UK ISPs Refuse to Monitor Users
An anonymous reader writes "The internet industry has refused to sign up to plans to give law enforcement and intelligence agencies access to the records of British web and email users, throwing David Blunkett's post-September 11 data surveillance regime into fresh disarray.
In the latest of a long line of setbacks for the home secretary's data retention campaign, the Guardian has learned that internet service providers have told the Home Office that they will not voluntarily stockpile the personal records of their customers for long periods so that they can be accessed by police or intelligence officers."
Summary:
Statewatch's analysis shows that there are "grave gaps in civil liberties protection":
- there are no grounds for refusing to execute a request on human rights grounds
- there are no limits as to what data can be exchanged where member states allow for the retention of data on all crimes, not just the 32 listed
- there is no reference to supervisory authorities on data protection
- there is no reference to the individual's right to correct, delete, block data nor compensation for misuse or for related judicial review
- no reference to controls on the copying of data
- no rules for checking on the admissibility of data searches
So, while it's nice that the ISP's showed some common sense and backbone, it's not really going to get them very far.
Is it just me or is the UK now the free nation America use to be. now they are the home of the free and land of.. well 1 out of 2 ain't bad.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
I mean, the government gets whatever it wants, because it has all the power. It has all the power because it has all the guns, and that is especially true in the UK.
What differs from country to country is how well the government knows what it wants. If the government in this case is determined enough to pass a law requiring that ISPs keep mandatory records, there's nothing the ISPs can do about it. If the population of the UK is anything like that of the US, the people won't even notice or care.
I guess the biggest difference between the UK and the US is that the media isn't privately owned to quite the same degree in the UK as it is in the US, right? But that media which isn't owned by private entities is owned by the government, so we get right back to the issue of how much the government itself actually wants this.
No matter how this turns out, though, I have to give a hand to the ISPs for telling the government where to stick it...
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
The question is, WHY did they refuse?
Was it due to a principle, or was it due to the cost associated with the record keeping?
Sure, its easy enough to say "well done" and "finally some sense" - but do we really know what motivated them to say no to the voluntary retention of data?
The UK is the last place I expected to see anyone take a stand against monitoring citizens. Good show.
Churchill said it best:
"Through utilitarian intentions, a moral victory was won."
I am a Karma Library.
Currently the only free domain is the internet, rest everything from transport to what you eat to what adv you watch is in hands of "control". Such legistlations will eliminate freedom on internet also. This is the beginning, soon more and more rules will come.. like what email you send what chat you do, which software you download
People call me paranoid... but thats what they called andy too.. and look where intel isMy Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Blunkett has gotten rid of trial-by-jury and double-jeopardy protection (no "Things only I know for $200 Alex", please). Hard-and-fast civil liberties have gone, so something simple like e-mail usage doesn't stand a chance. The Home Office is not an exemplar of efficiency, so how he'll enforce data stockpiling remains to be seen.
see how much an idiot with a gun can do to public emotion (and health). is it then a real priority to spend who-knows-how-much on logging user activity? IMHO we have a priority problem here.
I guess the biggest difference between the UK and the US is that the media isn't privately owned to quite the same degree in the UK as it is in the US, right?
Perhaps, but to the best of my knowledge, the only publicly-owned media in the UK is the BBC. All other TV and radio stations, and all newspapers, are privately owned.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I don't know about these last attempts, but the RIP bill wanted 7 years. I'd love to see some nice juicy ads from ISPs with "We want to triple your Internet bill. Love, UK government." or something like it. Maybe that'll get the public opinion with them.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
US ISP's, in an attempt to match the actions of their UK counterparts, have anounced that they will only retain users records for 50 years insead of 100 and will ship their router logs only once a week to the NSA, instead of nightly.
It has all the power because it has all the guns, and that is especially true in the UK.
Governements in democraties do not have all the power. And this has nothing to do with guns. Many americans always bring back the issue of guns in the most irrelevant situations!
I guess the biggest difference between the UK and the US is that the media isn't privately owned to quite the same degree in the UK as it is in the US, right?
This is equally irrelevant. Privately owned media can be forced by governements to say anything the governements want as much as public media.
Anyway, this is about ISPs which are all (AFAIK) privately owned.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Kudos to all the UK ISPs who refused to obey this ridiculous government order...
I just hope all the ISPs will have the courage to do the same with their respective governments... But I seriously doubt it!
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Part of the problem is that the UK Govt seems to assume that private businesses will be happy - in difficult market conditions - to be an effective cheap/free police force for them to monitor people. Given conflicting legislation coming out of both the EU and UK Govt's, it is unlikely that this would be welcomed by UK businesses.
I mean, the government gets whatever it wants, because it has all the power
I'm not so sure. There was talk a few months ago of the RIP Act being voided because of a new European law that had been passed.
Has anyone heard anything about this recently?
(-1 Hearsay, Suspicion and not a lot else)
"If being a geek means being passionate about something, then I pity those who aren't geeks." - Pike65
Its good to see that ISPs are fighting on the users side for a change (for our good, or theres...we dont know) but its quite a swing around to the disclaimers and other documents that ISPs bind you to specific ToS that if you waver from in the slightest they go a bit mental at you
just my 2c
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
I think they should hire a better typist over there at the Guardian, I've never seen so many typos in one article in my life, to show just a few:
The investigations citedrefer
have been struggling to agree terms
No vember
to force internet prov-iders
I mean really! get a spell checker! And a grammar one too!
Blunkett has no time for libertairians. He is achieving everything the Tories can only dream of.
Remember, this is the man who is trying to remove the right to trial by jury. This is the man who is thinking of revealing a defendant's past convictions, which will bias the court even further against the unfortunate. This is the man who persecutes people crossing the channel with their car boots (trunks?) yet allows big corporations to get away with tax evation and theft on a colossal scale.
"New Labour - Same Old Tories"
Save the logs, dump them on tape and send a lorry round to MI5 once a week to deliver them. When you start to run out of tapes (and you will) start to burn them on CDs (which have less capacity than tape), when they run out it's back to paper tape and punch cards.
Do they have any idea how much storage space they will need for just one months worth of data!
- OR -
All we have to go is write some scripts to visit random sites and we can all swap emails. I have broadband. Just how many sites could a spider visit in 24 hours from my machine?
How many emails could I send in 24 hours?
David Blunkett has a habit of putting legislation into action that is far too heavy handed - think about his post-Sept 11 proposals, or his reaction to refugee housing. Thankfully most of it seems to get filtered out by due process.
He does seem to act a bit rashly, and seems to leap before he looks too often. I sometimes wonder if his presence is reverse-discrimination in action (he was blind from birth).
... and today's pet project has
I mean, the government gets whatever it wants, because it has all the power. It has all the power because it has all the guns, and that is especially true in the UK.
c oncessions citizen.
Not all the guns. The IRA still has a few, and the loyalist gangs have a load - oh, yes, and the Yardies tend to be well supplied, and the Tongs. But I guess you meant that the citizenry are not allowed to bear arms without a license, which is not routinely given.
However, I think that this is all but irrelevant in this case as (a) retention of ISP data records just isn't the sort of thing that popular revolutions are made of, and (b) as you say, most the of the people wouldn't even care (yes, sadly, the British population is just like the US population in this regard). You know the line "I've got nothing to hide, so why shouldn't they implant me with a v-chip?".
I guess the biggest difference between the UK and the US is that the media isn't privately owned to quite the same degree in the UK as it is in the US, right? But that media which isn't owned by private entities is owned by the government
The only publicly owned media corporation is the BBC, which is paid for by television license subscription. It's not really owned by the government in the sense that you mean (ie, the government can't tell it what to broadcast, or not - though God knows they've tried time and again). The problem for the government is that the BBC carries more weight with the people that the government of the day ever will - so they have to watch their step. It carries more weight, because it broadcasts the soaps and reality TV shows that keep Joe Couch-Potato happy and fat.
And the rest of our media are owned by sundry groups - right-wing (mostly), left-wing (rarely), and a big chunk of it by Rupert Murdoch, who's an Australian/American/Chinese/whatever-gets-him-TV-
Anyway, to attempt to answer the question - will HMG just make the retention mandatory - I don't know. They've backed down before when it came to crapping over civil liberties (and at other times, they've just shit all over them). My guess is that there are a hell of a lot of people using ISPs in the UK right now, and there just ain't enough votes to be got by ramming this down the ISPs throats. On the other hand, never underestimate the power of the securocrats - the ridiculous mess that is the RIP Act was their handiwork.
David Blunkett did go on record as saying that there were some things that a governing party must not do, even if it could steamroller any opposition (the Labour party has a huge majority in Parliament). So, who knows - maybe they'll just decide that without the co-operation of the ISPs, it ain't a fight worth having.
Watch out for the low-flying pigs though.
--Ng
There is no chance of my ISP every doing this in the UK. They can't arrange for the cable box to be fixed. They can't get my bill right after 12 months of me telling them that I do in fact pay by direct debit and they shouldn't be charging me a levy. They can't even pick the phone up after 10^6 rings...
What chance do they have of recording all my web page visits and emails?
http://www.nthellworld.com/
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Why do so many yanks have such a problem understanding the differenc between Government controlled and publically owned?
The BBC is publically owned. It is independent from the government.
My initial reaction when reading this story was to stand up for the ISPs - say something along the same lines as most other people here...
HOWEVER, if I had a choice between another attack on the scale of Sept 11th, and my ISP holding my logs (and the chance that someone might look through them), I'd be quite happy to let anyone look at the logs.
I have nothing illegal to hide, and while I'd rather people didn't look through what I've been doing, it's all down to what's more important....
Hugh Macdonald
Note also
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
I mean, the government gets whatever it wants, because it has all the power. It has all the power because it has all the guns, and that is especially true in the UK.
I feel sorry for a certain type of American. You don't realise how screwed up your world-view is.
So you mean that another attack can be prevented with your ISP logs? You really have that knowledge?
No but really. What will happen is that they will check your computer logs AND another attack will happen.
Hmm, I wonder if that's cos he's blind?
Deleted
You geeks don't want your mothers to find out about all the pr0n you've been downloading....
Heh.
I have no time for brown-nosing libertarians either.
However, I would like to indicate that I am working against everything the Tories are trying to achieve.
Me, I'm a life-long labour-party voting computer geek with Windows 2000 operating system and a nice salary, which hasn't really made me to forget my working class roots or the anarchist years of my early twenties.
Nice laws. But since the government wants all this overhead, who should pay for this 'security' that consumers don't want? The providers themselves? Don't think so. I think the politicians should eat their own dogfood, and cough up those euros.. and even then, I can imagine better IT investments.. :)
Clearly though the idea that Echelon can hoover up phone/emails and record/scan them is just so much hooey, as I always thought it was. Reassuring in a way.
I mean, the government gets whatever it wants, because it has all the power. It has all the power because it has all the guns, and that is especially true in the UK.
The government has power because we the people give it power. The governments gets things it wants and we don't want because we the people do not stop the government from getting what the government wants before it is too late. I am constantly amazed by how the majority groups with in Nations, Trade unions and Political organizations neglect to make use of their democratic rights to govern them selves and get rolled over by a small but determined minority that makes excellent use of its democratic rights. I have actually seen unpopular legislation passed in an unnamed national assembly just because half of the majorities MPs were stuck gossiping at the watercooler when the vote was called and being absent they could not stand up and be counted.
If we keep expecting to exercise our democratic right to influence government after bills we dont like have been passed because we were to lazy to show up to vote or too brain-dead to speak up we will have a hard time ahead of us. It would be so much easyer if people opposed legislations that robs them of their rights BEFORE it is passed. Sort of like putting on the FLAK jacket BEFORE you get shot
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I'm not sure it really matters. A lot of annoying behavior would come to an end if businesses just started behaving more rationally, taking long-term profits and considerations into account.
Perhaps you might like to use the services of a Finnish telecom, Sonera.
Sonera does deliver all of the telecom services you have mentioned, with an amazingly friendly attitude.
Sonera is at the leading edge of the discontinuity
What's the big deal? Slashdot groupthink has been saying (correctly) for years now that standard network protocols like SMTP and HTTP are very easy to sniff, and if you want privacy you should use encryption. There are people (govt or otherwise) sniffing network traffic right now, all that the British minister has done is bring the issue into the open.
You should assume that whatever you send over your network link is publicly readable (if not always modifyable) and encrypt accordingly.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Private companies naturally never spy on citizens, workers etc. This type of a thing is solely done by companies owned even partially by their governments.
I think that we have a very strong case for privatization of all state-owned resources. Scientific studies prove that privatization always works and makes society a happier and more prosperous place.
It's like this in the USA, too. It's not just that during our 2000 presidental election it was obvious that G.W. Bush Jr. was a moron, it's _also_ that anybody that _really_ cared to learn what kind of executive he'd be could look at his record in Texas. Anybody that voted for Bush under the theory that he gave a shit about the environment or poor people (especially poor brown people) or anything, really, except large companies did so in total defiance of his record as governer.
In short, voters everywhere are 100% unable to correlate between past performance and future likely behavior. It's very odd, given that you'd think such an ability would be highly adaptive, but there you go.
I don't know how possible or feasible this idea is, but something needs to be done.
Freedom of speach is at stake. I'm not sure of the details, but wasn't there a court case or a precedent that says that if you are scared about the repurcussions of you accessing information, your right to free speach is being hindered? Well if logs are going to be kept for significant ammounts of time, and the govt or private companies are going to have access to it, i'd consider this to be of concern.
And in the US, those guns have stopped your government passing laws that threaten your freedoms, right?
Oh... wait
When a corporation does something like this, it has nothing to do with morals or rights. They have simply seen that they stand to lose money from it. When the government revises it such that they are compensated for their losses, even by the users, it will be FULL STEAM AHEAD!
They refused retaining the logs beyond 15 months. I repeat.. beyond 15 months. and they cited cost as one of the major reasons. So why are we all discussing irrelevant things ?
The fact: They would keep the logs for 15 months. Beyond 15 months, it's not affordable to keep the logs, and hence they would not. Big Deal.
This guy would lack both the cover and the alienation required to snipe strangers if the US wasn't dominated by low-density suburban planning. The American obsession with the automobile has shattered the older urban communities and scattered people to the suburbs, which are no substitue for a healthy neighbourhood.
People in high-density/pedestrian-oriented urban areas would probably a)have a stronger bond with people in their vicinity, b)play a more active role in policing their neighbourhood, and c)notice a guy setting up down the block with an assault rifle.
This guy is sick, for sure. How did he get that way? Why doesn't every contry have a sniper killer? All I can say is: the conditions that created this individual aren't changing, so prepare for more. He won't be the last.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
that this will not have the desired effect. If any terrorist or other criminal wants to send subversive information they can go to an internet cafe, register a false name and address, do the deed the disappear. Similarly with mobile (cell) phones - buy a pay as you go phone and discard it after a few uses. Impossible to track
N
It looks like poor OCR without a human checking the result. 'M' to 'V' is quite typical in my rather limited experience.
Cuiusvis hominis est errare; nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare.
From the 1st Jan there will be a number of changes in the servers 'an ISP' is providing.
We will be increasing you subscription charge by 25%,
Your bandwidth will be limited to 26kbits.
We will be capping you email to 20mb a month and browsing to 2000 pages.
All this has been necessary to comply with recent government regulation introduced by David Blunket.
If you have any problems, you know how to vote next time around.
Have a nice day.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The ISPs rejected it because of economic reasons not because of some high moral stance. Also HMG has had the power to track your internet usage and read (before you do) your emails for some time.
Also the difference between the US and UK media is two small enties known as the 'Constitution of the US of A' and the 'Offical Secrets Act'. The US Constitution gives the right of free speech to US citizens, it also prevents the US Gov from banning any kind of publication (ie can't tell the media what to say). It is slightly different in the UK as it doesn't have a written constitution, the Official Secrets Act allows the UK Gov to prevent the publication of certain information that may be adverse to UK National Security, an example of this is during the Falklands War when the UK Gov prevented the invasion of the Falklands from being reported for a number of days, this allowed UK forces to be readied without the Argentines knowing about it be watching the BBC.
When we had all the trouble with the RIP bill (what happened to it? not heard much on it in ages) didn't quite a few ISPs threaten to put at least their mail servers outside the country so that the government couldn't even force them to hand over the data?
What happened to that and doesnt Blunkett realise that the ISP can easily move these vital pieces of equipement out of the UK jursidiction? It just shows what lack of understand politicans and their advisors really have of the Internet and its workings.
The only truely safe way for them to stop any so-called net-terrorism is to shut down the net which obvisiously wont happen!
I have no problem with ISPs logging usage, or that data being used by law enforcement agencies, but there *HAS* to be some governance, oversight and control. It's no good asking ISPs to log the information without clearly explaining the cost implications, who will meet the cost, and ensuring in law that they are allowed and protected in doing so. Furthermore, to inspect the data law enforcement agencies should require a court-issued warrant. Blunkett's plans earlier this year allowed all manner of agencies (even the post office for god's sake) access to this type of information, under unspecified "supervision" of an official. Thank goodness that got canned, (at least for the time being). It is simply not good enough for governments to increase their own power without similarly increasing the protection and rights afforded to the people against that power.
It is NOT the PEOPLE that have complained about this - it is ISPs - they are worried about being arrested for failing to log the smallest amount of data (even accidently) and, possible more importantly, they don't see why they should pay to do the governments work (of course WE actually end up paying as users).
The population of the UK are dullards, sad, boring people obsessed with entertainment and celebrity. They don't know or care who is in charge and a vast majority of them don't vote anyway (9% turnout in the last council elections round here).
They are too stupid to understand how law affects them and generally don't care anyway.
People go to work like zombies do the bare minimum to get a pay packet go home and plug themselves into the nearest drug supply (TV or booze usually).
They people of the isle are sheep - they do as they are told - innovation is dead - long live the service sector.
Nobody ever sees the "big picture" and the greatest threat to our nation is (apparently) paedophiles.
"None of this shit works" -W.Shatner
>It has all the power because it has all the guns, and that is especially true in the UK.
Actually this is completely UNTRUE - the government in the UK does NOT have an Army. Technically all military services are run by the monarch.... that hot bed of political discussion.... the monarchy.... I think that idea died in about 1603.....
"None of this shit works" -W.Shatner
A favourite English expression.
If they want to watch me. FINE!
But I want to read Blunketts mail too.
THAT IS EQUITY. The UK has NO equity. It is one of the most prescriptive and restrictive societies on earth - they also seem to believe that law stops people breaking it. This is completely wrong!
One further thought. Modern law practice is stupid. The best system of law EVER invented was the 10 commandments - NOT BECAUSE OF THE CONTENT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. But because it is a simple set of laws that most people would agree with - any idiot can read (or be read to) and understand them. UK law runs into tens of thousands of pages. It is not possible to live for a day without breaking the law.
"None of this shit works" -W.Shatner
It's got the New Model Army. Go Cromwell!
channel 4 is government owned isn't it? Though ran like a private company
It's also the case that the media in the UK (private or public) can be considerably more critical of the governement and politicians than media in the US. Anyone who's ever watched Larry King interview a senator, then seen Jeremy Paxman do the same with a British MP will know that blustering Larry is a cream puff.
Also interesting to note that the BBC News website carried an interview with Noam Chomsky on 9/11 this year. No US network would ever have done that.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Gun ownership is protected because what was true yesterday is not true today and what's true today isn't true tomorrow.
Violent crime is a symptom of a sick society.
Anyone that can't see that needs shooting!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Yep, and it's up around 50% since Dunblane and the subsequent handgun restrictions. Is that in spite of the ban, or because of it?
I'm not at all convinced I'd want routine carrying of handguns legalised in the UK at present, but more because I'm afraid of the number of unfortunate accidents that would occur because people here haven't grown up with them than because I object to them on self-defence grounds. Getting a gun isn't hard if you're a bad guy as it is, it's just that right now, the only people who have them are the criminals.
In principle, I don't see that any government has any business restricting anything (carrying weapons for SD or sport, speed of travel in your car, use of drugs, bringing alcohol home from your booze cruise, whatever) unless it is preventing a clearly demonstrated threat to the general population. The government has failed to demonstrate this beyond random spin in any of these cases, and plenty of informed criticism argues that they are actually causing more damage to the population as a whole with their current policies. Yet, as it stands now, my girlfriend can't legally carry CS spray for self-defence, I can't legally drive faster than 20mph on a road near my home where 40mph would normally be safe, and cannabis is illegal although the vast majority of population want it legalised in every recent survey taken.
What was that about appropriateness of laws and police states? Damn, I can't remember...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Small addition/clarification: the BBC actually have 8 nationally-broadcast terrestrial channels - except 6 of them are only broadcast digitally. Furthermore, the BBC is at the head of a consortium, which includes BSkyB, that is about to start broadcasting 30 or so channels as free-to-view digital terrestrial.
Every society has (some) violent crime, I'd just rather the dude with evil in mind wasn't carrying a gun. Or if he was that alone would get him arrested.
That way he be a criminal BEFORE he shot someone.
As I said before, this is only my view. I know many people see gun ownership is a right, I just think the right to life is more important than other rights. Maybe I'm wrong on this one.
I do believe this act states that for the sum of no more than 10 pounds, I can get a company to hand over all the data they hold on me.
Yes Mr ISP I'd like a copy of that list of all my internet activities, here's your 10 quid.
One problem, as others have remarked, is that most people don't know that this is happening, or forget quickly.
The current UK government is very good a raising stealth taxes (taxes that are easily forgotten). One of these is an air-flight tax. The budget airlines don't like these as they can be a significant %age of the total price; so they quote these separately - which ensures that everyone always remembers that they are being taxes.
The ISPs should do the same: itemise cost to provide service + cost to record all your traffic.
This 'in your face' mechanism may help get this obnoxious intrusion removed.
Does the post office record the address of every letter that you send ?
Visit Europe. Hell, visit New Orleans or Brooklyn. This guy could NOT operate the way he has been in those places.
If you still find my hypothesis hard to swallow, think about the locations has been using: parking lots, gas stations, convenience stores, bus stops in the middle of nowhere. What do these things have in common?
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
Worked in the past didn't it, at once stage you were shipping your surplus idiots to Australia by the boat load.
We could do with a few more ISPs here.
Its a rather dumb idea and I am glad to the UK ISPs are ganging up however if one decides to do it you are all stuffed.
I hope Commonwealth of Australia does not decide to follow the same idea.
"Everyone seems to like Lucy the dog, though... let's appoint her Home Secretary ;-)"
Lucy is great. Certainly my favorite member of Parliament. Even cuter than Arthur Scargill's dog, who is was much a pushover as he wasn't.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
channel 4 is government owned isn't it? Though ran like a private company
Technically, this is true - in that C4 has no shareholders and holds a broadcast license from the government as long as a portion of its programming is public service.
However, it reports under the auspices of the ITC, receives no public funding, and must support itself via commercial operations only. So, other than the government's ability to revoke its license (which they could do to any operator), it's difficult to see this as "ownership" in any meaningful way. To me, that phrase means at least some measure of managerial/editorial/financial control (I suppose appointing governors to the Board is one - but it never worked very well for the BBC!).
The Tories keep on threatening to sell C4, but to use regulation to enforce public service broadcasting. Seems to me that it wouldn't make a lot of difference.
--Ng
Absolutely! Heck, I'm tired of big government stomping on our rights to kill people.
You can't really call it a free society if you can't kill people who annoy you!
And what about the pointless PC (Politically Correct) laws against cannibalism!
- MichaelGenerally you're right, although it's worth noting that both your examples are BBC ones.
Sky News is pretty good from the now and then that I catch it, as is Channel 4 news.
All the broadsheet newspapers generally provide more challenge to the government than the present Westminster opposition do - even The Guardian which is nominally a Labour-supporting paper.
It's actually quite interesting that the one policy theme that the current opposition could successfully pick up on as a basis for the next election is the Libertarian agenda, currently being touted by The Daily Telegraph (which has been the Conservative Party's candid friend for a long time).
However, the Conservative Party has far too many internal interests who are bound to social authoritarianism despite their economic liberalism to go for this. It would be a brave step for them to refocus the party and lose a large part of the existing (small) support in the hope of gaining a larger support elsewhere.
They've started to recognise this - that their authoritarianism makes the country view them as the 'nasty' party - but they'll have to move very carefully to make the move effectively.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
Let's all guess which country allows anyone to sell lists containing your name, age, sex, marital status, car, number of kids, address, home phone number, spending habits and much more besides. It seems like the US has a lot of catching up to do with the EU.
If he gets voted out locally, to anyone, there's no more David Blunket.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
always struck me as an Americanised news network, insofar as it follows a very similar news agenda to various American TV "news" networks; look at how it covers Middle Eastern news, for example, and contrast it with the BBC|Channel 4's treatment of the same news items.
Just my 2p.
I have posted similar comment several times before - the logic is undeniable. Nobody has ever gave reasoned argument against it:
Ask Security Services in the US, UK or Indonesia (Bali), or anywhere for that matter, to deny this:
Internet surveillance, using Echelon, Carnivore or back doors in encryption, will not stop terrorists communicating by other means - most especially face to face or personal courier.
Terrorists will have to do that, or they will be caught.
Perhaps using mobile when absolutely essential, saying - Meet you in the pub Monday (human bomb to target A), or Tuesday (target B) or Sunday (abort).
The Internet has become a tool for government to snoop on their people - 24/7.
The terrorism argument is a dummy - bull*.
SURVEILLANCE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STOP TERRORISTS - IT IS SPIN AND PROPAGANDA
This propaganda is for several reasons, including: a) making you feel safer b) that the government are doing something and c) the more malicious motive of privacy invasion.
Government say about surveillance - you've nothing to fear - if you are not breaking the law
This argument is made to pressure people into acquiescence - else appear guilty of hiding something.
It does not address the real reason why they want this information (which they will deny) - they want a surveillance society.
They wish to invade your basic human right to privacy. This is like having somebody watching everything you do - all your personal thoughts, hopes and fears will be open to them.
This is everything - including phone calls and interactive TV. Quote from CNET: "Whether you're just accessing a Web site, placing a phone call, watching TV or developing a Web service, sometime in the not to distant future, virtually all such transactions will converge around Internet protocols."
"Why should I worry? I do not care if they know what I do in my own home", you may foolishly say. This information will be held about you until the authorities need it for anything at all. Like, for example, here in the UK when government checked for dirt on individuals of the Paddington crash survivors group. This group was lead by the badly injured Pam Warren - whom they arrogantly presume would have nothing to worry about, having her privacy invaded.
All your finances for them to scrutinize - heaven help you if you cannot account for every cent when they check on your taxes.
Do not believe the LIES of Government - even more of your money spent on these measures will not protect us from terrorists.
P.S. On the Domain Name System, big business steal words that belong to everybody - abridging what words you can use - violating the First Amendment. Don't believe me? Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu, most many times over. Even common words you learnt with your A B C's - apple, ball and cat. It is major Corporations illegally abusing and expand their brand using domain names - above other trademarks and all smaller businesses who use similar words - violating Trademark and Competition Law.
The authorities LIE - they know how to make these trademark domains unique and totally distinctive, as the LAW requires trademarks to be. They are aiding and abetting the pervertion of Law. Please visit the World Intellectual Piracy Organization - not connected with the corrupt United Nations WIPO.org !
Personally, I'd like to see the responsibilities for security and for justice in the UK split up into different government ministries: the Home Office is institutionally incapable of balancing the two.
Governments are getting too big for their britches. Hopefully this will bolster other ISP's resolve to say "fuck you government". Man it is 9:10am and I am still drunk. Such is life for a college student
An easy misperception to make. Actually, the BBC is not owned by the government, and certainly isn't run by the government (although the government is a stakeholder which sets the broad regulatory (and funding) environment in which it operates, as is the case for all broadcasters).
The BBC is an independent, self-running organisation, controlled by a board of governers which has a license to collect a license fee from television owners to fund itself. It is not politically possible for the government of the day to direct the content of the BBC, although it may from time to time pass statutes which control all broadcasters (such as the act which prevented the broadcasting of the voices of leaders of defined terrorist organisations. This act didn't actually accomplish anything as the broadcasters simply dubbed the pictures with the voices of actors).
As the BBC is seen as broadcasting in the public interest, any move to bring its output under government direction would be seen by the population as the strongest movement possible towards a dictatorship.
It would be easier for the government to revoke/reallocate the license for a commercial operator than the BBC. And the government has done this before when in the 80s it invited the incumbent ITV companies to reapply for their own licenses, including the level of cash they were to pay for the priviledge.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
Power - The total work done in a unit time. Typically measured in Watts.
From all the reports (and of course apply necessary salting), your self-defence arguments wouldn't have applied to the Monash case. The guy was almost certainly mentally ill, so he was unlikely to be deterred by the risk of being killed himself, and even if somebody had have been carrying a concealed weapon he still would have had time to kill people before a defensive weapon could be retrieved and used.
Nor does it apply to our friend the Washington sniper, for that matter. Nobody has even seen him pull the trigger. People could carry around 50-cal sniper rifles, SAWs, or RPG's and it wouldn't help defend against him.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The new technologies make it very difficult to allow agencies to develop the suspicion further surveilance requires as an antecedant. Traditional communications did not include the same reasonable expectations of privacy that we have today. A phone call always required you to be tied to a handset on the wall, with the possibility of being overheard. The availability of privacy for the average citizen and the average criminal has increased dramatically, and this is the only (public) way that the law enforcement and national security agencies know how to handle it.
Is this right? Is this a Bad Thing for the long run? Quite possibly. You also have no "long run" if you get blown up in a terrorist attack or murdered by someone who couldn't be caught because their ISP refused to cooperate.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
This will get dropped/challenged and dropped:
#1 the legislation will hurt big business (and every UK party seems to think big business >>> citizens)
#2 With all the other crap going down (firefighters going on strike, a-level cock-ups etc.) the government needs some good press.
#3 This law is pointless anyway (if you really want to do something bad then just use SSL).
#4 With all the other legislation (data protection, email-snooping junk, EU bits & bobs) it's too damn complex already. Any data obtained by this method is going to violate at least 1 law by my reckonning.
#5 The odds of this being challenged are high, the odds of the government having covered every line of attack (human rights, uk law, EU law etc.) are practically zero (they seem to lose all the cases now).
The "Ring Of Steel" did in fact stop several IRA car bombs from entering the City, which of course also led to a large number of arrests and the breakup of several IRA cells.
You limeys are so naive.
You accept cameras everywhere because you're told its a good thing.
Now the government wants a record of all your communication without suspicion.
Your leader wants you to go to war against Iraq because they're the enemy. This month.
What's the difference between your life and the life in 1984?
Nothing.
US is getting there; the difference is the country is big enough that there are pockets of people not dependent on technology the way urban/suburban people are. But that will end sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, you put yourself in purgatory, and don't seem to mind the flames licking all around you.
What you say stands, just to clear up a couple of points
1) What about (channel) five?
2) The BBC have 2 analog stations (with opt-outs), and 4 digital (news24/parliment/[choice|cbeebies]/[four|cbbc]). Thats 96 hours a day.
3) There are 5 national bbc radio stations (1,2,3,4,5) on analog, and another 4 or 5 digital. There are 3 national analog independent stations (talk, classic, virgin), and a few on digital. There are more local and university radio stations then bbc local stations - although most come under about 5 big networks (GWR, Century, Galaxy etc)
4) The BBC is pretty independent, more so then the biased views of other stations which exist to futhur their own viewership and therefore profits, and the CEO's political stance.
Cept history maybe. Like, actually _having_ some history. Oh, and have done the Empire thing. GWB is trying, but not having much joy...
(Yes, there was a battle of hastings, and yes, it _was_ nearly 1000 years ago. History did not start in 1492)
On staistic to bear in mind is that more children are killed with guns in bona-fide accidents (children thought it was a toy, didn't know it was loaded...) in the US than were killed with guns from all causes from accidents to police marksmen in the UK. (The Economist, a few months ago).
Of course there is a *4 in population to account for here, but it is still a heck of a lot of accidents
So regardless of the rights and wrong, the morality or immorality, the criminals or the innocent hobbyists, the Constitution and all, the US is paying for its freedom with its childrens lives.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
I am constantly amazed by how the majority groups with in Nations, Trade unions and Political organizations neglect to make use of their democratic rights to govern them selves and get rolled over by a small but determined minority that makes excellent use of its democratic rights.
Yeah, like those Fire Fighters. They wouldn't strike in a million yea...whats that you say? Uh, gotta go!
A rober armed with what looked like a shot-gun attempted to steal 100 bars of chocolate from a petrol station. When the attendant resisted the robber was heard to mumble, 'fuck, i'm to stoned to even bother'.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I'm beginning to think this is turning...the BBC has been very much for the "War on (black) Terror" and "Attack Iraq" campaigns. The reporting of the the "terrorists" echos far too closely the official party line too much for my liking; there appears to be very little critism despite obvious falacies in many of the policies i.e. Saddams "Terrorist" links (or complete lack thereof)
Many people have observed that it appears that the BBC is dumbing down and becoming more tabloid-like. I'm in agreement with them.
The reason that ISPs don't want to help the police in monitoring the activities of their users is that they know illegal activity is an attractive part of the Internet.
AOL already does this. Their entire UK operation is run out of the USA. They use this neat little trick to avoid paying sales tax on their subscriptions too.
Although that loop hole will be closed next June.
has also picked this up, with quite a few interesting links to add
I'm going over here and I don't know why!
Sorry Dustin - your logic is flawed. Also you seem unaware of the big picture of the corruption that has been going on - possibly because of propaganda by authorities and corporations.
e wt ldevaluationprocess;3CAF3A260000026F
.reg would do that. This is for the same reasons, primarily to advise people that the mark is legally registered and protected by law.
> Paranoid about trademarks?
No - I always said that I am pro-trademark - not wanting anybody to be conned by some fraudster passing themselves off as trademark holders.
> The corporations can object to use of their trademarks in trade. And when they try to do the same in areas not connected with trade and the little guy stands up to them, they get slapped by the courts. Your vocabulary and freedom of speech is not being limited by trademarks.
You are ill-informed - this is not the case on the Internet.
> As far as domains are concerned, are I haven't heard a case of www.[generic noun].com being adjudicated against the holder under pressure from a corporation with [generic noun] trademark (considering that you can't easily trademark a simple noun unless you're in an area of business not related to that noun, its not surprising...
You are wrong. Trademarks are given priority in Sunrise and UDRP - abridging your choice of words - surely a violation of the First Amendment. Virtually every word is trademarked - here is a list of a few domains taken by WIPO: video net, roller blade, best locks, nitro fuel, tonsil, north face, marketing mix, 0xygen, edentist, state-farm, new-gig, video direct, iphones, open mail, traditions, open view, unicode, southern company, pc gateway, ultra pure water, time keeper, click here, current, beauty co, sound-choice, e-auto-parts, eresolution, body and soul, talk about, esquire, office specialists, crew, praline, the total package, faith net, buy PC, home interiors, big dog, euro consult, music web, RANT...etc.
This does not include domains like JT.com taken by UN WIPO which could be used by any business or individual. Nor does it include any domains that have been bullied by corporate lawyers before they got to WIPO - nor any of the other 'so-called' arbitors.
> By way of explaination, you could probably trademark "Computer" for a restaurant but couldn't for a computer shop).
I am well versed in this subject and have used this "Computer" example myself. Quote:
A trademark cannot be for the same class as the word - for instance the word 'COMPUTER' can be used for selling socks and tights - but not computers.
UK trademark 1134604 - 'COMPUTER'
Proprietor: Dunlop Australia Limited
Class 25: Stockings, panti-hose; socks and tights, all for wear.
http://forum.icann.org/cgi-bin/rpgmessage.cgi?n
> Now a more original turn of phrase can be trademarked and only the trademark holder can state that it has a moral (and legal) right to an original phrase that it uses. I have no sympathy for people squatting on Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and other original, non-generic phrases. But I'm open to comments and rebuttal.
The Coca-Cola to stop cybersquatter example is one that is used in corporate propaganda to give all big business unlawful priority in Sunrise and UDRP.
The solution to this problem has been ratified by honest lawyers. Trademark holders do not own the vast majority of domains - it is obvious that something is needed to highlight them - to replace the registered trademark symbol. A new protected TLD of
The one (only?) good side effect would be that ISPs hosting spammers would get gtreatly irritated to have to log a spammers outgoing traffic.
Suddenly hosting a spammer incures an additional cost!
Privately owned in the sense of not belonging to the government, yes.
However (from memory) the Guardian is owned by a trust specifically set up for running the paper. I don't remember about the Independent, but I think a similar arrangement exists there too.
WRT other ones like the Times, Telegraph, Mail etc. though, those are pretty much owned by individuals. Often with an axe to grind.
Do you realize the population density of most of the places he's hit is probably higher than the areas you mentioned?
You are what we call a "fucktard".
You twist the facts and then draw conclusion that fir your agenda, not what's happening in the real world.
The sort of "Britishers" you are going to find on slashdot are a-typical Britishers*. They are the sort of people who seek out information, news and comment. Most people need it thrust apon them.
* I love that word!
"None of this shit works" -W.Shatner
Yeah, lets make the parents responsible for every last thing their child does! In fact, lets just mandate that all children must be kept locked up in doors until the age of 16, so that they cannot play outside, and possibly inconveniance *you* into having to drive a little slower!
Did you just hatch out of an egg fully developed, or did you actually grow up like the rest of us?
Absolutely correct. Revolting over this would be as ridiculous as as revolting over some silly little tax on tea!
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Really I can picture a few ways and I dont think it will take quite as much space as you let on though I grant you there is some cost and space involved. You figure first you dump everything into a file, then at intervals you dump file into database. Let a table keep the sites you visit and link it to a time and date table. For fields for identification purposes and VIOLA you have logging. Every so often depending on traffic you pack down the Database back it up clear it out start the next cycle.
Email I think presents a slight challenge.
What are you scared of? If your not doing anything wrong theres no problem. What people are afraid of really is LOSING THE POSSIBLITY/ABILITY to do something wrong if they want to without getting caught. People feel like sure I'm not doing anything now but maybe one day I'll want to look up how to steal cable or whatnot. There argument is the gov shouldnt be able to search for that. Why not?
I love the old well you were searching my house for Marijauna but all you found was Cocain and heroin so you should be able to hold that against me. Its not a game of let me try and guess what your doing wrong and if I get it wrong you go free.
Doesn't the UK government have access to that spying system called Eschelon? Why do they even need this from ISPs?
i am moving there
I knew a sherrif deputy who could regularly out draw and shoot (with an unloaded gun), someone who had a (unloaded) gun already out.
He knew what he was going to do, and when, as opposed to the person who had the gun out, who was reacting to the situation (shoot only if the guy draws). Granted, you might not stop someone who is holding a gun on you from shooting, but it could be done regularly with some training.
There are many crimes every day that are deterred by individuals with guns. Everyday there are many people that defend themselves successfully with guns.
Taking a great defense tool out of the hands of the people who are willing to carry guns, and forcing them to rely on their government to protect them without holding the government responsible for not protecting them is wrong.
--Fac Iustum Nec Time-- --Veritas Prevalibit--
They actually have some kind of idea what objective news reporting means.
Not a citizen of either UK or the US. Just making an observation here.
but then I guess it would be too much to ask for an american moron to really know anything about anything -- including history.
Certainly. But porn and warez are the best part of the internet.
if not for that, I might as well use a BBS and dial-up at 2400 baud.
No shit.
No, by "normally" I mean in dry conditions with decent visibility. (Sorry, I also put in a typo: where I wrote 40mph, I actually meant 30mph, the previous speed limit on the road in question.)
The road I'm thinking of is long and straight, you can see for probably 250m on a clear day, there is clear space for several metres on both sides of the road most of the way down, most of the time there's a fence at the side, and there are only a few access roads, which all have decent visibility. Where exactly was this child of yours going to come from?
Ah, yes, the school. The one place along the road where the above doesn't quite apply (though you can see much further to the side of the road there). Anyone who drives quickly past a school when there are kids around probably shouldn't be allowed on the road anyway, whatever the speed limit. This is not a good reason to turn more than a mile of 30mph road into 20mph with speed humps, mini roundabouts and such. (Incidentally, the mini roundabouts were marked up so badly they actually caused accidents, and had to be changed a few months after installation.) Of course, the fact that the route was sometimes used as a rat run by a small number of inconsiderate drivers is also ample grounds for penalising the rest of us.
This is just one example, in a city full of them (Cambridge). We have speed cameras all over the city now, on "accident black spots", in the interests of increasing "road safety". Curiously, accident figures just published are actually up around 50% this year, and as usual, the authorities are out claiming that speed is the major cause of accidents. Obviously, the absurd road layouts (the ends of bus lanes are great for silly traffic lights), the total disrespect for speed limits now exhibited by many drivers because so many limits are inappropriate, and the number of roundabouts they've redesigned recently making them much harder to drive around safely have nothing to do with it, though.
Hell, the government's own research group, the Transport Research Laboratory, has published reports debunking the "speed kills" myth and showing that speed is actually a major cause of only a small number of accidents. The government chose to ignore the recommendations of that, and many other, informed reports, in favour of politically correct (or so they think) measures such as blocking off access through the town centre. Now it takes me half an hour, adding to congestion on main routes, to get to the gym after work. Before, I could have driven along a direct route, completely out of the way, in five minutes. That's really aiding the environment, congestion in the second most congested city in the UK, etc, isn't it?
The sort of blind adherence to dogma and complete cynicism with which they act on it are exactly the reasons government shouldn't be able to restrict our freedoms in this sort of way. The alternative, trusting the population at large to be sensible and going after those actually causing real problems, seems to be beyond them.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You are all missing the point. The argument I've presented is exactly that proposed by governments around the world, case in point: Canadian Government's Lawful Access Consultation Document.
That being said, the fact is, whether or not you choose to believe it, that criminals, terrorists, etc etc are using new technologies to communicate and legislation for the new techologies tends to lag behind that for existing and well established technologies such as POTS. Governents know this, and legislation such as CALEA seek to bridge that gap. What we need to be vigilant about is to ensure that mistakes made in existing legislation are not propagated for the new.
We must ensure that civil liberties and human rights are maintained while allowing law enforcement to protect the rights of the people. Retaining logs at the ISP level does not equate with disclosing logs to law enforcement agencies. I don't know what legal hoops LEAs in the UK must jump through to arrange disclosure, but there are legal tests that must take place and judicial involvement to ensure that the rights of the "person of interest" are maintained.
Those of you modding my original comment down, or refusing to mod it up because you don't like what I said despite it being informative (it is, if you don't think that is the stance that government is taking and their publicly stated perspective, then you are fooling yourself), you should check your assumptions and think very hard on whether you are capable of thinking objectively. Information which is distasteful to you can be just as valid and informative as that which coincides with your world view. Think outside the box, try devil's advocacy some time, you might find it opens your mind so you are actually thinking, not just regurgitating what you've been taught.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
> Channel 4 is in public ownership
Errrr, no -- the ITV franchises, including 4 & 5, are commercial entities.
> The BBC has within it a large number of TV and
> radio stations. On the TV side, they have 2
> nationally broadcast terrestrial stations (out
> of 5), with about 6 sets of regional opt-outs,
> plus 3 cable services
Where 3 == 6 (CBBC, CBeebies, BBC News 24, BBC Choice, BBC Four and BBC Parliament).
> while on Radio, they have 4 national stations
Pardon? Have you ever even visited the UK? Even if you can't count, they number the stations, and Radio 5 has been around for over 10 years now.
Of course that's not counting the digital stations (of which there are at least 2, plus data streams) and the magnificent World Service.
> (compared to I think 2 national commercial
> rivals)
Try 4.
As this recent The Age article explains regarding an on-going High Court case, even the imposition of a D-Notice can be subjected to a D-Notice preventing any UK-based media from reporting one has been applied. Good job we can't read non-UK based media outlets these days, eh?
I believe Australia also banned handguns a few years ago
No, Australia did not ban handguns. The guns used in yesterday's shootings were legally registered to the shooter.
Buckets,
pompomtom
"There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
Okay, I know this is a troll, and you shouldn't feed trolls because they grow...
But the reason that America is the country it is today is that "we" (obviously I was not living at the time) fought back (with guns and other weapons of destruction) against oppression.
The constitution guarantees us the right to bear arms partly so that we can overthrow the government. The idea is that if the government rests uneasy they will spend more time considering the repercussions of their actions.
The down side (and there always is one) is that the American government has a two-forked plan to keep us under control. First, take away our guns, especially those useful for harming the government. This (and not crime) is the real reason they are taking away our assault rifles, and high-powered rifles with clips which hold more than five rounds. I do agree that only a lousy hunter needs more than five rounds in his rifle, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to have a 15 round magazine on my .30-06. Any asshole with a little manufacturing skill can make one, after all, and they ARE out there and available, so people who want to use them for ill can get them. It is somewhat more difficult what with "gun control" in this country but by no means impossible. Anything less than impossible is just jerking off.
Threat of armed revolt has been known to keep governments working more or less in the interest of the people in the past. Armed revolt has been known to replace tyrannical governments with ones which work more in the interest of the people, as well.
So tell me again how screwed up the world view of an American who believes that guns can help secure rights is, and I will continue to think you are a pompous buffoon who wouldn't understand freedom if it was sitting on your face.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is just one prohibition that baffles me. Was it honestly such a big problem it needed outlawing? Has canniblism ever been a big problem in any even vaguely modern society? Hell, has it been a problem since laws were codified?
Why the hell are we making laws against things that are not problems? Is it worthwide to prosecute the two cases that happen every decade?
Cannibalism is a victimless crime, especially if you've learned how to cook the entire body.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
It is not politically possible for the government of the day to direct the content of the BBC
Other than appointing Party donors to all the top jobs, you mean? Which is exactly what they've done. I don't know if you caught any of the coverage of the recent Labour Party conference, but it was impossible to tell where the spin doctors stopped and the BBC began.
The reason that ISPs don't want to help the police in monitoring the activities of their users is that they know illegal activity is an attractive part of the Internet.
Well, maybe not illegal, but stuff you wouldn't necessarily want the public (and hence your family and friends) to know that you did, like looking at pr0n and gambling. Demand from paying pr0n customers is why we have cheap, ubiquitous bandwidth like ADSL available now. If those users go away, it'll make the dot.com implosion look like a picnic.
There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as
he entered, the man told the guard at the door:
"I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be
forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered."
This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions
of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully.
But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself.
When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes,
but nothing was to be found.
On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the
guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even
better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail.
On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his
curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live
in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?"
The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
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