike: Vyvian, eat the Tele!
TV Police: Ahh, I see. The 'ol eat the tele trick!

Re:UK's E-mail Scan Is Avoidable

[MartinB]

Full info is on the FIPR site: http://www.fipr.org/rip/

Re:Hasn't passed yet...

[MartinB]

The Lords can't chuck it out completely, they can merely request amendments.

PGP international download

[MartinB]

Just in case anyone doesn't know where to get the downloads of PGP outwith the US, they're at http://www.pgpi.com/. Free for non-commercial use and entirely legally exported from the US (unless you're in the Sudan, Iran, Iraq and few other places).

Re:PGP international download

[radja]

wouldn't that be illegal to use in the UK, rather than illegal to use by a UK person? if so, then an overseas account will do for ppl in the UK..

//rdj

Re:PGP international download

[chevron]

How do we know PGP is an effective way of securing your communications? Just think how much effort will have gone in, from FBI and govt. agencies, into cracking PGP. And if they've cracked it, they wouldn't say so, would they.
If I really wanted to keep a secret, I'd use my own algorithms. Something they've never seen before is a safe bet. Its also easy to write variations on your own source code.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[Weezul]

It would be cool to see the Irish, Welsh, Scottish, etc. start requiring email clients to use PGP and requiring systems to use IPsec. Unfortunatly, I don't see this happening.

It's a shame the people who funded the IRA don't know how importent this stuff is. They could fund a perfectly legal little effort to make shure that no email traveling between Irishmen went unencrypted.

Not surprising.

[jcr]

This kind of thing is bound to happen in a country whose citizens have ceded their right to self-defense to their government.

I'm glad to live in a country that overthrew the king in 1776.

-jcr

Re:Not surprising.

[cyber-vandal]

And owning a gun would serve what purpose in this case? Damn trigger-happy Yanks.

It ain't about the paper.

[jcr]

People aren't free because of a constitution, they're free when they have both the will and the means to defend their freedom.

The Soviet constitution had all kinds of guarantees of human rights, too.

-jcr

Re:Thanks for the skript kiddies

[stalle]

Nah, hardly the Organised soccerviolence.
That's television/news agency's who arrange those things.

"Name reporting from City that we now fear that there will be a lot of violence here in the following weeks" ... and so on.

Ok, not entirely true, but the point is still there.

Re:hm....

[JamesO]

I remember a special that noted on many street corners in the UK, there are surveilance cameras guarding against criminal activity. There are, in fact, thousands of these cameras all around the Britain.

That's true, but it does give people most people a safer feeling, and its better than news helicopters...

Re:Stability?

[dschl]

Quite a lot, actually. And I think you can tell that the Slashdot population is predominantly young, unmarried, idealistic, and childless from their attitude towards this.
Married, cynical, almost have 2 kids (1.5 months to go). I love my son, but given the choice between freedom and death, I do not feel that life would be worth living in the type of society you could be complacent in. Don't forget the government and their social engineering, which appears to have worked on you. Just continue keeping your head down, swallowing injustice, avoiding conflict, and you won't even complain when they take your children away for not indoctrinating them with politically correct beliefs. By the time that happens (not too far away), you might even agree with them. BTW, this actually has happened to certain minority groups. Right now in Canada, we are facing bilions of dollars of lawsuits over residential schools in the 1950's, when the government took almost all of the native children away from their parents. Similar events will happen again.

Not if I haven't been stupid. If I do start doing stupid things, I start endangering everyone around me. And if one of my neighbors starts doing stupid things -- what right does he have to endanger me and my family?

Read what you wrote there. That leads to anarchy - ever heard of the rule of law? Working to enforce that, and defend the original intent of your awesomely crafted constitution (for those of you in the US - Canada's constitution is a pile of garbage without even basic property rights) is what you should be doing. Otherwise, what are you really doing for your children - Gee son, I'm really sorry that you live in a totalitarian police state, but I have successfully kept my head down the last twenty years

There is someone on Slashdot with a .sig that reads "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean everyone's not out to get you". Hey, why should we make cops get warrants? They wouldn't do ANYTHING stupid like break into a childrens birthday party and shoot the family dog on a drug raid (happened up here last year). Or go to the wrong house, shoot repeatedly at a dog being held back by it's owner, and narrowly miss a woman and her sleeping baby downstairs (happened around 2 years ago in the town where I live). You would just accept this as a part of life, and not even disagree with the police actions. Hopefully you will change your mind before they bust your door down.

Darren

Re:Where's the anti-US sentiment to go along with

[radja]

Have it your way. the UK sucks. PTOOOIEE!! yuck.. troll hair.. that'll teach me to bite..

//rdj

P.S. this is a UK thing, not a european thing.

Big Brother...

[gwicks]

...I don't know about RailTrack employees (unless your house is leased by Railtrack, as they do own a huge amount of land and property), but I know that Gas Board and Electricity Board employees have a right of access to your property to inspect their metering equipment, even if it's inside your house, but they have no right to 'forced' entry without your presence.

The police (and customs officers) do have the right to access to your house, but not to search it, without a warrent. Anything evidence found without a warrent would be inadmissable in court. Obviously this is rarely used without a senior officers approval.

Interestingly, if you say 'no' to a TV Licencing people then they will just send you a summons to go to court, to appear before a judge who can fine you upto £4000 and may even imprison you!

Apart from that, the UK's a great place to live, but the weathers crummy!

All spelling mistakes are my own and do not represent the mistakes of my employer.

Re:Big Brother...

[Nexus Seven]

Interestingly, if you say 'no' to a TV Licencing people then they will just send you a summons to go to court, to appear before a judge who can fine you upto £4000 and may even imprison you

It's normally pretty obvious who is watching TV illegally anyway. Subtract all households that have licenses from all households and bingo! (Assuming everyone owns a TV, VCR, tuner, which is pretty much accurate).

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[Stonehand]

Not to mention that you're hosed if you don't *have* the decrypted keys. Remember the prior story on the letter (w/ encrypted text attached) sent to Mr. Straw himself, pointing this out?

Guess he figures it won't be used against 'im, eh?

Opress minorities - my arse!!

[gadders]

The UK has a much better record than most other countries in protecting the rights of minorities. Ever heard of WWII?

Re:Opress minorities - my arse!!

[davstok]

Ever heard of WWII?

Do you really believe Britain fought in WWII to protect the rights of minorities??? They fought to protect the superior British way of life and their assets in the various countries around the world which they had conquered.

Re:Opress minorities - my arse!!

[davstok]

Strange I thought we went to war because Germany invaded Poland (a country well known for being a colony state of the UK!) ..

I guesss there's a distinction between the official reason and the political motivation.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[gadders]

The IRA are a bunch of gangsters using Irish Nationalism as an excuse to continue their drug pushing, protection rackets etc.

I would quite like to see the Irish, Welsh, Scottish etc start paying their own way in taxes instead of being subsidised by the English.

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[gadders]

We're subjects because we have a queen, I believe, not because we don't have a written consitution.

More obvious every time.....

[SolaRJetmaN]

Clarke stressed that "propaganda is needed" to re-educate the public about the provisions of the bill and asked the House with help in promoting "the interests of this country's businesses when the time comes."

He actually called it propaganda... Here's something I'll frame in the form of a question because I don't want to think about the answer. Since the internet is global, won't they be spying on communications from outside Britain that just happen to pass through British routers?

Proactive now ...

[Avoiderman]

Okay ... now what suggestions do you have for getting out the right information to enough UK people to make the whole thing useless to the government. The bill is already technically inept, and there are various routes around the system. Aside from encouraging everyone I know to use PGP (I do already), and sending spoof data about the place (minor effect). What is the simpest way for the (simple) home user to bypass this? ... We need an easy solution for enough people to take it up ... then at least the government might find it not worth the money, and quitely drop it....
};-{>

Re:Proactive now ...

[alexpage]

One of the provisions of the Bill is that it gives the police the power to demand that you hand over the decryption key to any message that they have, if they believe that you are in possession of it.

Actually, one of the amendments to the bill states that you can merely supply a plaintext decrypt of the information, rather than your own decrypt key.

Re:Proactive now ...

[Tim C]

Aside from encouraging everyone I know to use PGP

One of the provisions of the Bill is that it gives the police the power to demand that you hand over the decryption key to any message that they have, if they believe that you are in possession of it.

Refusal is not an option - that carries a 2 year prison sentence (just telling people that the demand was made carries a 5 year term) - and you have to prove that you don't have it (they don't have to prove that you do).

I won't bother telling you how difficult it is to prove that you don't have something (especially when that something is just a collection of bits)...

Cheers,

Tim

Hitler Should Have Just Waited

[cc_pirate]

Britain's turning into a fascist state anyway, it's just 60 years later than he'd planned. But seriously, do the people in Britain just not care about individual rights? It's just baby steps people... first guns, then this, then the next time you complain about the government you'll find yourself in jail.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Re:Hitler Should Have Just Waited

[chevron]

In England we do care about freedom, and the freedom that the internet should represent. But we also know that this is a technically inept Bill passed by a well-meaning but misinformed government.
Democracy works well here. If it is generally perceived as a silly Bill (and I think it already is in most quarters), then we (a) will carry on doing what we've always done; (b) will start a move with a future government to undo it.
Let's face it, if 65 million citizens do what the hell they like, what can the authorities do about it?

Bill Was Passed!

[voidzero]

Damn, what a "democracy" Britain is. Clueless, greedy, inept politicians fscking the sheep.
Projected costs of implementation according to this Register story are at least £20 million
</RANT>

Obstruct the doors
Cause delay
And be dangerous

Well that's what you get...

[Greyfox]

That's what you get for inbreeding your leaders for over a thousand years. You have the human equivalent of poodle dogs up there, with crusty eyes and big floppy ears and not much in the way of brains. But hey, they make great pets.

(Yes, I know it's been ages since the Royalty has actually been in charge of the government.)

Re:dont forget..

[stewart.hector]

CCTV is a very good idea... don't be so paranoid. Cuts crime on streets - attacks, muggings, so you feel more safe out on a night at 11pm, without being worried about walking down a street alone during the night. What is so bad about that.. it is only good. Too many people with (stupid) conspiracy theories..

Re:Fine with me

[paulydavis]

What are you going to do when the government says its bad too criticize us? Then they say the majority agrees now we will throw you in jail. Hay I (government) think those Jews are bad let's kill them. Oops this already happened. Let's not let it happen again. The "I am not a bad guy", argument," so who cares", is moral cowardice.

Re:My goodness, yes!

[Deosyne]

Once again, most Westerners take a stable nation for granted. You grossly underestimate the value of this privilege. Imagine living in Afghanistan. Or Sierra Leone. Or even Fiji.

Hmm, good point. I guess since things could be worse, we should just shut up and wait until things get worse than those places before we start speaking up. You've shown me the way, Steve; thanks buddy.

Deo

RIP ineffective already

[geoff lane]

RIP has already been shown to be ineffective and so pointless. As part of evidence presented during the consultation part of the bill various ways to avoid tapping were described. The current issue of New scientist also has a short article on legal ways around the rules.

A pointless act, pushed into existance by a government that is either stupid or just acting to maximise positive spin.

Feh

[Legion303]

The US sucks...the UK sucks...Canada is starting to look mighty tempting these days. Any Canadians want to share their thoughts on personal rights there?

-Legion

Re:Stability?

[dingbat_hp]

The state had better be engaged in a damn good deal of wrongdoing before you start acting up,

Your state (the US) used my state (the UK) as a bombing base for an illegal and immoral bombing raid on Libya, in an attempt to assassinate the legitimate ruler (You might not like the guy, but he's not your leader to complain about). The resultant escalation of revenge terrorism has endangered me personally.

Your state, the US, deposed and assassinated the legitimate leader of Chile, rendering friends of mine stateless refugees.

Just what does a state have to do before you recognise its actions as immoral ?

Re:Paranoid?

[cybercuzco]

hmm, when you said CCTV, I immediately thought of the chinese national news service CCTV-1 CCTV-2 etc. coincidence?

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[RickHunter]

Actually, I think it again comes down to individuals. I've heard quite a bit about judges who strike down legislation because it goes against the Bill of Rights. Not nearly as much as I've heard about judges that have enforced "illegal laws," but that just shows the kind of corruption you get, eh?

-RickHunter

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[belroth]

How safe do you think you'd really be there?
If the UK gov is into this sort of rubbish then starving Sealand into submission isn't going to worry them, after all with the internet connections cut and radio jammed who'd even now there was a blockade?

As a subject of Her Majesty I am depressed at the conduct of Her Government, I just wish it was practicable for her to refuse Royal Assent.
For you 'merkins that's sort of like your Prez signing, the difference being it's more of a rubber stamp - I'm not aware of the Royal assent not being given since the Civil War (Er, that's the 1640s, guys.)
----

Yes. And you only just saw this!

[Builder]

Riiiiggggghhhtt... So this is news now? Why wasn't this news when we were begging places like /. to post about it over the past several months? We've been trying to stop it. We've been writing our mp's. And no-one cared. Now that it's through suddenly everyone notices... Oh, look. The horse is gone... Better bolt that barn door. Arrrggghh! This makes me sick!

See http://www.penguinpowered.org.uk/stand if you want to see a letter from a member of parlaiment blatently admitting that the 'intercept regime' as she calls it is already in place! See the rest of her fob off. Then work out why we were scared !

Thanks for noticing. Now notice sooner next time please!

/* Wayne Pascoe

Re:Big Brother

[Builder]

No, this is what happens when large chunks of the community ignore the problem until it's too late. Had enough people mobilised early enough, then something could have been done. Organisations like stand did. Many of us did. I abused confidentiality and knowledge that my fiance had in order to harrass more important people about this.

This has nothing to do with lack of consitition. This has everything to do with lack of backbone!
/* Wayne Pascoe

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[hardcode]

Which is yet another reason this country needs a Bill of Rights or equivalent. All those people who forget the passwords for Word and Access documents, or like me have a zip disk that they can no longer access are now potential criminals.

Bah!

Hardcode

You can name your own salary here - I like to call mine Fred.

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[nematoad]

Wrong in at least one respect. Britain does have a constitution but it is unwritten. Unfortunately you are partly right in saying that the country gets the government that it deserves but to the best of my knowledge there was no manifesto promise to screw down ISPs with this appalling act of theirs. When you have a parliamentary majority the size of the one Blair has then you don't need to consider anyone you just bulldoze what ever you want through. I won't bite to the gratuitous insults but your post would have been a lot better balanced if you had not let your prejudice show quite so openly.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[perky]

Why do you think that everything should be sorted out with guns? Do you not think that perhaps after thousands of years of evolution, and the lessons learned of countless wars we should be able to sort thinks out without bloodshed?

Remember, the Brits don't want to kill people. The Irish don't want Northern Ireland. The majority of the Northern Irish don't want to be Irish (because it would make them sifgnificantly poorer in an instant, amongst other reasons). Almost everyone just wants to stop people getting killed. It is only a tiny fraction that insists on forcing their violence in everyone else's face (and their town centres, businesses, birthday parties and under their cars).

Oh, and you are incorrect about the loyalists in EIRE. Over 90% of the citizens of EIRE voted to withdraw the claim on NI. Maybe you could check some facts and realise that not everything requires guns and semtex.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[perky]

That's entirely correct.

Please could the Americans who think that the IRA are a bunch of lovely cuddly folk in green costumes sipping on Guiness and fighting a politically just fight for independence please read a bit of British news. The end does not justify the means, especially when it involves killing thousands of innocent civilians and ensuring that a generation grow up in terror.

The British government in times past made huge and indelible mistakes when dealing with Ireland, and I am not advocating that the history is a good thing. What I am saying is that over 50% of the population in Northern Ireland wants to stay British, most are ambivalent and just want the fighting to stop, and a bunch are republican. Britain would get rid of Northern Ireland in a shot if it could as it would get rid of the terrorist problem (called TERRORist for a reason, you know), and eliminate the need for the enormous amount of subsidy that the mainland gives to NI.

Basically, for the uninformed amongst the Americans) the situation is a little more complicated than "Just give it back", and the IRA (and the factions) are almost totally evil in nature. Please try to get to grips with the entire situation before commenting, and PLEASE stop giving them money.

Re:hm....

[gdr]

I remember a special that noted on many street corners in the UK, there are surveilance cameras guarding against criminal activity. There are, in fact, thousands of these cameras all around the Britain. I suppose this data-snooping is just another step in the general direction the UK, if not the world, is taking.

So are you suggesting that everybody should be prevented from photographing you if you are in a public place, or just goverment organisations?

It seems strange that you are happy for unelected journalists have more rights than the democratically elected government.

These cameras have help solved many serious crimes and to remove them to protect your (non-existant) privacy is crazy.

Do you really think that the government has the resources to watch all of these cameras and record even a small number of people's movements? Even if they could, would they be able to keep it secret? I doubt it. If this sort of monitoring did happen, it would come out and then the government of the time would suffer because of it.

At the moment almost all of the recordings of these cameras are never closely watched, only when a crime takes place are they examined. Until this changes I see no reason to remove them.

This isn't just a problem in the UK.

[Pogie]

Flame me if you hate my opinion, but...

We're talking about the internet, right? What if the hop time out of the west coast gets too high, and so your email to your buddy in Tokyo goes through a switch sitting in Croyden? I wonder: what's the usual route between Atlanta and Lisbon? What about companies doing international business, communicating with clients via email? All of a sudden, IMHO, England looks like a big horking packet sniffer for traffic between North America and Europe.

What do you more legal-minded types think of the international implications of this?

--Eric

Re:This isn't just a problem in the UK.

[Nexus Seven]

Its unlikely MI5 would take any interest in looking at packets from foreign countries to foreign countries. Although, its theoretically possible, its outside MI5's remit (although its arguable whether this would matter)

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[B'Trey]

Young, white, male, upwardly mobile English speakers are the majority in the net. Everybody else is a minority.

Technically, you're correct. Realistically, who cares? I have no way of knowing your true race, sex or religion. I can guess from your user name that you're of hispanic (or at least spanish speaking) descent. Of course, you could really be a 20 year old blonde-haired, blue- eyed female Swede; a 90 year old African Pygmy male or anything in between. But the only time it's an issue is when you bring it up.

BS. US culture is overwhelmingly predominant. If you are clueles about it, it will show, and people will notice.

So now everyone who isn't from the US is an oppressed minority on the Internet? Once again, so what if someone notices you aren't from the US? Does your email stop working? Do your comments on /. suddenly have a default moderation of -1? Do web pages stop working for your browser?

You should communicate with people with similar problems who have risen against them, and share your insights. I recommend that you consider the Inuits.

How do you know he isn't already in contact with them? And what does it matter here if he is? There might be a topic on /. where it's actually topical. If so, I'd be quite happy to hear it. For this topic, however, it doesn't matter at all. So why are you making such an issue of it? If you'd get the chip off your shoulder, you might find the world to be a pretty decent place in spite of its flaws.

Re:A proposal: Block the UK

[Nexus Seven]

Unfortunately, the current Labour government has such a large majority that it is out of touch with popular opinion.

I don't think anti-RIP feeling will ever get the popular backing that the anti-fuel tax movement has and the government continues to ignore that (more people drive than surf.)

I can't believe this government is remotely interested in the opinions of the voters, until of course a couple of weeks before the General Elections, when massive tax cuts will be on the table (for a month or two).

Re:from the people who

[Nexus Seven]

Although, if the "TV police" turn up on your doorstep, they aren't allowed access to your house. All they can do is ask "Have you got a TV?" and you say "no".

Interestingly, but OT, the only people that can enter your house in the UK, without search warrant, are Railtrack employees. (Railtrack is the company that runs British, err, rail track).

Re:from the people who

[Nexus Seven]

Or even a big stick. You can be arrested for carrying a cricket bat (seriously). Not sure if anyone ever has been, though.

Re:MI-5???

[Nexus Seven]

Are you forgetting MI-6? Or MI-7? (for bond fans).

Lots of life in the Mission Impossible franchise yet...

wowzers...

[purefizz]

track all data traffic passing through their computers and route it to the Government Technical Assistance Center (GTAC).

that does sound rather intrusive. does anybody know how encryption laws work in the UK? can somebody get a pgp-net going and still maintain some kind of protection at least internally on their network? I suppose there must be some kind laws about strong grade encrpytion.

kick some CAD

Re:wowzers...

[Calimus]

If I read the article correctly, then as long as some part of the network was in passed through the effected boundries, then MI5 would be able to gain access to all the keys. I'm gathering that from the statement shown by PSIX that they would ahve to mvoe their operation completly out of england.

Once this is actually in effect, it will be interesting to see if the Brittish internet market takes a large hit and becomes somewhat of a dirty little island that you venture to at your own risk.

Re:For Some Reason This Doesn't Surprise Me..

[Master Bait]

The sun has set on the Brits, that's for sure.

blessings,

Re:Stability?

[nlvp]

What is worth fighting for, and rabble-rousing, and upsetting the status quo? Or should we be complacent in the name of stability?

Any case in which the government has killed off large portions of the population. If they're not doing that, anything you could do would make things worse.

Woah.. hold on there! What are you saying? The only thing a government can do that is bad enough to warrant a political uprising (let alone the example used above, "rabble rousing and upsetting the status quo") is killing off large portions of the population?

If you can make a statement like that, there's nothing I can possible say or write to explain to you why it's so wrong. Examples are like quotes, too easy to pick apart on a detail, so I won't bother.

Re:Stability?

[nlvp]

The rule of law is exactly what I'm defending here.

Seems far more likely that they'd be coming to your door.

You're the kind of person who, in France, during the second world war, told the Germans that his next door neighbour was part of the resistance.

After all, the Germans were bringing "stability" and by that time the German army defined "status quo".

It takes courage, determination and belief to stand against an oppressive regime, whereas you seem to always side with whoever has the authority.

Re:Paranoid?

[smcleish]

I live in the UK, and in our local paper there was an account a couple of weeks back about a local school which had installed closed circuit TV in the toilets. So this view of things is not so far from reality.

Re:Fine with me

[GenCuster]

I am not worried that I will be scanned. I am not a brit and not that important. I am scared however, that someone who the government wants to scan will be. History shows that government surveillance almost always targets political enemies. That is not good. I have always been something of an anglophile, but I am truly sorry to see the freedoms the British hold so dear being taken away.

Re:Stability breeds lack of interest

[GenCuster]

Yet the british history lacks the kind of mass movements that defined other cultures. No hippies, no anti-war movement. I am not saying that brits don't vote, or aren't moved by issues. Simply the mass movements. Would cristianity have taken off in the UK today? I don't think so.

If the brits were so mass movement prone why have you not defeated this bill allready?

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[Uberminky]

I'm backing you, buddy! Screw karma, trolls go home!

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[ickle_matt]

Yeah - if you tell anyone you've divilged the keys then you can be jailed for 5 years...

The Act is sufficiently clueless that you are allowed to revoke your keys - you just can't tell anyone why...

Re:UK's E-mail Scan Is Avoidable

[KahunaBurger]

Let me see, if my neighbor is being threatened with a gun, I shouldn't feel so bad that I'm being threatened with just a knife. Gee, I feel so much better.

No one has the right to threaten you when you are doing nothing wrong. Law enforcment agencies do have the right to solve or prevent crimes through survelance, with the balance of protecting peoples rights. There is no comparison.

Please get some perspective.

-Kahuna Burger

Re:hm....

[fluxrad]

take away people's rights inch by inch and, in the long run, they won't know what the hell happened.

So are you suggesting that everybody should be prevented from photographing you if you are in a public place, or just goverment organisations?

neither. your argument is too black and white. These cameras, and the inet logging, are just plain infringements on public well being. To say something on the order of "well if the gov't can't take pictures, then no one should be allowed to" is just plain argumentative and has no basis in reality.

I'm sure that these cameras have helped solve many serious crimes...but my original point still stands. I would rather have freedom and insecurity than the knowledge that i'm safe because big brother is watching your and my every move. - when that happens we'll be just as unsafe as we were before.


FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network

Re:Those Brits...

[Smuttley]

You say Firearms prohibition like it's a bad thing. Hell I worry about guys with knives at night enough, I don't need to worry about being shot in the back for my shoes as well.

Re:Sounds to me like you're prejudiced...

[Grab]

Get real. Skinheads are folks with short (or shaven) hair. Neo-Nazis are folks who attack coloured people. Some Neo-Nazis are skinheads. Some skinheads are neo-Nazis. But not all skinheads are neo-Nazis, or vice versa. On a purely technical basis, Shaq and Magic Johnson would fit into the skinhead category!

To get back to the story - this is old news. The RIP bill has always been a problem, but since the government here has a huge majority, there was never any question that it would get passed. Every government comes up with crap laws sometimes - we just have to hope that the next lot will sort it out, or that the more ridiculous elements will be dropped, at least.

And I quote from the article: "Some opponents of the RIP bill are pointing out that the technology provided for in the bill is already out of date and fairly simple to circumvent." So hey - all we need to do is use PGP, and they're automatically screwed. ISPs will start setting up their configuration CDs so that they select encryption as standard, and that's that. Add in IPv6, and basically the British government's going to be SOL on spying. Ah well, sorry guys, ain't life a bitch...

Grab.

Re:Fine with me

[Grab]

Is this the same Plaid Cymru that went out and burned the houses of English folk who'd committed the heinous crime of buying a house in Wales? Great bunch of guys...

Grab.

Re:My goodness, yes!

[Grab]

Undermining the security of the state?! What, you mean those film-makers, playwrights and musicians? Hell, let's protect ourselves from them, we don't want ppl going around attacking each other with dangerous scripts... I'm sorry, but think 'sticks and stones'. If a society can't take ppl voicing their opinion, then it's not worth having. Think of the British Muslims declaring a fatwa against Rushdie, with their viewpoint of "We're entitled to our views, but we don't think you should be entitled to yours".

You seem to have forgotten that the ramp up in anti-Communist hysteria nearly caused nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. If the Russian president hadn't had the balls to see that it wasn't worth it, we'd all be toast. Headlines along the lines of "Russians lose their nerve", when in fact the Americans were being bloody stupid. Playing chicken is fine if you want to kill yourself, but playing chicken with the whole world is beyond any measure of insanity.

Grab.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[pallex]

not all skinheads are the same sort of skinheads that were around in the 70s - you get gay/non-idiot skinheads now!

stand.org.uk covers this

[pallex]

http://www.stand.org.uk/

Re:from the people who

[pallex]

Actually you can get arrested for having a knife on you too! Seriously!

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[BillGodfrey]

I'd rather not have a bill of rights written by Tony Blair or Jack Straw thankyouverymuch.

Citizens have the right ...... unless there are national security concerns, demands from tabloid newspapers or any other exception we happen to think of, no matter how stupid they may be.

oh please

[ArchieBunker]

Its not about spying on blacks or arabs. If you had that much control wouldn't *you* want to be able to spy on people? I sure as hell would. Typically minorities are lower income than everyone else, why would they most likely use a computer? Thats like tapping phones because of homeless people. Hows the gun riddled USA looking now? Pretty good I bet. The government wants everything nice and safe so you can't hurt yourself. England has to be the most anal country about everything. You need a license for this or some inspector must come invade your house without warning.

Re:oh please

[DreamMaster]

England has to be the most anal country about everything

Followed closely by Australia! ;-(

from the people who

[ArchieBunker]

Brought you cameras on every street corner and stoplight to look for possible criminals, and who have "tv police" who drive around searching for unlicensed tvs. BTW does a tv tuner card in your computer count? I'm waiting for the blunt object and pointy object police to start looking for knives that are too sharp or objects that are too heavy for the peoples' good.

Re:from the people who

[luckykaa]

A FOAF got stopped and questioned for having juggling clubs. She was even using the things for juggling!

Re:from the people who

[luckykaa]

Interestingly, but OT, the only people that can enter your house in the UK, without search warrant, are Railtrack employees. (Railtrack is the company that runs British, err, rail track)

Haven't heard that. Apparently customs can as well though.

Re:from the people who

[luckykaa]

Unless you use it professionally or religiously. Which seems to mean that if you happen to have a part time job as a butcher, there's nothing stopping you from carrying around a huge meat cleaver.

Or if you belong to the cult of the big vicious knife carriers, and its part of your religious clothing.

Re:from the people who

[BrianW]

Could be worse. CCTV cameras catch criminals. The "TV Police" are actually not police at all, but the TV licencing people (it's how the BBC is funded in this country). Yes, it's an offense to watch TV without a licence, but we get one of the world's best TV and radio services in return, without any adverts on it.

On the plus side, UK police aren't allowed to stop you on the street and demand to 'see some ID' or question what your business is, nor are you likely to get shot in this country.

And yes, a TV tuner card in a PC counts, as does a VCR. But you only need one licence for everything.

Re:dont forget..

[Zebbers]

thats exactly what I was thinking. Ive seen quite a few documentarys about that system. It's seek. They do photorecoginition with it. Spotting convicts in a crowd of people automagically. It has little use for prosecuting criminals or protecting(other than scare) citizens, since it's in the most public places as it is...where plenty of witnesses already are...and safety is relatively ok. So it mainly serves as badpeople-tracking. Might as well embed transmitters in everyone.

Re:dont forget..

[Zebbers]

disregard the stupid errors ;)

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[luckykaa]

It's exactly this sort of mindless stereotyping that has led to the other great piece of civil-liberties bashing legislation this month,

Yes. We really need some heavy changes, like making our legal system based on an assumption of innocence. Since the Criminal Justice act, this was seriously weakened. The Football Disorders Bill seems to give draconian powers to act against hooligans with little or no evidence at all.

Re:Fine with me

[luckykaa]

It doesn't even need to be encrypted kiddie porn. It could just be a holiday snap that he accidentally encrypted. It might even be possible that its random data that got corrupted somewhere that looks like it could have been encrypted.

Re:Big Brother

[OAB]

The UK does have a Bill of Rights, its just very very very out of date.

Re: My goodness, yes!

[The-Bus]

They were undermining the stability of the state, a charge that most Westerners greatly underestimate the importance of. True, theese people were charged for the wrong thing, but those were trying times for the American nation, and unruly groups causing chaos and unrest were the last thing it needed.

Yes, I'm sure McCarthy went after a bunch of... Hollywood stars! They're threatening! You seem to forget that McCarthyism is a Bad Thing (tm). Not only is it a Bad Thing (tm), McCarthy himself was just an old, bitter, alcoholic man who used the citizen's fear of 'The Red Menace' to carry out some personal vendettas.

And if you ask me, a little "instability" in the American populace is always good. It means we're on our toes.

R.I.P.

[Rylfaeth]

"Among other provisions, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) bill requires Internet service providers in the U.K. "

Hrmm...It's appropriately titled: R.I.P. to the rights of citizens of the UK!
-Rylfaeth

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[takemiya]

The net is not a political body; it cannot grant rights. There is no such thing as "freedom of speech in the net"; there is only freedom of speech in legitimate political bodies.

Rights do not come from political bodies, legitimate or otherwise. Governments do not give people rights. If there is one idea of the past two thousand years that deserves to be remembered, it is that rights are inherent and innate to all people.

For those who still don't believe in Echelon

[Remote]

In ever more Western democracies, governments seem to be intent on limiting people from having access to encryption and electronic privacy. The United States has Carnivore watching its people with Echelon watching the world; the United Kingdom has Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill; and Australia now has The Telecommunications (Interception) Legislation Amendment Bill.

If you adjust one thing in this paragraph the whole scheme makes a lot of sense: Echelon is not an U.S.-only program, rather a multinational initiative conceived by these very countries you mention, and others. And Echelon predates theses national laws by a few years.

What I read from this is that Echelon has actually produced interesting material, but this material cannot be used as evidence, given its illegal nature. So, these bills are enacted so as to allow for legal evidence collection; law enforcement agencies probably know who to look after already.

Re:Improvements and Martin Luther King jr.

[blirp]

These people were simply figureheads for movements that represented changes caused by external pressures.

I don't see how that matters. No matter who had the real power, these people were unjustly prosecuted by their governments for wanting to make a change. The change has been for the better and was probably ethically correct in all three instances. Summing up: they were not doing anything 'wrong', but were still a target for harassment by the official government.

The dictatorships would be doing it anyway.

Obviously, but the 'world community' cannot claim the policy is oppressing the people of the dictatorship. We're doing the excact same thing here in the good ol' west.

M.

Re:Improvements and Martin Luther King jr.

[blirp]

Sure, these people had good intentions, but what is the road to hell paved with?

I selected my examples for a reason. And, as I said, I believe the act of change was for the better as well as ethically correct. These people had, in other words, more than good intentions.

Dictators can often be far more reasonable than any Western government. They're usually less hypocritical, at least.

This is, of course, absolutely ludicrous. Dictatorship is based on fear, each and everyone is afraid of doing anything the dictator doesn't like. That be intentional or unintentional, or even something somebody believes the dictator doesn't like.

M.

Improvements and Martin Luther King jr.

[blirp]

Sigh. You really have no concept of the real world, do you? The state had better be engaged in a damn good deal of wrongdoing before you start acting up, because chances are you'd make matters much worse in the process of trying to "improve" things.

It's been noted before in this thread, but add Martin Luther King jr. to your thinking, and it would indicate you're wrong.

The same would probably go for Nelson Mandela, Steven Biko and Mahatma Gandhi.

Also remember that when a 'civilized' country like GB can do it, it makes it so much easier for dictatorships to do the same ("See, the EU is doing it, why can't I?")

M.

Re:Improvements and Martin Luther King jr.

[Steve Richards]

It's been noted before in this thread, but add Martin Luther King jr. to your thinking, and it would indicate you're wrong.

The same would probably go for Nelson Mandela, Steven Biko and Mahatma Gandhi.

These people were simply figureheads for movements that represented changes caused by external pressures. (Colonialism falling out of favor, external economic pressures, international ostracism, desire not to be compared to Nazi Germany, etc.) They had no real power.

Also remember that when a 'civilized' country like GB can do it, it makes it so much easier for dictatorships to do the same.

The dictatorships would be doing it anyway.

Re:Improvements and Martin Luther King jr.

[Steve Richards]

No matter who had the real power, these people were unjustly prosecuted by their governments for wanting to make a change. The change has been for the better and was probably ethically correct in all three instances.

Sure, these people had good intentions, but what is the road to hell paved with? While they may have wanted to do the right thing, the only end result of their actions was the undermining of the people's respect for the government. This respect is absolutely crucial to maintaining any kind of non-dysfunctional state.

Obviously, but the 'world community' cannot claim the policy is oppressing the people of the dictatorship. We're doing the excact same thing here in the good ol' west.

Dictators can often be far more reasonable than any Western government. They're usually less hypocritical, at least.

Re:Improvements and Martin Luther King jr.

[Steve Richards]

Yes, but how much respect are these people going to have in their government after whatever their issue was has been resolved? Will they have any faith whatsoever left in their officials?

If so, the nation is lucky. If not, it had better hope that it gets a leader with the resolve necessary to win back the people's trust.

I'd support them all the way even if they'd make their governments collapse totally.

And how many innocents would you starve during the ensuing chaos?

Re:Improvements and Martin Luther King jr.

[crulx]

It's been noted before in this thread, but add Martin Luther King jr. to your thinking, and it would indicate you're wrong. The same would probably go for Nelson Mandela, Steven Biko and Mahatma Gandhi.

These people were simply figureheads for movements that represented changes caused by external pressures. (Colonialism falling out of favor, external economic pressures, international ostracism, desire not to be compared to Nazi Germany, etc.) They had no real power.

You dramaticaly understate the complexity of "real power". Power, simply defined, is the ability to get your way. These people believed in something that did not exist in their world. The made changes and comitments in their lives that very much affected the real world. Gandhi exerted enormous power. Enough to change the government of an entire nation. That other people believed in him and his goals (and thus exerted the "external pressure") is a fact of human nature. Power is amplified by others following you, true. But to say Ghandi only wielded "fake power" and yet let a movement to free a nation means that we would have to throw out every rational definition of power. Would colonialism have been abandoned eventually? Yes, but on a much different timescale than Ghandi wanted and achieved.

Do this for me, go on a hunger strike for a cause you believe and see who listens to you. Ghandi could stop eating and national borders would change. You tell me who has real power.

Also remember that when a 'civilized' country like GB can do it, it makes it so much easier for dictatorships to do the same.

The dictatorships would be doing it anyway.

I will agree with your point here. Dictators do do this. Making it "easier for them to do it" is not an argument for or against these sorts of behaviors.

But if these behaviors are wrong, then it does not matter who does them. They are wrong nevertheless. I'm responding to another one of your posts on that issue.

--- Crulx crulx@iaxs.net

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[rifter]

I was not aware that being a nazi was illegal in germany. It is not apparent given all the nazi demonstrations that go on there.

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[rifter]

Suppose im starting a cult or sect or whatever tomorrow and call it "the followers of satan".

Interesting that you bring that up, given that the Church of Satan is a fully recognized religion in the US.

Does this make me the leader of a religion? No. Simply because religions tend to have a history (sometimes of a few thousand years).

I bet that is what they told Jesus, too. And Martin Luther, and Joeseph Smith... Buddha, anyone? Mohammed? The point is that in the US the wording of our constitution dictates that the government has NO RIGHT to distinguish what is and is not a religion. This law is not always evenly applied, but that is its spirit. Once you can say that a religion is not an "official" religion, you are establishing what religions are legal and what are not, thus serving to establish a state religion. This is the opposite of freedom of religion.

In the US the Scientologists won their case against the IRS (who had revoked their tax-free status) on these grounds. Yes, I agree that they are in a grey area because Scientology could be argued to be a business (they sell books and training). But then so could Catholicism and any number of other religions.

As for harassing members who leave, the scientologists have certainly not cornered the market on that. Most mainstream churches will send letters, call, perhaps even visit members who are notably absent. In the Scientologists case, my understanding is that they are more diligent in cases where a member is in arrears for books and equipment, or has otherwise formed contractual obligations which are now unfulfilled.

Weeding out religions is religious discrimination, more expected in a repressive nation like china (which has outlawed IIRC every religion) than in a supposedly free nation like Germany.

Re:Fine with me

[AjR]

It was recently revealed that Plaid Cymru (a political party campaigning for the right of the Welsh to self-government) has been spied on by the UK govt for most of the latter part of the last century (1950-).

As a member, that worries me, and goes back to the previous post - when your views do not coincide with that of the government, who watches the watchers?

Technically I am an eneny of the state (as long as I can be Gene Hackman;-) ) in that I wish to see a new form of government here....

We all need to watch our backs because we are all guilty in the eyes of the paranoid

Re:Fine with me

[AjR]

As the man below me said,

NO

Research facts before engaging brain in gear next time, oh btw nice attempt at a troll.

An interesting link

[PolyDwarf]

Here's a link with an idea as to how this bill got put through.. Yes, it's the Register, but it makes some amount of sense.

Re:Fine with me

[Kryptonomic]

I agree with your post, but would like to comment on this bit:

I am not a brit and not that important.

The point is never whether one is important or not to the authorities. If conducting surveillance on everyone would be effortless enough, like it soon will be, you can bet it would be done. More and more examples are emerging of "preventive" acts of crime fighting where the guilt is assumed. Take mandatory drug tests at work and schools, for instance. Spying on the population would be quite a logical step, when you think that: eavesdropping criminals is an effective way of preventing crime and most of the crimes are commited by our own citizens therefore let us eavesdrop on citizens.

The public would never accept it, you say? Well, let's see. There are people, as you can see even from this thread, who are quite willing to give away their rights for being safe. One poster said that as long as the government is not commiting mass murders, people should accept new restrictions on their lives. If the public already has this kind of mentality, all you have to do then is to convince the public that the crime, for instance, is getting out of hand, and that drastic measures are needed:

"Yes, it is unfortunate that we have to read everybody's e-mail and prohibit cryptography in order to be able to stump out crime, but it's all for your own good. That's the only way we can guarantee your safety. Everything else we might learn will be kept strictly confidental, of course" (delivered by a slimy, patronising voice with a posh accent)

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[demon-cw]

I dont get this. Every time someone writes something about political or religious groups being outlawed they refer to Scientology and Germany. Normally i would think any group which is seen as a danger by most of the population of a country is supposed to be outlawed (like nazis, drug dealers..). In Germany we don`t think of Scientology as a religion. It`s seen more like sect with radical tendencies. And since most of the germans think like this i think its quiet o.k to outlaw them. And please i dontn need no "germans are nazis" reply to this one. In the US. everyone has the right to express his own view, which is fine for me but thats why you have so many extremistic cults/rassists/terrorists and so on.

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[demon-cw]

As i said before we view them as a sect. Maybe i have to put it like this:
Suppose im starting a cult or sect or whatever tomorrow and call it "the followers of satan". Since i might not be the only one who likes to - say, rape maidens at full or something like that, i might find some followers. Does this make me the leader of a religion? No. Simply because religions tend to have a history (sometimes of a few thousand years).
Im not denying someones rights to express his own belive in public but Scientology simply is not a religion per definition.
And thats it. In Germany religions have special rights. They get Taxes from their followers and dont have to pay taxes themself. Thats why Scientology is "outlawed" as a sect... Because the typical german John Doe doesn`t want to assist a sect with his tax-money. And they are viewed quiet closely by the german police because the tend to suppress their members. Did you know that the german chapter of S. is terrorising former members (by telefone) after they left?
You have to distinguish between sects (or cults) and religions.

Re:Stability breeds lack of interest

[wdavies]

Patently absurb...

Remember the British Poll Tax ? Thatcher does, that's why she's not in power any more...

Winton

Propaganda

[Dyolf Knip]

Clarke stressed that "propaganda is needed" to re-educate the public about the provisions of the bill

Oh I'm sure. And it just sounds _so_ reasonable when you say it like that.

Christ, I don't think he could have made it sound more Big Brother-ish even if he'd tried.

--

Already Happening

[Vantage]

Am I wrong in asuming that they were already monitoring E-Mail. All this seams to be is an atempt to make you hand over your encryption key. Which " in line with a previous post " I believe would be like making you testify against yourself.

Therefore illegal.

It shouldn't be that hard a fight to win that any key you give will be handing out info about yourself.

I think if Orwell was around,

[AntiPasto]

he'd say I told you so.

----

Re:I think if Orwell was around,

[Vuarnet]

he'd say I told you so.
Doubleplusgood point.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[jrc313]

"I would quite like to see the Irish, Welsh, Scottish etc start paying their own way in taxes instead of being subsidised by the English."

WTF! England make a huge profit from the oil in the north sea, and the english fishing boundaries which stretch well into scottish waters.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[zerojinx]

The tipping-off offence just crowns it really. Say you're made to surrender your private key and not allowed to tell anyone about it. The next day you're called into court for something totally unrelated. You're asked whether you've submitted your private key or not... You either say yes and go down for 5 years ala RIP, or you say no and go down for perjury, or you don't say anything and go down for contempt of court... either way it stinks.

Re:Rumour Control on the RIP Act

[pyrotic]

There's also the fact that ISP have to pay for whatever kit is to be intalled. Hmmm, 4 more rack units, another leased line. They've said the govt. may "at the discretion of the sec. of state" provide financial assistance, then again, they may not.

Goverment leaks and encryption

[Avalonia]

Surely all those embarrassing goverment leaks over the past couple of weeks from TB and his buddies could have been easily avoided if their memos were sent using signed, encrypted e-mail. If only they used the technology they are trying to stop, they could prevent themselves a huge amount of embarrassment and adverse publicty!

Data going through UK servers...

[RobHornick]

Does this mean that if I'm accessing material over the internet, and data goes through a server in the U.K., then they can legally monitor anything I sent, and demand data from the ISP whose servers it traveled through? Or if I encode something and send it to someone in the U.K. then they could legally be forced to turn over the key? This bill (and Carnivore) have serious implications for international law.

Re:Data going through UK servers...

[chevron]

Yes, it does mean both those things, exactly.
However, the reason most people don't seem to be losing any sleep over it is the practicalities. Can any government-based authority actually manage to monitor and interpret, in context, that quantity of electronic data? Of course not, especially in the UK where we're fairly cash-strapped.
Secondly, no-one can prove whether or not an offered-up chunk of plaintext data was /actually/ equivalent to a chunk of encrypted data which aroused suspicion. In other words, its a ludicrously unenforcable piece of drafting.

And so it begins...

[FrostedWheat]

From TheStandard.com: Clarke stressed that "propaganda is needed" to re-educate the public

Ah man! This is like something straight out of Babylon 5! Did JMS secretly right this article??!

Ouch!

[leo.howell]

Well I'm moving to the US as soon as possible... I wonder if 90% of the British population emigrated the government would rethink?

Girls who do boys like their girls......

[ukscott]

So America has Carnivore and the United Kingdom has RIP.
American spooks really love UK spooks and now have the 'luxury' of reading each others internet traffic. No judge/security minister/any-other-public-figure needed as its a foriegn government. This bill allows the government to walk in, setup the infrastructure, then allow secret government(!?) bodies access.

Took a while to pick up this story.

[Didel]

go look at the register.co.uk, they've been covering this for weeks if not months.

-Didel, who misses his kuro5hin, dammit.

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[^_^x]

I couldn't agree with you more on this, and if you hadn't submitted that quote from Phil Zimmerman, I would have, because it was the first thing to come to mind.

I can't believe that my most paranoid friend, a total free-thinker who wouldn't buy into government lines, who often informs me about things like Project MKULTRA, etc... STILL won't use PGP because although he made a public key for himself once, it expired, and he just couldn't be bothered to make a new one!

It's actually almost surreal, because most of the time he's sure that no matter how insignificant his communications are, they're being monitored by something. (Eschelon, Carnivore, some random kid with a packet sniffer, etc...)

keys to browser encryption

[wytcld]

Does the British law have any provision browser-based communications? It's simple enough to set up Apache-SSL and set up something like Phorum to exchange messages - have your discussion, nuke the messages, and run the whole thing through strong encryption. And if someone knocks on the door asking for the key to something they'd intercepted - what key? Sure, there was one, but is it saved anywhere?

Pure government naivety

[chevron]

I'm English and work in the public sector (i.e. a State employee) so can comment on the way IT happens over here. The government and in particular the Home Office have never understood computing at all well. They're poor at preparing offer documents and statements of requirements. And equally poor at vetting bids. They use a motley collection of technology themselves, much of which is out of date, not well set-up, and insecure. Its the same in the Health Service and anywhere that is state-run. Most large public-sector IT projects fail, and often involve companies either overcharging, or else the govt. picks the cheapest bid, which was put in by an incompetent company. What I think this is, is a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that /some/ crime and terrorism has made use of the net. Child pornography is a hot topic at present; in the past its been silly things like youngsters or students writing up "How to make explosives" etc. Obviously no criminal worth his salt would use the net without strong encryption. Because its a knee-jerk, they are currently also blinkered. If I was a child porn merchant, I'd just send stuff through the mail on a 2-GB Jaz cartridge or cdroms. Or use a courier, which avoids the statutory offence of sending porn by post. But they've forgotten about these other means. In demanding that traffic routes via MI5, they literally don't have a clue how that would happen. The necessary cabling isn't in place, hasn't been budgeted or funded. The massive computing faclilities that the MI5 would require also don't exist and can't be paid for. It is a Bill based entirely on ignorance and lack of understanding. The additional Police powers WILL be used in some instances of targetting, but it will be nothing like a general scan of all net traffic. As a matter of principle, there might be some people who would be willing to take a 2-year "lie-down" for the privilege of thumbing their nose at the authorities? Someone unprepared to accept Clink will hand over some other plaintext, and claim that it was the message.

Nah. To get in touch with public opinion.

[chevron]

Its Tony, he just thinks there's a risk he's losing touch, and wants to find out what ordinary people think. You know, steal a few Word memos to read.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[plumby]

Have you noticed how many skinheads are there in London?

Skinheads? Is it a crime to have your hair cut short now? It's exactly this sort of mindless stereotyping that has led to the other great piece of civil-liberties bashing legislation this month, The Football (Disorder) Bill.

The government (with collusion from the mainstream media) is doing a great job of frightening the general public with scare stories for a few months and then bringing in heavy handed legislation to "fix" the problem, talking another chunk of civil liberties with it.

I'm not trying to claim that racism doesn't happen, but that not all skinheads are racist or all racists skinheads. In the same way that (back on topic) not all people who have a very good reason for using encryption, or who are unable to decrypt it for the authorities, are criminals.

Don't go playing into their broad-brush stereotyping.

Re:Hasn't passed yet...

[plumby]

True, the headline is misleading, but it passed through the commons at 8pm on Wed(26th), with a grand total of 30 MPs and no vote (as far as I can tell from Hansard).

It is now only waiting for Royal Assent (and I can't see the Queen deciding to throw it out). It will almost certainly become law before November.

Re:dont forget..

[BrianW]

hospital bill

That's ok, we have the NHS... (and it's actually not that bad)

Re:hm....

[BrianW]

I would rather have freedom and insecurity than the knowledge that i'm safe because big brother is watching your and my every move.

Without splitting hairs on whether or not a CCTV camera consists of a lack of freedom, the view of the majority of the people in the UK is that CCTV makes the streets safer.

a quick question for Steve Richards

[SomePoorSchmuck]

Any case in which the government has killed off large portions of the population. If they're not doing that, anything you could do would make things worse.

back when i was in high school we had "values clarification" where we were asked to think about and discuss situations like the Lifeboat Scenario in which you have seven passengers trying to take refuge on a lifeboat that only seats four -- we had to decide whether to leave the 80-year-old man to drown in order to save the 25-year-old pregnant woman and etc.

In that same vein, I wonder how many people would have to die in order to be a "large portion of the population":
5?
30?
273?
5,309?
144,000?
273,000,000?
7,134,258,000?
I believe it was historian Howard Zinn who made the obvious point that nobody ever consults those people to be sacrificed on the altar of Destiny as to whether they are willing to so serve.

Still, I admit that I find your arguments compelling (and very well put, you have a good "typing voice"). The principle of Scarcity seems to apply to any known dynamic system, and we may not be able to insure both uncompromised Freedom and the long-term stability of that Freedom. Therefore, we must carefully allocate our political concepts of Powers of Government (to protect us against bad people) and Rights of People (to protect us against bad government) in a sensible manner.
But what is the scale we should use to strike just the right balance?
What method would you have us use to decide how many People's rights can be violated before we institue a corresponding limitation of the government?

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about the notorious american placement of individual whims over the good of society at large, and I'm still stuck on this one idea:
Though official documents frame rights in the sense of belonging to and benefitting "the People", there are no rights in the aggregate.

Casually-Formally stated:
Definition: "There exists a set {thePeople} whose elements have properties according to the set {Liberties}, i.e. X is an element of {thePeople} implies that X has properties defined by {Rights}.
If we take an arbitrary member, JohnQPublic of {the People} and disallow its Rights then our whole assumption of the innate-quality of Human rights becomes false (T->F). And since we picked an arbitrary element, then ALL elements from set {thePeople} produce a negative truth value for the implication "x is an element of {thePeople} means that x has {Rights}"

Clearly, all rights are inherently individual rights. This is the irreducible concept upon which the American democratic system depends.

It still seems absurd to run off chasing one's own Moral Inviolability a la Atlas Shrugged. But what made Dagney Taggart bearable was that the other characters were drawn as incompetent, destructive and oppressive, so that her choices became progressively narrow, until eventually she chose to place her self-interest irrevocably above the "social good".
In my opinion, this "aneristic effect" is exactly what the UK law promotes and so to an extent it justifies even more effort by individuals to protect themselves from the given systems of power.


the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties.

Re:why encryption is taking so long

[jesterzog]

I see your point then. (As in training people.)

Having thought about it, it would at least make more sense to warn on hitting the submit button instead of on entering a secure session. It's the detail transmission itself that the user would need to be warned about, not simply entering a secure session.

It should be able to be a flawless transition for websites to go from unencrypted to secure sessions irrespective of whether obviously personal details are being transmitted back. Instead they can't do it cleanly because the browsers pop up automatic dialog boxes when they don't really have to.

===

What about....

[SlashGeek]

traffic that comes from outside the UK? Say for example, that I am in the US, and sending a mail to someone in Japan. Now, say that the mail has to get routed through a UK server, does this bill permit them to read it, even though it wasn't generated or terminated in the UK? The article did say ALL traffic sent through their servers. And what about mail terminating in the UK but from some other country? Or is it only mail originating in the UK? This could be a very dangerous international example, many govornments use programs from other govornments as examples and models for their own. If this works in the UK, it might not be far behind that the USA and any other country for that matter adopts a similar law. We should all keep a close eye on what the outcome of this is, you can bet that your gov't is.

dont forget..

[fonebone]

this is coming from a country which has surveillance cameras placed everywhere on the streets, something called closed circuit television (or cctv). the police use this to monitor all the streets and respond, something that feels like it's straight out of 1984.

but there is a big distinction between public streets and private homes/internet. well, i suppose that's the whole point, they don't want the internet to be considered private. they're scared.

--

Re:UK's E-mail Scan Is Avoidable

[linzeal]

what's actually inside the little black boxes

How many years, months, or days will it take a group or an individual to find out how these boxes work and post information about them ?

If they are going to install these at all the ISP's in the country, how long will it take for one sysadmin to leave the door open long enough for a PFY to get his hands on one of these things?

They take extreme risks putting these in the public domain...

Customs & Excise can as well

[Jon Erikson]

Unlike the police the customs people don't need a license and can enter your home whenever they feel like it. Interestingly enough the Fedaration Against Software Theft (FAST) (IIRC) were extended the same priviliges a while back, even though they weren't officially part of the C&E.

---
Jon E. Erikson

Re:Stability?

[Dedman]

Just a note on that stability that your mentioning.

Indonesia has been very stable until recently.
It was also a dictatorship with severe human rights violations.

Cuba is still a stable dictatorship, despite efforts to destablise it.

The Peoples republic of China and the USSR were both stable for a long time.

Stability != freedom || higher quality of life

_____
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------Dedman

It's just a formalisation.

[mollymoo]

I noted with amusement (but no surprise) the constant jibes from Americans about how great and free their country is, and how this could never happen there.

Bollocks.

I've no doubt it's happening there as we speak. And here. And in France and Germany and Japan and any other techo-literate country.

The reason the law exists is so that the information gathered can be used in court cases. They're going to gather it anyway, at least here in the UK they're polite enough to let us know rather than allow people to live under the dillusion that they live in a free country.

To anyone who thinks I'm a paranoid conspiracy theorist think about this:

Secret services (be they the FBI or CIA or MI6 or Mossad...) hire fucking clever people. The cleverest they can get. They give them obscene ammounts of money and all the kit they need. They know how to do it. They have they kit to do it. They're rather good at keeping things secret.

Whatever makes you think they *wouldn't* do it? Some poxy consitiution? Ha!
--

Re:It's just a formalisation.

[trashdot]

fuckwit

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Nobody is a minority on the internet.

Young, white, male, upwardly mobile English speakers are the majority in the net. Everybody else is a minority.

The internet is blind.

BS. US culture is overwhelmingly predominant. If you are clueles about it, it will show, and people will notice.

Nobody knows I'm an oppressed Lapp Ethnic Minority. Nobody cares that MyPeoples lost their timber rights to the Scandinavian lumber barons. We've been oppressed for centuries!

You should communicate with people with similar problems who have risen against them, and share your insights. I recommend that you consider the Inuits.

To spy on minorities, of course

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

The UK has a long history of oppressing minorities within their territory, like the Irish. Now they want surely want to go after the many Arabs and Africans that have gone to their country.

This only shows further lie to the slasbot g**ks' idealistic crap about "freedom of speech" in the internet. Bullshit. The net is not a political body; it cannot grant rights. There is no such thing as "freedom of speech in the net"; there is only freedom of speech in legitimate political bodies.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

What is it precisely that you disagree with in the content of my post, but lack arguments agains, that you label it, in true slashbot fashion, a troll?

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

I failed to see any mention of minorities in the article. So where did _that_ come from?

Reality. Have you noticed how many skinheads are there in London? And how little is done against them?

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Your point being? Would you like to see the UK Government spy on them so they dont harrass minorities?

Where do you get these ideas from? Since nothing I've said remotely suggests this, it must be *your* idea. Tells us a lot about you, doesn't it?

I dont suppose the skinheads meet in chat rooms in order to go out and kick some minority ass in the streets.

If all of us were so innocent, this world might be a better place.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[91degrees]

I failed to see any mention of minorities in the article. So where did _that_ come from?

Reality. Have you noticed how many skinheads are there in London? And how little is done against them?

I haven't. So what should be done about them, and where were they mentioned in the article?

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[Vuarnet]

Reality. Have you noticed how many skinheads are there in London?

Not over the Internet I haven't. But then, I dont have one of them CU-SeeMe thingies. For all I know, the people on the other side of the cable may be skinheads, Oasis followers, old gentlemanly chaps or Douglas Adams fans. Or even yet, all of the above.

And how little is done against them?

Your point being? Would you like to see the UK Government spy on them so they dont harrass minorities? Or are you against the use of espionage against any kind of minority, including skinheads? I dont suppose the skinheads meet in chat rooms in order to go out and kick some minority ass in the streets.

Maybe I should stay out of this discussion, considering I have only been to London once.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[Vuarnet]

Ok, I'll bite.

I failed to see any mention of minorities in the article. So where did _that_ come from?

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[Vuarnet]

Well, you started this skinhead thing. And from where I see it, the point of your mentioning must mean:
a) You're in favor of the government spying on them,
b) You're against the government spying on them, or
c) They have absolutely nothing to do with this discussion, but they must be related to anything that has to do with the U.K.

You brought them up. You tell me where they fit in this discussion about Internet privacy in the U.K. And, by the way, where do I get my ideas from? In your own words, "Reality".

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[voronoi]

Don't you think the UK Government would if they could? NI is huge financial liability, and the cost in lives is incalculable. The UK govt are dammed if they do let NI go (the "loyalists" bomb London) and dammed if they don't (the republicans bomb London). Personally I wouldn't mind seeing Scotland leave the union, as long as they take northern Ireland with them (the unionists are of Scottish descent after all). BTW there is more to history than a Mel Gibson movie. Irish (or Celtic) warlords have been fighting each other for thousands of years, the current conflict is just the latest manifestation.

Re:To spy on minorities, of course

[iridium_fish]

oh pluueeze! as someone who has lived in Northern Ireland all my life, and suffered in terrorist attacks, will you please lose this romantic vision of minorities fighting for equality. I have the freedom to walk down my street without fear of being shot at, and if that means that the government are going to listen in on a few emails, then so be it. Just think of all the crap they'll have to wade through first...

Re:Sounds to me like you're prejudiced...

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

What's wrong with skinheads?

Oh, nothing. I guess all the times I've had to run because they were going to beat me up and they've thrown bottles at me is because there's something wrong with me.

Re:You're such an ethnocentrist.

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

It's spelled Martí, you moron.

Yeah, this post has no content. Sorry. Parent had no content, so that's all there's to say.

I can't believe this...

[Fryed]

I simply cannot believe this. Admittedly, I'm not British, and I don't understand how their political system works, but it amazes me that something like this would get passed anywhere outside China.

Too me, the scariest part is, what if the FBI, after seeing this, decides Carnivore just isn't enough now, and wants power similar (or even greater) than this. Would we be able to stop them? Is it possible that even though we've been warned this could happen, that even though we've been warned that if we don't watch out, government will take more power than it should have, we are still powerless to stop Big Brother from becoming reality?

the law suffers primarily from a perception problem caused mainly by alarmist reports in the media.

Sometimes the media seems alarmist because there's something we need to be alarmed about.

Re:For Some Reason This Doesn't Surprise Me..

[91degrees]

We do not drive on the wrong side of the road. We just never changed over. All of Europe passed on the left, until Napoleon decreed that they must drive on the right, just to be different. He then made sure that all his conquests also drove on the right.

Most other countries decided to drive on the right just to be different from us.

Since England was never conquered by France, we were never forced to switch.

And fortunately the cameras don't seem to be getting too common since the don't actually work. And I miss my guns, but it was just a toy that I'd rather go without than see a single person shot, since I think being killed by a psycho with a gun is infringeing on people rights more than being refused to be allowed a gun.

Fine with me

[vertical-limit]

Let's face it -- the people most likely to be affected by this kind of surveillance are the people who are doing bad stuff to begin with. And, I'm sorry, but if you're a child pornographer or a script kiddies, then you shouldn't be on the Internet to begin with.

Do you really honestly think the government cares about your dentist's appointment or your stupid chain letters? No, they're out after the warez monkeys and the international terrorists -- the kind of people we're better off without anyway.

It's nice to think that you're important, but I don't think anyone reading Slashdot is important enough that the government would want to read through his or her e-mail. The only people who have anything to fear from this are those are who going to get busted by it. The simple answer: Don't get busted.

Who said I lived in the United States?

[vertical-limit]

Sounds like you're the Amero-centric one here.

Sounds to me like you're prejudiced...

[severn2j]

What's wrong with skinheads? Do you think they should be arrested for having short hair? This isn't Romper Stomper you know. I mean the government decides it's going to spy on it's people and you have to go and make a race issue out it. With people like you out there it's no wonder there's so much racism in the world...

UK Media Must Not Have The Right Spin

[TOTKChief]

Clarke stressed that "propaganda is needed" to re-educate the public about the provisions of the bill and asked the House with help in promoting "the interests of this country's businesses when the time comes."

Funny . . . whenever a liberal government in America wants to have its issues understood by the populace, they turn to the best propoganda machine in America -- the American mainstream news media.

--
<><

Re:wonder if havenco ever came up in the discussio

[alexpage]

While HavenCo. and Sealand must insist that they are a sovereign country/principality/whatever, a number of people expressed the opinion (which I tend to agree with) that Sealand's status is only uncertain because Britain hasn't yet felt compelled enough to push the issue (the shots fired off Sealand notwithstanding).

ISTR that the British Government, shortly after the foundation of HavenCo, issued a statement that Sealand is actually not an independent state, that their UDI (Universal Declaration of Independence) is invalid and they are still considered British territory... I haven't heard anything since.

Then again, UDIs are easy. Keele University once signed a UDI for a day (ratified by the Governer of Gibraltar) to levy border taxes for charity.

Re:My goodness, yes!

[alexpage]

What makes you so much more fit to judge who's a criminal and who's not than your government?

More to the point, what makes my government so much more fit to judge who's a criminal and who's not than me? They're all human beings too, y'know.

Re:Stability?

[Steve Richards]

Your state (the US) used my state (the UK) as a bombing base for an illegal and immoral bombing raid on Libya, in an attempt to assassinate the legitimate ruler (You might not like the guy, but he's not your leader to complain about).

This was wrong.

The resultant escalation of revenge terrorism has endangered me personally.

I'm sorry.

Your state, the US, deposed and assassinated the legitimate leader of Chile, rendering friends of mine stateless refugees.

This was also wrong.

Just what does a state have to do before you recognise its actions as immoral ?

You've missed my point entirely. This is not the question. The question is: what does a state have to do before it is more immoral to do nothing than to put your family, friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens (innocents) at risk by doing something about it.

Also: I don't say that governments can do no wrong. What I do say is that states have (or should have) complete authority over their own internal affairs. It was wrong for the United States to depose the leader of Chile. It was wrong for the US to bomb Libya. It's wrong for the US to threaten economic sanctions (however staged these threats may be) against China. It's wrong for Iraq to be penalized simply because their leader happens to be Saddam Hussein.

I think we actually agree, for the most part.

Re:Stability?

[Steve Richards]

I do not feel that life would be worth living in the type of society you could be complacent in.

Does your son also feel this way?

Don't forget the government and their social engineering, which appears to have worked on you.

Which government? As I recall, what I heard in school were a lot of nonsense quotes like, "give me liberty or give me death."

Just continue keeping your head down, swallowing injustice, avoiding conflict, and you won't even complain when they take your children away for not indoctrinating them with politically correct beliefs.

Well, no, they usually do that when you teach them to become little terrorists and pedagogues and undermine a perfectly good status quo.

Read what you wrote there. That leads to anarchy - ever heard of the rule of law?

The rule of law is exactly what I'm defending here.

Working to enforce that, and defend the original intent of your awesomely crafted constitution (for those of you in the US - Canada's constitution is a pile of garbage without even basic property rights) is what you should be doing.

I certainly try to abide by the law and make sure those around me do the same as much as I can without being an officer of it.

Otherwise, what are you really doing for your children - Gee son, I'm really sorry that you live in a totalitarian police state, but I have successfully kept my head down the last twenty years

As opposed to the alternative - "gee son, I'm sorry that I spent your entire childhood in prison for nothing and that you're under heavy suspicion for having been indoctrinated with my foolish pie-in-the-sky set of values because I tried to lead some foolish actions against a government that was doing a pretty damn good job."

You would just accept this as a part of life, and not even disagree with the police actions.

I would wonder just what these people were up to. I would not condone the police actions, but if I spoke, it would be through proper channels. There are remedies for this sort of thing, but they aren't screaming "fight the man! fuck the system!" and organizing a revolution.

Hopefully you will change your mind before they bust your door down.

Seems far more likely that they'd be coming to your door.

Re:Stability?

[Steve Richards]

So, tell me:

If I start telling you (assuming you're American, for sake of argument), "don't elect George W. Bush! He'll kill 40 million people through brutal purges if he takes office," will you believe me?

One word:

[Steve Richards]

Singapore.

Re:One word:

[Steve Richards]

Wonderful. But the country's doing well. I'd rather have corrupt leaders leading a well-off country than a saint leading a starving one.

Re:Stability?

[Steve Richards]

There is this thing in logic called an Ad Hominem fallacy. You just used it. You didn't mention anything about why you thought that the author's premise that Westerns feel that freedom is taken for granted by most Westerner's, including yourself.

A full belly is more important than freedom, and I believe most people would choose the former as opposed to the latter.

Is that ok?

You have not shown 1 to be the case. Nor have you explained why 2 is correct. So your conclusion has not been shown. Please explain the following.

1.Why is invasion of not a "damn good deal of wrongdoing"?
2.What is a good deal of wrongdoing?
3.What is the definition of "acting up"?
4.Why is premise 2 correct? Why is acting up only good for for large amounts of wrongness and not small amounts.

You need to prove your premises.

Fine:

If your country isn't so screwed up that it's killing off its citizens already, then nothing you can do outside the system to correct it will bring a net benefit. Ok?

This is a non sequitur. How does this follow from his statements above?

That's the kind of stability I wasn't talking about. I was clarifying by saying that what he was describing was only what they had chosen to do with their stability. (True, I was implying that they had squandered it.)

Both you and the poster make several arguments with the argumentum ad numerum fallacy. Just because most people are complacent with stability, does not justify your arugment that stability is more important than "not acting up". booker makes some of the same arugments.

Several other people have called me on this in different ways, and I've explained this elsewhere in the thread. Essentially, if you act on your impulses to set the world (or the nation) right by going outside the system, you're going to endanger plenty of your fellow citizens (who didn't ask for it) along the way.

Is this alright?

Also, as long as we're doing line-by-line critiques, I feel I should point out several unfair tactics that you used (while keeping your post entirely logical):

(a) refusing to read the subtext. If an argument of mine contained a fallacy, even if the arguments would stand without the fallacious bits, you demanded a clarification of the entire argument. (Check the bit about "... when you've got a full belly." If you actually did not draw "Most people value adequate food over freedom" from that, or don't think that most people would, then I apologize and will concede this point. Yes, it did include the ad hominem fallacy, but it seems to be that you took that as license to also ignore any underlying meaning.)
(b) condescension. Compare:

Thus the rest of your argument suffers from a falicy know as petitio principii, Begging the question.

to

You're begging the question.

Or also compare:

There is this thing in logic called an Ad Hominem fallacy. You just used it.

to

This is an ad hominem attack.

In each case, the latter sentence is simple and straightforward. If I don't recognize a phrase, I can look it up. The former, in each case, takes unnecessary pains to demonstrate that you assume little enough of my education or my intelligence to explain the phrase in the verbal equivalent of baby steps.

If you want to have a dry, logical discussion, fine. But if you will not hold yourself to the same standards to which you hold me, I will seek my conversations elsewhere.

Re:Stability?

[Steve Richards]

To which I'd say... most Westerners take a free nation for granted. You grossly underestimate the value of this privilege. Imagine living in Afghanistan. Or Sierra Leone. Or even Fiji.

It's really easy to say that when you've got a full belly and a roof over your head for the foreseeable future, isn't it?

And who are you to judge the importance of the stability of the state? What if the state is engaged in wrongdoing? Should we preserve stability at all costs? Seems like a strange end to strive for...

Sigh. You really have no concept of the real world, do you? The state had better be engaged in a damn good deal of wrongdoing before you start acting up, because chances are you'd make matters much worse in the process of trying to "improve" things.

If the opposite of stability is chaos and anarchy, that's one thing.

Yes. And it's only because the Western world is so rich and complacent that it can sometimes afford to have stability and freedom at the same time -- and even then, sometimes sacrifices need to me made to keep the nation from sliding down a slippery spiral into chaos and lawlessness.

Often, though, "stability" is a placated populace, happily listening to Britney Spears and munching on Cheetos, and threats to that notion of "stability" are dealt with severely. That sort of stability generates the big bucks.

That's all what you've chosen to do with the fact that you're rich and content enough to not have to worry about whether rebel (or government) militia leaders are going to come to your house and steal all your food (at best).

People in the Western world (especially the US) are generally well-off enough that freedom can coexist with stability. They don't want to lose what they have. However, when you start getting desperate elements in the population (who have the power to make life miserable for everyone), the story changes.

Re:Stability?

[Steve Richards]

So are you saying that it's better to give up a little freedom and privacy, and let the Powers that Be listen to your phone calls, read your email, and go through your trash, on the off chance that some folk singer might get some people fired up to fight for a cause?

Or that some religious scholars might get some people fired up to fight for a cause and end up causing a decade of starvation and death? That couldn't possibly happen anywhere.

What is worth fighting for, and rabble-rousing, and upsetting the status quo? Or should we be complacent in the name of stability?

Any case in which the government has killed off large portions of the population. If they're not doing that, anything you could do would make things worse.

I mean, I get your point to a certain degree - stability is a very important thing. But what are you willing to give up for that?

Quite a lot, actually. And I think you can tell that the Slashdot population is predominantly young, unmarried, idealistic, and childless from their attitude towards this.

And perhaps the rougue militias won't come steal your food, but you just might "disappear."

Not if I haven't been stupid. If I do start doing stupid things, I start endangering everyone around me. And if one of my neighbors starts doing stupid things -- what right does he have to endanger me and my family?

Re:why encryption is taking so long

[davstok]

both Netscape and MSIE warn the user before entering a secure session

Is this warning or informing? I think many people are happy to know that they are using a secure session before entering their credit card info etc.

The US Congress and Carnivore....

[Riplakish]

The US Congress seems to be questioning the FBI on Carnivore, however they seem to be more upset about the fact that they weren't notified first instead of the personal privacy issues it creates. Read it here: Congress isn't swallowing Carnivore

Re:Encrypted Mail

[Hieronymus Howard]

The article also suggests that you could avoid being monitored by using smaller ISPs that may not have the monitoring hardware installed. I guess that you'd have to avoid sending mail to anyone at one of the bigger ISPs.

If anyone has any better info on circumventing this, I'd be interested.

HH

Re:Don't even need encryption to avoid

[Hieronymus Howard]

From stand.org.uk:
ISPs, do not as a rule, monitor their own users. Section 12. (1) will oblige them to invent the technology to do so, and build it into their equipment. For this act, the Home Secretary has gracefully agreed to reimburse them via a government grant.

The current Bill makes no specification as to the what this equipment will consist of.

Additionally, the Home Secretary has reserved the right to demand the placing of specific devices to monitor ISP traffic with little deliberation, and no guarantee that the nature of this monitoring will ever be publicised. We'd like to see such impositions made public.

So we don't (and maybe won't) know how the monitoring will be implemented. Some people have made guesses, but I suspect that they're inaccurate.

HH

Re:Ways to Defeat the Snooping Provisions in RIP

[Hieronymus Howard]

This assumes that the snooping software is installed on the mail servers. AFAIK Government have NOT said how the snooping software/hardware will be implemented, so this is a big assumption. I strongly suspect that this will not be the case and they'll use some kind of packet sniffers. I would advise you to take this article with a pinch of salt.

HH

Re:Thanks for the skript kiddies

[Hieronymus Howard]

It's nothing to do with script kiddies. They want to monitor:

Irish terrorist groups
Far right (neo-nazi) organisations
Paedophile rings
Drugs gangs
Organised soccer violence

and probably a few other forms of organised crime. It may help to track virus writers, DOS attackers etc. but that's not the main intention.

HH

Re:Don't even need encryption to avoid

[Hieronymus Howard]

I wouldn't count on this bypassing the monitoring equipment. Even if you're using your own mail server the traffic still has to pass though your ISP. It really ain't hard to monitor packets for smtp connections. I'd guess that they'd also monitor web traffic, since a lot of people use hotmail et al. If they have even half a clue they'll monitor ftp too.

HH

Its not all bad

[ferrago]

The way things are going at the moment companies have a lot greater power than the governments themselves. It's easy to see what the future could be like if things continue down this path. At the moment the larger network providers have the ability to trace users if they so wish. Placing a packet sniffer on a link which connects to a peering point such as MAE-EAST or LINX would be very simple for them.

To my mind, I feel a lot more confident of a governmental agency such as MI5 having this ability, to protect, than just having companies who have no responsiblity to any government with that ability. At least with government agencies we elect them into power (in most countries) and they are responsible to us, the people.

Let's start the first net war

[Kidney3.14]

Why don't we help the British people by cutting off all communication to England? I don't mean hacking the systems and doing DoS attacks, I mean deny connections to servers in England. Don't allow email communications to go to the U.K. Deny http and ftp requests from the U.K. Eventually, the economy will be affected, forcing Parliament to repeal RIP. It may cause temporary harm to the British people, but it will do much less than RIP will.

Scotland

[JRiddell]

When this was last mentioned slashdot they claimed it was an English bill (I forgive them, they're Canadians). Otherwise it seems to be treated as a UK bill by the media but section 2 does not apply to Scotland (same state different legal system see) and the Scottish Parliament is passing their own Regulation of Ivestigatory powers bill. Not being a lawyer I don't know the difference between our section 2 and that for Wales, N Ireland and England, but I remember it differs in who can and cannae give allowance to spy on you (it won't allow Home Secreatary Jack Straw's gate keeper to let polis read your e-mails which the Westminster one could). Anyone know more of the differences and what happens when Jack Straw's bill is passed but Jim Wallace's isn't for a few months more? Jonathan Riddell

Re:Stability breeds lack of interest

[smatty1701]

Mainly because your average Joe in the street just doesn't care. The *average* brit is not that computer literate and does not really understand the isses involved. The coverage in the mainstream media has also been fairly low key. Also in the UK there isn't the same level of distrust in central government as there appears to be in the UK. As my step mother used to say whenever a new tax or a particularly stupid bit of legislation appeared - "Oh. They must be doing it for our own good". At the end of the day, the average beer drinking, Sun reading, EastEnders watching Brit would probably sell their right to vote for 50 quid (if that much).

.sig baiting

[slim]

Can anyone suggest a set of innocuous words which would trigger MI5's systems in the same way as echelon-baiting "iraq bomb IRA etc." sigs do?

Something which would irritate them, while not actually making me look guilty of anything I'm not would be nice.
--

Applies only to traffic info not content?

[Morgaine]

Actually, parts of the legislation may have been weakened by ammendments to the point of being unusable, judging by this excerpt from the discussions.

It seems that because of conflict with a previously enacted law, the new powers will not be allowed to touch content of communications, only traffic/transport-related information/addressing. If so, that was one hell of an ammendment.

On the other hand, the actual details of the law have never stopped those in power from doing what the hell they damn well want, regardless.

Paranoid?

[Nicolas MONNET]

HAve you ever felt like you were observed ... as if someone was following you in every place you would go ... Well you probably were in UK.

You don't see many cameras there (I guess they know how to hide them), but there sure is plenty of warnings ("CCTV"). You can't walk anywhere in London without crossing a dozen of those. Streets. Parks. Bathroom. Water Closets. Bedroom. Under the sheets. Inside the condom. They "MAY" be watching you.

And stop scratching that nose.

Re:Paranoid?

[AndrewD]

Quite a lot of those alleged CCTV cameras are dummies. I had a job installing them during one of my college vacations: the dummy cameras have all the effect of the real thing (driving crime somewhere else) with none of the hassle - (changing tapes, actually watching fourteen hours of boring footage etc.,) for a fraction of the cost - four coach bolts and the thing was done.

Re:My goodness, yes!

[Nicolas MONNET]

All those communists in the McCarthy era got what was coming to them.

They were undermining the stability of the state, a charge that most Westerners greatly underestimate the importance of.

Whaouh, and you don't even seem to be trolling on purpose. What are you going to reveal us next, that the Protocol was not a hoax, and that jews are planning to take over the world RSN?

True, theese people were charged for the wrong thing, but those were trying times for the American nation, and unruly groups causing chaos and unrest were the last thing it needed.

Oh dear, most of those guys were sooo dangerous. Duh.

solution...

[kevin lyda]

look into stegfs for plausible deniability.

then go get gnupg for encryption and get mutt for a mailer that makes it dead simple to use. drop me an email if you have an issue.

Requesting encryption keys

[Wiktor Kochanowski]

I live in continental Europe where we have this wonderful provision in our constitutions: the court may not request anybody to testify against himself or herself, i.e. to provide self-incriminating evidence. I believe this is in fact a standard in the E.U. law philosophy.

I'm not sure whether Great Britain has any formal constitution at all but the law requiring citizens to reveal their encryption keys seems to me to encroach on this fundamental right of a citizen. Perhaps someone can enlighten me in this matter?

OTOH, it's not all that surprising in a country where 500-year old precedents are still law.

Re:Requesting encryption keys

[QuoteMstr]

So it's like a dictatorship that changes hands every two or three years?

Hate to encourage a troll, but...

[A nonymous Coward]

Of course only honorable law-abiding agencies and agents will use this to fight eveil, evil I say.

As the FBI forged evidence against Martin Luther King, Jr, not to bust him criminally, but to make him appear untrustworthy to his family, friends, associates, and the general public. Well, I suppose by your reckoning, James Earl Ray saved him the possibility of getting busted by killing him.

As the Ramparts division of the LA cops framed untold numbers of people, killed others, stole pounds of cocaine from the evidence locker, and, gosh, nobody knew, wow, shocked, I am shocked, shocked. Round up the usual suspects.

As Richard Milhouse "I am not a crook" Nixon and his gang of plumbers flouted the law in every which way, withheld TV broadcast licenses to punish the unfriendly press, and on and on and on.

Don't forget Ollie North, fine upstanding American dealer in cocaine and truth and loyalty.

There's the current Clinton and Clinton, investigating people they don't like, firing people they don't like, smearing them in public when they knew who the real liar was.

Yes, we can certainly trust all these fine outstanding examples of people who have sworn to uphold the constitution and laws. Of course, all these fine people were Americans, so it's perfectly alright for the honorable Brits to have R.I.P., for they surely would never abuse it as we have done.

--

Re:Hasn't passed yet...

[SamHill]

Please. I never said it wouldn't pass. I have every expectation that it will pass. I wasn't even surprised when I first heard about it. Britain has been on the road to totalitarianism for years, regardless of the party currently ``running'' the country. (Who would have guessed that ``New Labor'' would have more success passing freedom-eroding legislation than the Tories?)

All the same, the Bill is not yet a Law, and it's important to get the facts straight and not simply take a misleading article in a less than trustworthy publication (IMHO) for the truth.

And while you're slagging Britain, don't forget to take a few shots at the United States, with the highest rate of imprisonment per capita, the highest rate of executions, and some of the most ridiculous laws on the books. Fascism was rather popular in the States before Pearl Harbor, and it was certainly looked upon more kindly than communism in the post-War years.

And if you think there's no class system in the States, you're not paying much attention.

easy to solve -- invasion

[Barbarian]

If "Sealand" became an issue, I'm sure that the British Royal Marines could "invade" it with minimal effort.

I doubt it would create much trouble in the UN...


--

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[mindstrm]

Have you actually been to and seen these other countries? DO you know people from there? Do they tell you how 'horrible' life is for them without a constitution?

Hey.. you know one thing lots of these countries have? A sense of *community*.
Did I know that Scientology was outlawed in Germany? No.. but who cares? It's a bloody cult.
Is it for the government to decide? Well.. who should decide? A pickup truck full of the good o'l boys and their shotguns?
wonderfullness of their political system, their constitution, and other wonderful things, and put down other ways of doing things, without ever having actually *seen* what it's like to live in those other places.

Don't even need encryption to avoid

[Biolo]

You don't even need to encrypt your email to avoid this detection. They intend to install their black boxes next to the email servers themselves, and monitor all that traffic, so all you need to do is bypass the ISP mail server pools. If you run your own little mail server, and have it config'd to send mail directly to the recipient, which is something I usually do anyway for speed, then it will either go direct to the recipients ISP (possibly in another country, and therefore not monitored by this) or direct into their own server, if they run a similar config. This sort of thing will become very common once BT gets its act together on ADSL and/or cable modems become more common. The only thing you'd need to do is get your own domain, if you are assigned a fixed IP, or a subdomain off of one of the free DNS services that allow you to update whenever your IP changes. My ISP, one of the largest (demon.net), gives me a fixed IP and domain name, which means when I am online emails can come straight into my machine, bypassing their mail server pool, and they have used this config since before the RIP bill was even dreamt of.

What can they do about this? Other than getting all of the ISP's to act against this sort of thing (mandatory firewall on port 25...), they don't have a change, they would have to monitor ALL of the traffic for email, and that would be hugely expensive. With IPv6 coming, with its included packet encryption, this would become completely impossible anyway. I intend to enable IPv6 on my own systems as soon as it starts to be used on the net.

Re:Don't even need encryption to avoid

[Biolo]

I know I've replied to this already, but re-reading it the line below stuck out

If they have even half a clue they'll monitor ftp too.

I've seen enough of how UK government organisations work to know that assuming they have even half a clue on such matters is generous in the extreme. They are committee'd up to and over their eyebrows, and everything moves incredibly slowly. They don't stand a chance of keeping up with the moving target that is the internet, and will end up putting in place ineffectual 'solutions' that are massively inconvenient for the ISP's and/or users, give the UK a bad name, and do absolutely nothing to combat the people they claim to be after. Most of the people who make such decisions simply do not 'get' the Internet, and so make bad decisions based on out of date information, and that's before anything is implemented. Remember that they then need to develop these systems, and government IT projects are almost always delivered over time and over budget.

Anyway, I though Eschelon did most of this stuff anyway, if the rumours are true, but I believe that is a US led project.

Re:Don't even need encryption to avoid

[Biolo]

Guess I should have looked up my MX record before I posted that comment :-)

Fact is, most email that I consider sensitive goes to my own host box, which does have appropriately set MX records. Demon however is going to be part of the BT rollout of ADSL (whenever that happens), I would like to see more technical details of what they are offering, but I have heard tell of a fixed IP (or three). Demon's own internet suite (Turnpike) uses SMTP to receive email, so I would hope that, as part of a stand against this bill, they would be willing to alter the MX records for ADSL users to have email delivered directly. Of course this could be described as a means to a)Lower load on the Demon mail servers and b)Speed email delivery to subscribers.

I have quite a lot of faith in Demon, at least the old pre-Thus Demon, and hope that they will keep making the right technical decisions about service provision. This is one of the reasons that I have stuck with Demon despite "Free" ISP's. I am however disappointed that they are only officially supporting Windows 9x or NT on ADSL trials, they have always been very cross platform in the past. Perhaps this Microsoft partnership they have going is starting to tell, or perhaps this is imposed by BT, in its normal blinkered manner.

Re:Don't even need encryption to avoid

[Biolo]

Yeah, but that isn't what they are intending to do, or what the bill allows them to do as I understand it (IANAL). All this does is allow them to monitor those too technically innept, unaware of the monitoring, or just plain stupid. Now, if you were a terrorist organisation, child porn ring, etc, how would you have your people configure their systems? Assuming you didn't just set up some BBS or something for them out of the country?

Re:Don't even need encryption to avoid

[mpe]

Now, if you were a terrorist organisation, child porn ring, etc, how would you have your people configure their systems?

You use the assumption that communications are likely to be intercepted. Thus using a code which is deliberatly misleading to anyone intercepting.
Another problem is that intercepted information would be imensly valuable to criminals...

Re:My goodness, yes!

[Hizonner]

Ever think about why we have stable governments in the West?

Ever think that maybe it's because people perceive those governments as:

• Relatively fair?
• Able to take criticism without throwing people in jail?
• More protective of rights than destructive of them?
• Willing, at least once in a while, to follow moral principles?
• Prepared to abide by their own constitutions?

Maybe those are the reasons that the governments are allowed to stand, rather than having a revolution once a week, eh?

I submit that it's very possible the places you mention suck so much partly because they have idiotic, repressive ways of dealing with dissent. If you look at places like that, they've usually been police states for a long time... over several changes of government.

And the idea that the 1950s were any more "trying times" for the United States than, say, the 1940s or the 1960s, is just idiotic. As is the idea that Communists in the 1950s were any threat to the stability of the US government.

Not that I'm saying that present Western government practices are really safe or acceptable, mind you.

Hushmail security

[rjh]

The following is not professional advice. I have not done an audit of Hushmail; I've looked at their code a little bit, along with how they handle messages and encryption.

My impression is that there are some flaws in the design--lack of a security audit, lack of choice in ciphers, possibility of Trojaning, dependence on your browser handling HTTPS properly, etc.--but all in all, Hushmail (click here) seems to be the best option out there right now for secure Web-based email.

I've used Hushmail in the past for email communications with my attorney (she's too tech-naieve to use PGP properly, but she understands "if I send him email at his Hushmail account from my Hushmail account, then I'm doing my part to keep attorney-client privilege secure").

I've got to say that I feel safer with PGP/GPG, but Hushmail is a hell of a lot better than most of the snake-oil that's sold out there.

I'm not saying Hushmail is good; I can't say that, given that I haven't done any hardcore analysis of it. I'm only saying that, based on my experience with it and based on what I've reviewed of their setup and policies, Hushmail seems to be the most clued-in of all the current secure Webmails.

Re:UK's E-mail Scan Is Avoidable

[Steve B]

That said, perhaps this should get people to chill out a little bit about carnivore, given that it at least opperates under warrent.

This is not at all "given", in view of the FBI's disgraceful record and its refusal to disclose what's actually inside the little black boxes. With the security-through-obscurity baloney they offer as an excuse for the latter, I can only assume that they're trying to pull another fast shuffle.
/.

Re:Stability?

[Steve B]

It's really easy to say that when you've got a full belly and a roof over your head for the foreseeable future, isn't it?

That is the result of the prosperity generated by a free society. If you want to maintain a high standard of living, you must on no account permit the government to gain too much power. Even if one dismisses civil liberties issues entirely, politicians given too much power generally become kleptocrats who suck the life out of the national economy like so many vampires.

The state had better be engaged in a damn good deal of wrongdoing before you start acting up

Of course, responses should be kept in proportion and not exceed what is required to deal with the problem. (There is a saying, "Freedom comes in four boxes: soap, ballot, jury, and cartridge. Use in that order.")

sacrifices need to me made to keep the nation from sliding down a slippery spiral into chaos and lawlessness

The way to keep a nation from sliding down a slippery spiral into chaos and lawlessness is to make the government obey the law. Your cavalier attitude toward one of the cornerstones of Western Civilization truly astounds me.

that you're rich and content enough to not have to worry about whether rebel (or government) militia leaders

See -- you already know the truth of what I've said above, but some bizarre disconnect has kept it from influencing your conclusions.
/.

Re:Stability?

[Steve B]

The rule of law is exactly what I'm defending here.

The rule of law, as that concept is understood in Western Civilization, is a limitation upon the government, not carte blanche for the people in power to do whatever pops into their heads under color of "law".

Your concept of "rule of law" reminds me of this quote:

"What is your definition of justice?"
"Justice, Elijah, is that which exists when all the laws are enforced."
Fastolfe nodded. "A good definition, Mr. Baley, for a robot.... A human being can recognize the fact that, on the basis of an abstract moral code, some laws may be bad ones and their enforcement unjust. What do you say, R. Daneel?"
"An unjust law," said R. Daneel evenly, "is a contradiction in terms."

-- Isaac Asimov (The Caves Of Steel)
/.

Good Report from The Reg

[Hylander]

Here's exactly how it happened: http://www.theregister.co.uk/cont ent/1/12225.html

Please Learn to Use Encryption

[goingware]

I don't have time tonight to write at my usual length, but this brings up a good opportunity to recommend that you read my web page on Why You Should Use Encryption.

I posted a lengthier discussion of this before with a link to the above page but it has fallen off my user info - it wasn't too long ago, maybe someone can find it in the archives and post a link to the archived slashdot discussion in a reply.

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[Netsnipe]

Please excuse me for reposting the following passage again, but I do believe that Phil Zimmermann's analogy is one of the best ways for people to realise why we should use encryption and protect it's availability:

What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If a nonconformist tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding. Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There's safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their email, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their email privacy with encryption. Think of it as a form of solidarity.

---From "An Introduction to Cryptography" by Phil Zimmermann, the programmer of PGP himself.

This is an analogy I remind myself each time one of my friends at high school ridicules me for being a paranoid "conspiracy nut" in using encryption. It concerns me greatly that most of the general public of my country, Australia seems to take a laissez-faire approach to their online Internet rights. For example, Australians have already lost their right to unmonitored and uncensored (but not yet implemented) Internet usage and our intelligence agency, ASIO now has the legal right to actually crack our computers and monitor communications without a warrant all for the sake of so-called "national security".

I am dismayed when my friends exclaim that the CIA, MI5, or ASIO will never read my email, because I am not important, nor have I done anything wrong or have something to hide. I wish that they could see that if they we don't start fighting for our rights online now, such as the right to uncensored access, encryption, and online self-security then a time will come when it will be too late for everyone to start voicing their opinions without fear from those seeking to impose their wills upon us.

Not too long ago I sent out an email to everyone on my email list telling them about the fact that you they should start using encryption in their email and use it in their correspondence with me. No one has started sending me encrypted email. All that I've received are questions such as "Why bother?" and "Who cares?" I was even more surprised that a few of my friends have even told me that too much privacy is abuse of power and even a threat to democracy! Banning encryption will not stop terrorists from gaining access to it. Like fighting disinformation with information, the best weapon against encryption is encryption. An enemy cannot attack you if he cannot find your weaknesses. Another has even said that he does not care if corporations or a government can monitor his communication because he naively believes that any information they gather about him can only used to serve (in a commercial sense) and protect him (in a political sense.)

In ever more Western democracies, governments seem to be intent on limiting people from having access to encryption and electronic privacy. The United States has Carnivore watching its people with Echelon watching the world; the United Kingdom has Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill; and Australia now has The Telecommunications (Interception) Legislation Amendment Bill.

Where is the democracy of the future heading? Is the banning of encryption an attempt to silence future attempts to make free speech when it would otherwise be contrary to the status quo or decree of the government; and thus an attack on the very foundations of our free societies? I fear for the future, and George Orwell's nightmare doesn't become a reality.

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[sjmurdoch]

It doesn't make much difference if we use encryption now, because if you are asked to hand over your public key and passphrase by the police you must do so. Not this is a criminal offence punishable with two years in prison. Moreover you are not allowed to tell anyone else your key has been comprimised and so continue using it. Not doing this is pusishable with a further 5 years in prison If you cannot prove you do not posses the passphrase/and or private key then it is also two years in prison. Before prosecuting under these laws it not *not* needed to prove that you are hidning evidence of another criminal activity so paedophiles etc.. would gladly go down for 2 years rather than hanidng over there passphase and going down for at least 10.

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[mpe]

Which is yet another reason this country needs a Bill of Rights or equivalent.

Except that such a document is only as good as the body which enforces it.
The USA has shown that it is utterly trivial for a government to violate a written constitution. Also that police and judges will attempt to enforce statutes which are in direct violation of the consitution.
A "Bill of rights" is useful if it is backed by a government (and an army.)

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[MoOsEb0y]

The problem with this, however, is the fact that if you encrypt your communications as you suggest, you face a 2 year jail sentence for refusal of giving them the keys. Furthermore, you can't tell ANYONE that you have given them the keys (if you decide against a 2 year sentence). If you do, you face a 5 year jail sentence. This kind of crap literally SCARES me. If the US ever thinks of pulling that, I'm moving to sealand to work at Data Haven.

The Easiest Encryption to Break

[goingware]

The easiest message to crack is the message that is not encrypted at all.

Most encryption software is still too hard to use. This plays into the hands of those who would spy on us because they don't even have to try hard.

PGP is more approachable now on Windows than it was back in the command-line-only days, but it is also a huge program.

What we need is for everyone to be using encryption all the time. Encryption should just be the standard, not the exception.

My client asked me to email her my source code, and I made her download PGP and send me a public key. It took some persuading to get her to do it. But I don't have the sense that she's going to be continuing to use it, I think that she only did it to humor me.

I encrypt every thing of value on my laptop with PGPDisk under windows and the Linux encrypting kernel under Linux - so if my laptop gets stolen the theives get nothing of value to them and my client's trade secrets are not revealed.

A friend's office was once broken into and all of his computers were stolen. They got all of his source code, his customer sales database, and all of his sales and support correspondence.

Are you protected against such an event?

Ways to Defeat the Snooping Provisions in RIP

[voidzero]

The Foundation for Information Policy Research has the full text of a report on how easy it would be to circumvent RIP, thereby rendering it an expensive and ill considered waste of taxpayers money.

Regret for the past,
Is a waste of spirit

Re:My goodness, yes!

[mOdQuArK!]

I'll bite on some of this.

What makes you so much more fit to judge who's a criminal and who's not than your government?

Everybody has to make that decision, one way or another. Most people make the decision to allow the government/media to decide for them, but they are ultimately responsible for the formation of their own opinion. Sometimes people decide that the people in the government are "criminals".

They were undermining the stability of the state, a charge that most Westerners greatly underestimate the importance of.

Well, they were trying to undermine the stability of the government anyway, the constituents of which would like everyone to think they are the sole defenders of the state.

Isn't it amusing how often the people who are doing well in the society resist change, even at the expense of the people who aren't doing so well?

Re:but seriously, folks...

[Greyfox]

Yeah. In the US all it would take would be a judge ruling that encrypted communications are not constitutionally protected free speech. Or Congress passing a law to that effect. True, these would be subject to a series of legal tests that would probably wind up in the supreme court, but it'd be a long and costly battle. Unfortunately the Bill of Rights is starting to break down after over two centuries of pounding.

If they'd had computers back in the days of the founding fathers, perhaps the king would have used them to collect information on the rebels in the colonies. Actually the rebels probably would have E-Mailed and said "Taxes really pissing us off. Give us a break." The whole thing could then have been averted and we'd still be a British colony. But assume that the king didn't read his E-Mail that day and they dumped the tea in the Boston harbor anyway, and information on everyone might be collected to try to find out who the rebels were.

Had that happened, perhaps the bill of rights would have an explicit "Right to privacy" and "Right to private communications" listed in them. After all, the founding fathers obviously wanted to insure that it would be possible to revolt against a corrupt government again, should the occasion arise. It doesn't take much reading between the lines in the original bill of rights to see that. Though most schools won't mention that part. The right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assemble freely, the right not to have to incriminate yourself... all these implicitly guarantee the right to revolt. And they've all been subverted to some extent by future generations of lawmakers. Pity they didn't just come out and say why they were including these rights. It'd have made it a lot harder to subvert the constitution.

The most worrying part...

[stut]

53 (2) In proceedings against any person for an offence under this section, if it is shown that that person was in possession of a key to any protected information at any time before the time of the giving of the section 49 notice, that person shall be taken for the purposes of those proceedings to have continued to be in possession of that key at all subsequent times, unless it is shown that the key was not in his possession after the giving of the notice and before the time by which he was required to disclose it.

IANAL, of course, but this looks to me like presumption of guilt in some cases. If you have a key, then forget your password, this is punishable? I think it may be time to get the European Court of Human Rights involved.

Incidentally, the full text of the bill is on the UK Government website.

Worse part about the bill I read was..

[Talonius]

..that when the key(s) were demanded, no one in the company could be notified.

WHAT?

Okay, okay .. maybe that's what a phonetap is all about. Getting someone to say something when they think they're safe. This was specifically business. And as a business, I would refuse to send any e-mail through the U. K. - although the allegations are not proved, look at the "Echelon made French companies lose bids" info on the 'Net, and other corporate espionage. What's to keep someone in this new department from landing on the payroll of some big company that wants all of XYZ corp's e-mail?

And if you can't find anyone how do you determine whether or not the request is real? Oh, yea, yer with the MI5 and ya need my code, even though I'm a VP of XYZ corp. Sure, here you go. You can't go the corporate attorney, you can't go here, you can't go there..

Bloody well a major mess.

(Yes, I'm paranoid. Yes, they're out to get me. No, I will only truly panic when these sort of laws go into effect in Russia.. heh.)

Talonius

How Will This Play Out? Two Companies to Watch

[John Murdoch]

When some government or other decides to oppress their citizens, inevitably somebody insists that "this is insufferable--why if this [fill in title of legislation here] passes I'll be forced to move offshore." The politicians notice that the guy's total revenue the year before amounted to less than 100,000 [fill in name of local currency here] and decide that he's blowing smoke. He gets ignored, the bill passes, and in fact a year later the guy doing the hollering is still running an ISP on the second floor over a fast food [insert local greasy cultural delicacy here] shop.

Except...

In this case there are two companies to watch: one is hollering, and one presumably is rubbing its hands with glee. HavenCo is doubtless chortling as they finish their buildout of high-bandwidth connections. They'll be offering secure Email, and presumably will ignore requests for encryption keys from the UK MI5. Sure--the Royal Marines could invade: but the political costs, both nationally and internationally, outweigh any merits.

What is particularly interesting, though, is that the ISP doing the yelling (in this article) not some one-man-band doing business from a flat over the local fish 'n chips. It's PSINet--a major international ISP. A major part of their pitch to businesses is the strength of their international presence--I'm a PSINet customer, and they don't let me forget how many points of presence they have worldwide. For PSINet to threaten to exit the UK market--entirely--is simply dramatic news.

Frankly, I wonder if the Standard's reporter may have over-interpreted something PSINet announced. If PSINet is indeed serious about exiting the UK, it will doubtless enrage many PSINet customers, and cost PSINet a chunk of business. If PSINet is serious about this--and really did make the threat--we could see the UK become isolated as other international ISPs follow PSINet's suit.

Watch both HavenCo and PSINet carefully
As this legislation is enacted, watch to see what happens. Does HavenCo get inundated with business from people and businesses that don't want their email read? Does PSINet follow through on the threat, and exit the UK? And when does the UK arrest the first person to refuse to divulge encryption keys?

Stability breeds lack of interest

[GenCuster]

I have recently been working through Eric Hoffer's book The True Believers. In it he makes an interesting point. He suggests that the length of time the british have lived under a democracy has insulated them from mass political movements. maybe that explains why they have not been able to block this bill.

hm....

[fluxrad]

The UK has always been a little bit more "security" inclined when it comes to the general populous.

I remember a special that noted on many street corners in the UK, there are surveilance cameras guarding against criminal activity. There are, in fact, thousands of these cameras all around the Britain. I suppose this data-snooping is just another step in the general direction the UK, if not the world, is taking.

I seem to remember a quote: "Those who give up freedom for security get neither freedom nor security"


FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network

Re:hm....

[obscurity]

You wanna know the really annoying thing about those cameras? I used to
live in a flat that had one pointed at it (it was above a shop in the town
centre) and I got broken into. So I 'phoned the cops. "I'm sorry, there's
no film in those cameras" I was told, when I asked them to review the
tapes...

Australia is even worse....

[deep_magic]

Cringley posted the UK story a few weeks back, along with a tidbit about australia that's even worse.

Apparently, down-under the government is trying to pass a law that allows the ASIO (the australian version of the CIA) to let some G-men crackers break into any web site that breaks the law in order to shut them down.

Ostensibly, this is to prevent porn -- but the person quoted by Cringley feels that it is the government snuggling up to Rupert Murdoch to keep video off the net.

Don't know about that... but its still worth a read. Check it out at: here

Suddenly, the FBI seems all warm and fuzzy....

Re:Australia is even worse....

[jesterzog]

Apparently, down-under the government is trying to pass a law that allows the ASIO (the australian version of the CIA) to let some G-men crackers break into any web site that breaks the law in order to shut them down.

Maybe I'm missing something and I don't want to provoke too much, but what is wrong with this?

If a person breaks the law, government agents (usually police) are authrised to break into that person's house to arrest them - usually for good reason. If a business is selling illegal goods that breaks the law, government agents are authorised to use force to sieze the goods so they can't be sold anymore.

If a website breaks the law, what is so exceptional about it that it should be a special case from these other examples?

As I said I'm not trying to provoke, but I think it's the laws that are being broken that should be targeted if someone has a problem, not the fact that government agents can be authorized to use sufficient force to stop it.

Otherwise what can they do? Ask nicely? The only alternative I can think of is to confiscate someone's computer and it sometimes frightens me the way they can actually do that. Of course if they destroy the property without a proper trial to confirm that it was actually breaking the law, that would be something bad.

===

but seriously, folks...

[Skald]

Yeah, well, this is what happens when you lack an explicit Constitution and Bill of Rights.

One must assume that the poster either has not read the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, or he is totally unfamiliar with life in the United States.

This is what happens when people lack a committment to liberty, and to individual rights. Without the support of the people, no written law can protect freedom... and there can be no better evidence of this than the US Constitution.

Re:but seriously, folks...

[Skald]

Pity they didn't just come out and say why they were including these rights. It'd have made it a lot harder to subvert the constitution.

Actually, I don't think that would have helped. It might have hurt. The doctrine of looking at legislative intent has become a tool for the adventuresome judge. Reference to the arguments of the legislators today gives a judge more leeway to construe a law to fit his goals; one more option, when deciding on a reading.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, you might want to read "A Matter of Interpretation", by Antonin Scalia. It's a short, excellent work which provides a keen peek into judicial activism and the way laws are (mis)interpreted. It was one of the things which, for me, finally made sense of some of the craziness of the judicial system today.

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[No One]

FYI: "Sect" just means a group of people distinct within a larger one. It doesn't necessarily have to be used with regards to religion, though it generally is. Furthermore, Catholicism and Methodism are both sects of Christianity. The English usage of "sect" has no negative connotations, "cult"'s the word your looking for.

Suppose im starting a cult or sect or whatever tomorrow and call it "the followers of satan". Since i might not be the only one who likes to - say, rape maidens at full or something like that, i might find some followers. Does this make me the leader of a religion? No.

As a matter of fact, if you have articles of faith, you would be a religion. Don't expect your religious freedoms to protect when you commit illegal acts harming others, though. THAT's where the line should be drawn when it comes to seperation of church and state.

No. Simply because religions tend to have a history (sometimes of a few thousand years).
Im not denying someones rights to express his own belive in public but Scientology simply is not a religion per definition.
And thats it. In Germany religions have special rights. They get Taxes from their followers and dont have to pay taxes themself. Thats why Scientology is "outlawed" as a sect... Because the typical german John Doe doesn`t want to assist a sect with his tax-money. And they are viewed quiet closely by the german police because the tend to suppress their members. Did you know that the german chapter of S. is terrorising former members (by telefone) after they left?
You have to distinguish between sects (or cults) and religions.


The definition of "cult," as far as I can tell: a religion, usually with a small group of followers, that I, personally, disagree with. It's just a convenient term used to deny people any religious freedoms their country recognizes. "Hey, it's a cult, not a religion! We can completely ignore the 1st Amendment here!" (Yes, I'm an Amurrican.) Bullshit. Religion is religion, it's *always* been used for mind control. Chrisianity, Islam, your name it; none of them has historically been any better than Scientology. Furthermore, there are plenty of Christian groups who will harass members who leave; Catholics who leave their church can definitely expect a certain degree of ostracision from friends, family, and associates who remain with their church. And yes, in some cases, that may extend to harassing phone calls.

Furthermore, isn't harassment illegal in Germany? Do you really need to pass additional laws to cover that? All that this constant "It's unpopular, so let's pass a law against it" crap leads to is the situation we have in the US today, where it's basically impossible to lead your life without violating any laws. Since everyone is a criminal, anyone can be legally persecuted at any time by the authorities for any reason. Thus anyone who holds views those in power don't like can be quickly, quietly, and legally supressed, and discredited in the process. Since everyone breaks the laws, of course the authorities need more power to stop it, so let's make more stuff illegal, thus perpetuating the cycle and leading the country straight towards a police state.

Finally, what difference does it make if a religion has a history? NO religion had a history when it started. Are you going to say that it was perfectly legitimate for Rome to imprison (we'll leave torture and killing out of this argument) early Christians simply because they were cultists and were attempting to recruit others? Are you saying that all those martyrs that Christianity (or Catholicism, at least) reveres should actually be remembered as common criminals? Because according to your arguments, that's exactly what they were. After all, Rome had every moral right to declare the Christian cult illegal, didn't they? They were a small, unpopular cult with no history, after all.

--

Thanks for the skript kiddies

[rifter]

Whenever someone "h4x0rs" a box it adds to the horror stories governments can reiterate to justify legislation like this. As we all know, these laws only hurt crackers and child pornographers .

Of course some of the cracks and DOSSes have been linked to governments opposed to the site attacked (hmm makes you wonder about all these attacks on the free speech news sites, eh?). But the greater part are likely bona fide script kiddies. And the end is the same: those who do it serve to support legislation like this.

The comment about this not hurting e-commerce is BS. Obviously internet traffic will double, which will affect bandwidth pricing and availability. This will certainly hamper e-commerce, as will the exodus of isp's and colocation services from the UK and the migration of users to site that will not cause them to cross the uk borders in their access paths.

A few more scenarios where this falls down

[grahamsz]

Not only is the bill technically in-ept there are heaps of other problems with it.

Imagine they do intercept a peice of ciphertext from me, they then require I give them the key that I used to encrypt that with. Now i'm no encryption expert but afaics I have the choice to give them my public key, or just the IDEA key that PGP uses for that particular mail. In addition I could just give them the plaintext, but I fail to see quite how they can ever prove that a piece of plaintext can be linked to it's ciphered version.

As for the legal problems... if someone registers a public key in my name on a server and then starts emailling encrypted mail to me using my public key then I will be expected to supply the key or plaintext to the authorities (if they suspect i'm a lil' bit dodgy). If I fail to do that then I can get 2 years in prison. (and if I let anyone else know that I've been asked to surrender my key then I can get another 5 years).

There was a nice demonstration of this carried out by Stand in sending stuff to jack straw (the uk home secretary).

Now what if someone actually does have something illegal encrypted on their pc... by not surrendering they key you can get max 2 years of prison life... which is a nice way out for paedophiles and the likes.

Personally I think this is a complete shambols and I really hope we can stop it from becoming law in october.

I will be writing to my mp.

Re:Here we see what it's like w/ no Constitution

[nysus]

Can't happen in the USA, you say? Listen to this scenario:

The RIAA will begin to team up with major ISPs and get them, or have the government get them, to become piracy police. I'm sure companies like Time-Warner/AOL will want the RIAA's interests protected. In fact, MediaOne/AT&T, my ISP currently has it as one of their terms of agreement that "thou shalt not download illegal MP3s with your connection or we mightest terminate your service." The policy already exists, now it's just a matter of MediaOne/AT&T enforcement.

For those ISPs that do not cooperate, the RIAA will have to apply a little more force (such as a federal law requiring ISPs to monitor customers).

In other words, this can happen in America because there are powerful financial forces that will make it happen. Don't be so naive to think the government is the only fucking thing you gotta be worried about.

An ISP has access logs listing the sites you visited, can easily monitor your activity, and have the best ability to police what individuals are doing. Will this kind of monitoring get people really fucking pissed off? Absolutely. Will there still be ways to get free music? Absolutely. Will it be considered a hard core criminal activity (the equivalent of child molestation and drug dealing). Absolutely. Will that get even more people pissed off? Hell yes. It's a vicious circle, ain't it?

Can someone help me?

[thesparkle]

I looked, but could not find in the story anything about the pre-requisite, "evil corporation(s)" behind this bill.

I find it hard to believe any presumably, benevolent government would do anything like this, therefore, there must be some mondo, meganational, profiteering, heartless, corporation behind this.

If there are any links or hidden messages in this story, can someone point them out to me?

Thanks!

Telescreens...

[Antipop]

Man, if this means I get one of those cool telescreens things like Winston in 1984 then who the hell really cares if we're under surveillance?

-Antipop

Oh, the irony.

[Moderation abuser]

The irony is that this bill does severely damage the future for 'ecommerce' in the UK at a time when the government should be trying to make things easier. It's almost unbelievable.

Rest In Peace the UK IT industry.

P.S. Encryption does you no good. Special branch can come and break down your door, demand the keys and slap you in prison if you don't comply. They can slap you in prison if you tell anyone that you've given them the keys.

1984 here we come. George was prophet. Just got his date wrong by a few years.

My company have already identified alternate countries/locations for their datacentre. Luckily cos I'm Unix bod, I'll still have a job but the NT bods are toast.

why encryption is taking so long

[jesterzog]

I agree with you completely about using encryption. I don't really care too much about governments intercepting packets because it's no big secret that almost anyone can do so anyway, just as you say. (What I don't like is when governments tell me I'm not allowed to speak in a language until they know what it is. To me this is a very fundamental invasion of free speech.)

Besides governments though, there's at least one very simple thing that's holding it up.

By default, both Netscape and MSIE warn the user before entering a secure session. I can understand why it might warn when leaving a secure session, but I've never understood why it should warn on entering one. I think most people would be perfectly happy with an icon somewhere on the status bar to say if the session was currently secure.

I suppose this informative warning about encryption can be turned off, but I wonder how many web-media providers don't offer secure sessions by default because of how many potential viewers these popups that they can't switch off will turn away. If at all, they only offer it when collecting obviously personal information from people by which time customers have usually been ensnared into the site already.

===

Shaken, not stirred...

[BalkanBoy]

I'm Bond, James Bond.. and my next sequel is "The Internet is Not Enough". Coming soon to a court near you! Only $5.95 for offical transcripts!

Re:Rumour Control on the RIP Act

[AndrewD]

Yes, it's still there.

Although given the usual stance on these things at the Department of Timidity and Inaction, our foreign competitors are safe for a while yet.

Re:Where's the anti-US sentiment to go along with

[AndrewD]

I didn't say the UK sucks. I'm just tired of all the +5 messages from Europeans generally about how shitty the US is and how Americans have no rights.

Here's the great part: the act is likely to come into force on 5th October this year. Three days after the Human Rights Act 1998 comes into force and renders it a dead letter in advance.

I will say this for HMG; when it takes it into its pointy little head to indulge in wholesale repression, it usually has the good grace to make an utter hash of it. (Which comment I make without reference to the technical failings of the Bill, on which I am less competent to comment than most others here)

And, of course, unlike the US, I can go and badger the minister responsible for the wretched thing in his constituency office without an appointment, wherein I have the advantage that said office is less than a hundred meters from my own.

Try getting that kind of access to most US politicians!

Re:How this relates to Napster

[AndrewD]

Can't happen in the USA? Already has. What the RIP Bill (soon to be the RIP Act, and in force shortly thereafter) does is make Carnivore legal and indeed mandatory in any ISP in the UK.

My own ISP (ClaraNet has threatened to relocate overseas if it comes into force rather than let anyone snoop on my email.

You're such an ethnocentrist.

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Despite your attempt to sound righteous by mentioning the role of the FBI in domestic surveillance, you pass over the largest of their crimes: their spying and disruption of the Puerto Rican independence movement. The surveillance to which the FBI submitted the nation of Puerto Rico was proportionately far higher than that which the US ever had to deal with, up to USSR levels.

Learn fully about the crimes of your country before speaking about them.

Re:My goodness, yes!

[Steve Richards]

I mean, everyone knows that whenever a government practices surveillance on its citizens, it's only if that citizen is truly a dangerous criminal. A quick scan of history reveals that, right off!

What makes you so much more fit to judge who's a criminal and who's not than your government?

All those communists in the McCarthy era got what was coming to them.

They were undermining the stability of the state, a charge that most Westerners greatly underestimate the importance of. True, theese people were charged for the wrong thing, but those were trying times for the American nation, and unruly groups causing chaos and unrest were the last thing it needed.

And those damn Japanese-Americans during WWII.

This was out of line, agreed.

Arlo Guthrie most certainly deserved to have his life on file at the FBI. As did Pete Seeger. Damned agitators...

Once again, most Westerners take a stable nation for granted. You grossly underestimate the value of this privilege. Imagine living in Afghanistan. Or Sierra Leone. Or even Fiji.

Not pretty alternatives, are they?

Stability?

[Booker]

most Westerners take a stable nation for granted. You grossly underestimate the value of this privilege. Imagine living in Afghanistan. Or Sierra Leone. Or even Fiji.

To which I'd say... most Westerners take a free nation for granted. You grossly underestimate the value of this privilege. Imagine living in Afghanistan. Or Sierra Leone. Or even Fiji.

And who are you to judge the importance of the stability of the state? What if the state is engaged in wrongdoing? Should we preserve stability at all costs? Seems like a strange end to strive for...

Depending on your definition of "stability" I might have to say I'd pick freedom over stability. If the opposite of stability is chaos and anarchy, that's one thing. Often, though, "stability" is a placated populace, happily listening to Britney Spears and munching on Cheetos, and threats to that notion of "stability" are dealt with severely. That sort of stability generates the big bucks.

Now you've done it. I'm ranting all paranoid-like... :-)

Re:Stability?

[crulx]

booker said: To which I'd say... most Westerners take a free nation for granted. You grossly underestimate the value of this privilege. Imagine living in Afghanistan. Or Sierra Leone. Or even Fiji.

Richard Stevens said: It's really easy to say that when you've got a full belly and a roof over your head for the foreseeable future, isn't it?

There is this thing in logic called an Ad Hominem fallacy. You just used it. You didn't mention anything about why you thought that the author's premise that Westerns feel that freedom is taken for granted by most Westerner's, including yourself. Instead, you claimed that it was easy to say this because of certain conditions about booker's life. I imagine you wanted to tie that into your earlier point about stability, but instead you went arwy and made a logical fault. Please try to avoid these sorts of errors, or people will start to think you are a troll as that tatic is often used by them. If people think you are a troll, they will stop listening to you (that is the internet standard way of dealing with them). If your point is to communicate on /. , then this will be counter to your goals and thus unbenificial to you.

And who are you to judge the importance of the stability of the state? What if the state is engaged in wrongdoing? Should we preserve stability at all costs? Seems like a strange end to strive for... Sigh. You really have no concept of the real world, do you? The state had better be engaged in a damn good deal of wrongdoing before you start acting up, because chances are you'd make matters much worse in the process of trying to "improve" things.

Again, an Ad Hominem. What does his haveing "no concept of the real world" have to do with his feelign that freedom is more important than stability? I can think of a few reasons, but you make no clear arguments. Do you mean to tie it in with your next point about the state needing to "be engaged in a damn good deal of wrongdoing ..."? Is that what you claim "real world" knowledge to be? I'm sure you can see that many people would disagree. If you want to make any points, you need to elaborate.

And look at your logic in the second line. If you start "acting up" before the state is "engaged in a damn good deal of wrongdoing..." then you will end up making "matters much worse".

This seems to be the fundimental premise of your argument. Thus the rest of your argument suffers from a falicy know as petitio principii, Begging the question. Your argument looks like this..
1) The government is not "engaged in a damn good deal of wrondoing. (supposedly proved by the fact that things are stable and not every person in the nation is complaining)
2) If you act up and the government is not doing wrong then you will make matters much "worse in the process of trying to "improve" things. "
3) You do not want to make matters worse (definition of worse for most rational people)
Therefore, do not act up. (I think that conclusion can safely be implied by your comments. Especially comments below about people who have the power to make life miserable for everyone)
You have not shown 1 to be the case. Nor have you explained why 2 is correct. So your conclusion has not been shown. Please explain the following.

1. Why is invasion of not a "damn good deal of wrongdoing"?
2. What is a good deal of wrongdoing?
3. What is the definition of "acting up"?
4. Why is premise 2 correct? Why is acting up only good for for large amounts of wrongness and not small amounts.

You need to prove your premises.

Often, though, "stability" is a placated populace, happily listening to Britney Spears and munching on Cheetos, and threats to that notion of "stability" are dealt with severely. That sort of stability generates the big bucks.

That's all what you've chosen to do with the fact that you're rich and content enough to not have to worry about whether rebel (or government) militia leaders are going to come to your house and steal all your food (at best).

This is a non sequitur. How does this follow from his statements above?

People in the Western world (especially the US) are generally well-off enough that freedom can coexist with stability. They don't want to lose what they have. However, when you start getting desperate elements in the population (who have the power to make life miserable for everyone), the story changes.

Both you and the poster make several arguments with the argumentum ad numerum fallacy. Just because most people are complacent with stability, does not justify your arugment that stability is more important than "not acting up". booker makes some of the same arugments.

Please, if you want to prove your point, choose a logical standpoint to go from. Your arguments will sound more professional and will less likely get you labled as a troll. (And there is somethign I hope we can both agree upon.) ---
crulx
crulx@iaxs.net

Solution To Funding Government!

[Seumas]

Okay. Carnivore and this new M15 system is a wonderful way for the governments to fund themselves!

All they have to do is follow what Dejanews.com does -- filtering messages and embedding links in Usenet posts. Carnivore could scan every single email sent through America and replace common words and product names with hypertext links that would allow the recipient of messages to automatically be transported to the site of a company paying the government for advertising!

Example:
Jim, Thanks for lending me your car lastnight. Hopefully I will have mine back from the body shop in time for the game tomorrow. I owe you big time. Remind me to give you some of these great cigars when we meet up at the game -- it's the least I can do!

Thanks,

Ted
---
seumas.com

wonder if havenco ever came up in the discussion?

[pangloss]

While HavenCo. and Sealand must insist that they are a sovereign country/principality/whatever, a number of people expressed the opinion (which I tend to agree with) that Sealand's status is only uncertain because Britain hasn't yet felt compelled enough to push the issue (the shots fired off Sealand notwithstanding).

I wonder if anyone in either of the Houses ever brought up HavenCo to support arguments in facor of the bill. After all, it's not just about email, but includes "other encrypted Internet communications". It would be ironic if the need for services like HavenCo. is in part perpetuated by the existence of services such as HavenCo.

Incidentally, what are the latest conspiracy theories around the integrity of PGP? I haven't been paying much attention since the U.S. started relaxing export restrictions on strong encryption, but whenever news like this hits Slashdot we always get the usual spate of "just encrypt all your email" and it would be interesting to hear the conspiracy theorists on how that's really just not satisfactory....

Extremely false.

[rjh]

Speak for yourself.

During the years when export of cryptography was illegal, I was habitually encrypting everything crypto-related which I sent to other people via email. After all, the government went after Phil Zimmerman, and once tried to tell a group of mathematicians that they couldn't deliver a presentation on RSA. The government was very interested in export-control, and using crypto on email conversations about crypto was just a prudent way to keep myself safe and lawsuit-free.

Let's also not forget the business world. My previous job was for an Internet start-up which was going to be expanding quickly to Europe and the Pacific Rim. Certain countries (France among them) have industries which are partially or wholly owned by the government; and the governments of certain countries (France among them) have histories of using their intelligence agencies to gather economic intelligence on the competitors of these government-owned industries.

Were we concerned about the DGSE eavesdropping on our plans to set up shop in Europe? Damn straight.

And let's not forget the fact that you don't have to be important to warrant being searched. Let's say that you're a journalist and you're a big nobody. The government doesn't care about you. You're talking via email with someone, using them as a reference for a story, or maybe they're providing you with leaks, or whatever.

Let's say your source is also under investigation for drug smuggling. The FBI can eavesdrop his emails, but that might tip him off. Instead, it's easier to eavesdrop on the emails of the people he talks to.

After all, drug smugglers tend to take extreme precautions with their communications. There's no guarantee that the people they talk to do. It just makes sense.

... I qualify on all three points listed above, you see. I was violating ITAR/EAR before it became fashionable, and I was very concerned about getting a call from the FBI.

I worked for an industry in which we had very real concerns about foreign governments eavesdropping on our electronic communications and giving our secrets to competitors.

And I talk with a few lawyers and a journalist, and in 1993 I had a pretty long set of email conversations with Phil Zimmerman. I know that at least one of those people was under government surveillance at the time, and I don't know about the others.

So your statement--"I don't think anyone reading Slashdot is important enough that the government would want to read through his or her e-mail"--is quite false.

Also keep in mind--in every one of these events, what I was doing was legal. ITAR/EAR was struck down as unconstitutional in its control over computer source code; my business was totally legal; my communications with lawyers, PRZ and the occasional journo are all completely, totally legal.

Just because you're one hundred percent legal doesn't mean the government isn't going to snoop.

Re:UK's E-mail Scan Is Avoidable

[KahunaBurger]

Allegedly, the technology is extremely easy for savvy computer users to avoid (i.e. the sort of people that the government hopes to catch in illegal acts). If the cybercriminals can bypass the tap with ease, then whose e-mail gets scanned? Answer: ordinary people.

This seems like quite a leap. One might just as well say that people trying to rip off the phone company can avoid having their calls traced, so wiretaps or traces are only useful against "ordinary people". Just like phone taps or any other survelance method, the is a huge gulf of situations between "cyber-criminals" and "ordinary people" (implying no criminal concerns) where email survelance could prove useful.

That said, perhaps this should get people to chill out a little bit about carnivore, given that it at least opperates under warrent. Look objectively at the two programs and gain some perspective. Law enforcement has a right to monitor communications of those individuals who a judge will give them a warrent for. But depending on how UK LEOs will be able to use this stockpiled info, this seems much more of a concern.

-Kahuna Burger

Re:My goodness, yes!

[Skald]

What makes you so much more fit to judge who's a criminal and who's not than your government?

Actually, here in the US, there's a long tradition that holds that the citizens are more fit than the government to judge who's a criminal and who's not. We call it, "trial by jury".

They were undermining the stability of the state, a charge that most Westerners greatly underestimate the importance of.

*ahem*

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

True, theese people were charged for the wrong thing, but those were trying times for the American nation, and unruly groups causing chaos and unrest were the last thing it needed.

Or in other words, in times of trouble, freedom's fine, except when the going gets rough. Your words are inspiring.

Booker: And those damn Japanese-Americans during WWII.

This was out of line, agreed.

Why? This seems very much out of line with the rest of your reasoning. WWII was a much more troubled period than the early Cold War. Potential enemies at home were the last things America needed.

Once again, most Westerners take a stable nation for granted. You grossly underestimate the value of this privilege.

And you grossly undervalue those things which make stability of value, the freedoms which make America a nation worth protecting. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Re:Encrypted Mail

[Shimodasan]

This story seems to believe that encryption is the answer to all your privacy problems.
If you have been following the progress of the RIP bill you will know that failure to hand over your
encryption key leaves you in the position that you must prove you NEVER KNEW IT. Seeing as this is probably impossible, you will face the
mandatory jail sentence or up to two years. Very draconian.

Does anyone have any comments on the security of services like hushmail?

My goodness, yes!

[Booker]

I mean, everyone knows that whenever a government practices surveillance on its citizens, it's only if that citizen is truly a dangerous criminal. A quick scan of history reveals that, right off!

All those communists in the McCarthy era got what was coming to them.

And those damn Japanese-Americans during WWII.

Arlo Guthrie most certainly deserved to have his life on file at the FBI. As did Pete Seeger. Damned agitators...

Make a stand...

[gi_wrighty]

I've read through the posts and no-one has mentioned http://www.stand.org.uk. At their site you can webfax your local MP and they have a good source of information about the effects of the bill.

Another useful site is http://www.fipr.org/rip/RIPcountermeas ures.htm . No explainations required.

wrighty.

(Is it me or does the lameness filter add in spaces to long strings?)

Hasn't passed yet...

[SamHill]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill hasn't passed yet.

What happened is that the House of Commons discussed and accepted the amendments to the bill made by the House of Lords. No vote to accept or reject overall passage of the bill was made.

You can read the discussions for yourself.

For up-to-date tracking of the bill's progress, see the Home Office's RIP page.

UK's E-mail Scan Is Avoidable

[qbasicprogrammer]

Since Britain passed its Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill, security experts have examined the technology behind the e-mail snooping that is allowed in the law. Allegedly, the technology is extremely easy for savvy computer users to avoid (i.e. the sort of people that the government hopes to catch in illegal acts). If the cybercriminals can bypass the tap with ease, then whose e-mail gets scanned? Answer: ordinary people. That's why a number of experts are explaining to citizens what steps are necessary to remain invisible to the RIP's black boxes.

Full story at ZDNet or BBC.

Rumour Control on the RIP Act

[AndrewD]

OK, here's the basics:

Here, we have the Bill itself as it emerged from its report to face it's third reading (last stage in parliament before Royal Assent and passage onto the statute book: it comes into force on a date to be fixed thereafter)

Thi s is the complete list of amendments, and you'll notice that Lord Bassam and chums seem to be out with their castrating knives and good on 'em, ain't it handy to have legislators who aren't going to have to face re-election.

This schweinerei is the really offensive part.

Things you ought to know about this Bill:

1. It's already been beaten back once. The really offensive stuff started out in the Electronic Communications Bill (now the Act, minus all the nasty parts and as such totally useless and unlikely ever to be brought into force)
2. On and from 2nd October 2000, when the Human Rights Act 1998 comes into force, it will be more or less impossible to get convictions under clause 53 (it may not retain that section number in the Act-as-it-passes) since the threat of a penalty for non-disclosure amounts to a violation of the privilege against self-incrimination. This particular legal device - questioning under compulsion, a rather genteel and bloodless form of torture - resulted in the defendants in l'affaire Guinness getting judgments in their favour in the EHCR. Because compelled answers to a (non-criminal) DTI inquiry were used as evidence in their eventual (criminal) trial, they were found to have had their human rights violated.
3. The Encryption stuff isn't the big deal. It's the government's automatic right to install whatever variant of the carnivore system they want into any ISP, telecom provider, whatever so that they can monitor whenever they like without prior judicial restraint. The warrants are to be signed by the Secretary of State. And how much scrutiny is he going to give them?
4. There's a Commission going to be appointed to hear complaints. Sure, right. Fact fans, listen carefully: this is what they did last time around, when they passed the old Interception of Telecommunications Act fifteen years ago. In those fifteen years, the Commissioner has heard four (4) complaints. And rejected all of them. Can you say "dead letter?"

I could, and at very small provocation will, go on.