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The Beast of Brussels
'No nickname' Ian writes "If you live in Europe you should definitely read this story about a government supercomputer. It's written by Andy McCue from silicon.com and entitled: IT Myths: Does the 'Beast of Brussels' know everything about us?
Basically, in Europe there are rumours of an EU-owned super-computer which stores and process information on every European citizen.
The piece debunks the rumour and finds out its roots are actually in a work of fiction - but there is some interesting comment from privacy activists who suggest it may not be too wide of the mark. Simon Davis of Privacy International goes so far as to suggest such computer may have existed - if perhaps not on the same 'three storey-high' magnitude."
In what respect would static data regarding the citizens of Europe be processed continuously? Why would a supercomputer be needed? Is there that much data? How much data would be kept on citizens if the rumour were true? How come it hasn't been exposed? And so on and so forth. The rumour is so vague I'm surprised that anybody would have genuinely believed it on its own 'merit'. It's quite obviously wrong from even a cursory thought about some of its implications; the EU would never get away with such rampant privacy violations.
Bash script for FP whores
Invisible barcodes tattoed on our foreheads? Beeing read by lasers as we shop groceries? And on every single citizen of the world / europe?
It don't take much to debunk a myth like that, it falls flat on it's face from the sheer impossiblity of a) managing to register and tattoing everyone without someone noticing, b) actually correlating all the data, and c) getting usefull information out. In short, the computer - espesially if it was based on the avilable technology in the early 70's - wouldn't been able to coope with the sheer amount of raw data.
I'm sure it's a bureaucrats wet dream to know everything about everyone, but it is beyond the realm of the possible. In order to believe this myth in the first place, you probaly has to be among those who wear tinfoilhats to stop the goverment from spying on you with rays... and if you are, nothing can change your mind on this, or convince you that man has walked on the moon.
News for nerds? Not really. Stuff that matters? Not to me at any rate. Something that made me smile a sunday morning? Sure did, and I needed that.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
I've done a lot of work with the EC over the last 10 years or so... the existence of the "beast of Brussels" would be a surprise for many reasons, not least of which several people would have had to have reached consensus to build the thing.
Totally impossible.
You ask why the government shouldn't have access to this info. I ask why they should.
When designing a secure system, you try to minimize priviledges - if someone doesn't need access, then it is denied to them.
Likewise we need to be ever vigilant in protecting our freedom. If someone (e.g. the government) doesn't need knowledge or power, then we shouldn't let them have it.
In your example, you mention that the government now can decide when someone has exceed their financial limits. Why is that a good thing? Let the lenders sort it out and take the hit if a borrower defaults.
The more information others have about you, the more subtly they can manipulate you. Detailed information is usually used to take advantage of someone. That's why stalking is illegal in many countries. You'd find it creepy if your neighbor knew this information; why doesn't it bother you that hundreds of government beaurocrats know this for an entire country?
Oh, shut up. You're so full of it... Those little Belgian War Heroes managed to keep the German army (from a country 10 times bigger) from capturing all of Belgium in the first World War, and in the second World War, they managed to resist the German Blitzkrieg for all of 18 days, where the Germans had expected to be at the North-Sea coast in only two or three days...
In both cases, you 'mericans only showed up a couple of years later...
By the way, have they found any WMD's yet in Iraq? Didn't think so...
This sounds like great material for every conspiracy theorist to work with..
/.
It's perfectly possible, and concievable, but the question is, does it really exist?
I saw a few comments on here. So what if someone sees your license plate? Lets go through an easy path for the feds to follow. I'm basing this off of the US. I'm sure similiar stuff applies in Europe.
Your car is spotted in a particular area..
1) Run the plate. Now they have your name, address, SS#, age, height, weight, hair and eye color, and your history of driving.
2) Check the credit bureau's and Chex Systems. Now they know all your bank accounts, credit cards, etc, etc.. Even if your bank doesn't exactly report that you have an account, you'll show up when they checked your credit (or with Chex).
3) Have you ever bought groceries or gas with your ATM/Debit card or credit cards? Do you use the grocery store's "discount" cards? Even if you bought your groceries with cash, if you used your discount card it's easy enough to track your purchases.
So, was the driver of the car you? Sure. You bought gas a few miles away on your credit card.
*IF* (that's a big if) they have a tracking system put together to keep all this information in the same place, it'd be easy to track any single person. Even if the police were interested in tracking an individual, it wouldn't be very hard.
Think about what you did today. Using the simple outline I gave today, they know just about everything you did.
I'm out of town. So, they know when I bought my plane tickets online from what IP, which is tracable back to my home. My home Internet provider would give up my info in a heart beat, including what checking account I pay my bill with. They know when I got on the plane, who I was with, and were I got off. Checking either with the rental car places at the airport or my credit cards, they know what car I'm driving. They know I went to a department store and bought kid toys and party supplies(for a kids birthday), a grocery store and bought a good bit of beer (for myself).
Based on that, they could easily know where I am. I didn't get a hotel, and I haven't purchased gas yet, I'm probably still in the area, so who do I know in the area (phone records, previous contacts). They could go as far as to ask my cell phone provider what tower is my closest contact. That'll narrow me down to 4 miles.
Based on that, they probably know what house or apartment I'm in, and it wouldn't take much creativity to figure out what's here (phones, Internet).
So (oh my goodness), the big brother system knows what house I'm in, that I'm drinking beer and reading/writing on Slashdot. If they're really good, they can see two SSH connections back to one of my servers too.
4:30am, he's drinking beer, working on servers, and on
But you have to ask yourself, why would they track me? They wouldn't. I'm rather boring. No warrants, not a suspect in anything (right now).
If the big brother system was this good, it may actually be a good thing. Got someone with a warrant? Wait til they show up anywhere, and voila, send the cops to pick them up. *AND* if say something happens in my home city (where I'm not at right now), it would be obvious that it wasn't me.
Ybor City, in Tampa Florida, put together a more difficult system. It was facial recognition, where it would check against NCIC and try to guess pedestrians with warrants. From what I've read in the press, it failed miserably. Why hope that someone will walk past a camera and hope to get a cop there before he gets away? You could wait for him to go grocery shopping, and have a patrol car show up while he's still loading the car.
Would a big brother system be good? Probably not. The detectives now are overworked, underpaid, and don't have the time to make a few phone calls (outlines in the first few steps) to track dow
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I must say more power to you, if you trast government enough to have such a thing. I'm guessing that such trust is warrented being that I've never heard a bad thing about Belgium (though I am an American, so I might be missing something) In America this is a bad thing, because our government is (sad to say) broken. You can't trust a system that has gotten too big for its britches, too little interest in the common man, too much in the economy/politics. Belgium may face the same distrust, but I doubt it.
I think it may be a cultural thing, places where "Freedom" (Capitol 'F', pronounced 'individualism') aren't likely to promote such ideas. Though I wouldn't be suprised if continental europe adopted such an idea.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Some countries, like New Zealand, have very strict rules about what information government departments can share. As far as I know, the EU does not have such rules. Nonetheless, I know many people who work in the EU, including in the IT departments, and the idea of a "supercomputer" of some kind is so laughable...
Firstly, the different sections of the EU are so jealous about gaining and holding power that they barely collaborate, and would never allow such a centralization of information (and thus power).
Secondly, the state of the art of IT in the EU is amazingly poor. Actually, it's quite normal, given the huge amounts of money thrown at it. One of the laws of IT systems is that lots of money means shitty systems.
Thirdly, no-one in the EU administration really cares about such things. Seriously: the idea of acting as a Big Brother is a joke... all the Eurocrats want is their perk, their rules, their little niche in the United States of Europe.
Not so different from any large civilian government...
If there is a risk of a 'supernational database' one should look at law enforcement. Until 11/9, there was a definite 'not my problem' attritude to cross-border crime inside Europe. Since 11/9, police have started sharing information, and since most European countries hold full records of all their citizens (the UK is one of the few exceptions), it is a short step from sharing databases on criminals to sharing databases on everyone possible.
Finally, to answer the poster who mentioned the East German Stasi, one has to really understand the motives of any government. The DDR was obsessed with controlling its people. The EU is obsessed with straight bananas and olive oil quotas. There is a real difference, and it's not accidental.
Vive l'Europe... never have so many useless mid-level managers been happily occupied with useless works.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
You've rather missed the point, I'm afraid.
Essentially, you're saying that it's okay for him to trust his government because it's not broken. But what if today he trusts his government, tomorrow he gives away a bunch of rights because he trusts his government, and the next day his government is suddenly broken? What happens the day after that? The answer is he gets fucked in the ass, that's what.
The point here is that you don't give away your power and your rights to a government just because you trust it or because you're happy or because the economy is good or the economy is bad or because there are terrorists out there and you want your government to protect you. You NEVER give these things away because it may take the blood of your sons and daughters to get them back. So what if you government doesn't fuck you today? Since when has today been a promise of tomorrow?
I personaly don't mind if you sell your rights and freedoms for a pack of chewing gum. The problem is you want to give up my rights too.
I will sell my rights and freedoms more dearly (expensively) than you are willing to sell yours. You can sell yours for safety, or health care, or whatever you choose.
The cost of my rights and freedoms is blood. The only question is whose blood.
It really is too bad you posted this A.C., since you DO bring up a valid point.
What you said is a serious dillema, I think that you have to go with the national vibe, if you have a good liberal government, with a precendent of being virtuous to the people, think I'm guessing that you just have to trust them. Some governments have a solid history of being good guys, and there is no option but to trust them. Constant paranoia, no matter how justified, is too stressful in a state that does not warrant it.
Americans have a reasons (some justified, some not) to be paranoid. And American culture is based on a healthy sense of paranoia, it is just part of the country. Woven into the fabric, if you will. And please mind, we're not talking of terrorism, or economy, we're talking of pure practicality, to tell the truth a national ID makes sense, it has less possibility of fraud than giving out your social (though the risk is still there). I personally wouldn't really be that upset if America issued a national card, different thanyour social/drivers liscence, being that these cards are essencially ill-planned national IDs already.
Please mind that I am very proud to be an American, even with all its nasty faults (and their multiplying like rabbits), and I am scared of my government. But this does NOT make Americans typical of the rest of the world. And most of the time I happen to agree with the EU, and not my home country.
But, back OT, the actual myth of a giant computer tracking everything is scary, to everyone I hope. Since that is a MASSIVE violation of personal freedom/privacy. But I was only posting about Belgiums national ID, not big brother. While I'm sure America would LOVE big brother computers, I doubt most of the governments of the world would actually stand up for it.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Also a fellow Belgian. one thing that's a bit scary about al that digital logging of your whereabouts is that you can end up looking suspicious w/o being guilty. i had this little experience, not so long ago: my credidcard was wearing out, so i had problems using it, so i go to the bank to ask for a change in. they go checking when and where i had troubles on their terminal, and on one point the guy asks me: 'it says here that yesterday you took XXXmoney out of the ATM at XXXsquare at 2 AM. is that right?' I go, 'yup, right' and all of a sudden people in the bank start looking a bit strange at me. why? That square is renowned for it's drugdealing scene, and i saw them thinking i was a user (being skinny and pale...withdrawing money at 2AM) What they do not know is that i work late shifts, and pass that ATM on my way home from work. so thanks to Big Bro my bankmanager now thinks i'm a junk... (i didn't care to explain what i did there)