Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
Maybe they were afraid people wouldn't surf for porn anymore if they could be seen by the government and thus traffic would reduce with 60%
Stef
"Son, in a sporting event, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get" - Homer J. Simpson
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.
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!
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.
Does Osama bin Laden even have an email address? He did have a mobile phone, and they did track him on this for a bit, but then (if I remember correctly) they announced this to the media so he switched it off.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I dunno, he might just have a REALLY good throwing arm ???
On second thoughts, you're probably right.
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.
We've found him! The only place were broadband is difficult to acquire is the UK!
I think you will find that it is TV *and* booze thank you very much.
Oh, best go.. got the bare minimum to do before the boss appears.
NEW POLL SHOWS CORRELATION IS CAUSATION
WASHINGTON (AP) The results of a new survey conducted by pollsters
suggest that, contrary to common scientific wisdom, correlation does in
fact imply causation. The highly reputable source, Gallup Polls, Inc.,
surveyed 1009 Americans during the month of October and asked them, "Do
you believe correlation implies causation?" An overwhelming 64% of
American's answered "YES", while only 38% replied "NO". Another 8% were
undecided. This result threatens to shake the foundations of both the
scientific and mainstream community.
"It is really a mandate from the people." commented one pundit who wished
to remain anonymous. "It says that The American People are sick and tired
of the scientific mumbo-jumbo that they keep trying to shove down our
throats, and want some clear rules about what to believe. Now that
correlation implies causation, not only is everything easier to
understand, it also shows that even Science must answer to the will of
John and Jane Q. Public."
Others are excited because this new, important result actually gives
insight into why the result occurred in the first place. "If you look at
the numbers over the past two decades, you can see that Americans have
been placing less and less faith in the old maxim 'Correlation is not
Causation' as time progresses." explained pollster and pop media icon
Sarah Purcell. "Now, with the results of the latest poll, we are able to
determine that people's lack of belief in correlation not being causal has
caused correlation to now become causal. It is a real advance in the
field of meta-epistemology."
This major philosophical advance is, surprisingly, looked on with
skepticism amongst the theological community. Rabbi Marvin Pachino feels
that the new finding will not affect the plight of theists around the
world. "You see, those who hold a deep religious belief have a thing
called faith, and with faith all things are possible. We still fervently
believe, albeit contrary to strong evidence, that correlation does not
imply causation. Our steadfast and determined faith has guided us through
thousands of years of trials and tribulations, and so we will weather this
storm and survive, as we have survived before."
Joining the theologists in their skepticism are the philosophers. "It's
really the chicken and the egg problem. Back when we had to worry about
causation, we could debate which came first. Now that correlation IS
causation, I'm pretty much out of work." philosopher-king Jesse "The Mind"
Ventura told reporters. "I've spent the last fifteen years in a heated
philosophical debate about epistemics, and then all of the sudden Gallup
comes along and says, "Average household consumption of peanut butter is
up, people prefer red to blue, and...by the way, CORRELATION IS CAUSATION.
Do you know what this means? This means that good looks actually make you
smarter! This means that Katie Couric makes the sun come up in the
morning! This means that Bill Gates was right and the Y2K bug is
Gregory's fault." Ventura was referring to Pope Gregory XIII, the 16th
century pontiff who introduced the "Gregorian Calendar" we use today, and
who we now know is to blame for the year 2000.
The scientific community is deeply divided on this matter. "It sure makes
my job a lot easier." confided neuroscientist Thad Polk. "Those who
criticize my work always point out that, although highly correlated,
cerebral blood flow is not 'thought'. Now that we know correlation IS
causal, I can solve that pesky mind-body problem and conclude that
thinking is merely the dynamic movement of blood within cerebral tissue.
This is going to make getting tenure a piece of cake!"
Anti-correlationist Travis Seymour is more cynical. "What about all the
previous correlational results? Do they get grandfathered in? Like, the
old stock market/hemline Pearson's rho is about 0.85. Does this mean
dress lengths actually dictated the stock market, even though they did it
at a time when correlation did not imply causation? And what about
negative and marginally significant correlations? These questions must be
answered before the scientific community will accept the results of the
poll wholeheartedly. More research is definitely needed."
Whether one welcomes the news or sheds a tear at the loss of the ages-old
maxim that hoped to eternally separate the highly correlated from the
causal, one must admit that the new logic is here and it's here to stay.
Here to stay, of course, until next October, when Gallup, Inc. plans on
administering the poll again. But chances are, once Americans begin
seeing the entrepeneurial and market opportunities associated with this
major philosophical advance, there will be no returning to the darker age
when causal relationships were much more difficult to detect.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999