UK Gov't Proposes Massive Internet Snooping, Data Storage

Barence writes "Big Brother Britain moved a step further today with the news that the Government will store 'a billion incidents of data exchange a day' as details of every text, email and browsing session in the UK are recorded. Under new proposals published yesterday, the information will be made available to police forces in order to crack down on serious crime, but will also be accessible by local councils, health authorities and even Ofsted and the Post Office. The Conservatives have criticised the idea, with the Shadow Home Secretary saying, 'yet again the Government has proved itself unable to resist the temptation to take a power quite properly designed to combat terrorism to snoop on the lives of ordinary people in everyday circumstances.'"

Comments

ISP Tape Storage

[V!NCENT]

"Hackers of the world unite... HACK THE PANET!"... 'nuff said?

Where's the CdC when you need them?

Re:ISP Tape Storage

[BPPG]

I wonder what would happen if somebody decided to record and archive all "incidents of data exchange" on the UK government's end, and then make that data publicly available?

I mean, obviously you'd want to avoid getting the public's data that the government is recording, otherwise they'd probably record you recording their records, and the feed back loop would cause BT workers to commit sepuku. On the other hand, would that be a bad thing?

Re:ISP Tape Storage

[Reziac]

"I wonder what would happen if somebody decided to record and archive all "incidents of data exchange" on the UK government's end, and then make that data publicly available?"

This will include an awful lot of banking data. The most interesting banking data is doubtless that connected to gov't officials. ;)

Re:ISP Tape Storage

[Anonymous Coward]

They'd probably just arrest you as a terrorist.

Re:ISP Tape Storage

[DSmith1974]

It would be a Godelian strange loop worthy of an Amigram

Re:ISP Tape Storage

[ghc71]

That's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give a confidential press conference. You leak. He's been charged under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act.

Re:ISP Tape Storage

[boomer_rehfield]

That's interesting. Here in the US we have the Freedom of Information Act. If you know they're recording everything, then requesting certain things becomes easier. There are no 'lost emails.'

Re:ISP Tape Storage

[pwizard2]

In such a society, "terrorist" will eventually be a label applied to anyone the current administration doesn't like, or those who try to defend their rights.

Re:ISP Tape Storage

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

But they got rid of Tony "Bush's Puppy" Blaire! This was supposed to stop!

I'm sure of it. After all, we know from history that's how things work. In my heart it would work that way. :rollseyes:

encryption

[timmarhy]

use it. it won't be long before every communication is encrypted and signed

Re:encryption

[Sloppy]

with a network of computers fast enough it is possible to decrypt the data using every possible encrypt key.

Even if that network were available today, and even if you didn't have the option of using a longer key, encrypting would still be a good idea. "A network of computers fast enough" is not free. Why not add to your enemies' expenses, especially when it costs you nearly nothing? This is an arms race that you can win. And if everyone does it, everyone wins (except the bad guy).

Re:encryption

[geekgirlandrea]

Let me know when you finish building this network. It's going to be somewhat larger than the planet and will still take a few trillion years to do the job.

Re:encryption

[Cyberax]

To break 256-bit encryption you need about the same energy as is generated in supernova explosions.

Re:encryption

[BPPG]

Maybe so, but with the amount of data they're talking about, you'd need more than a couple of beowulf clusters to get the encrypted data processed in any reasonable amount of time. Data collected will be measured in terabytes, and even if ten percent of that is encrypted traffic, the encrypted bits will take either a lot of equipment or a lot of time.

Re:encryption

[Reziac]

It costs them very little to hold a gun to your head and demand "Hand over the encryption keys."

Why do things the hard way when the easy way generates so much more fear in the sheep?

Re:encryption

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Encryption is no obstacle in Great Britain, home of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. If the authorities don't like anyone who uses encryption, they will simply demand the keys under RIP. If they don't like what they see or no key is provided, they will lock up the individuals concerned and throw away their own key, since the law essentially deems anyone using encryption guilty until proven innocent.

Re:encryption

[compro01]

Theoretically, breaking ANY encryption (except properly used one time pads) is nothing more than a math problem. That does not mean it is currently practical.

While 64-bit keys can be broken by specialized hardware (EFF's deep crack or the COPACOBANA) or distributed networks in a relatively short time, a 128 bit key is not merely twice as hard. It's 2^64 times as hard. Each additional bit doubles the keyspace, and thus the time (or processing power) required for a brute force search.

Even dealing with an exaflop of processing power, you'd be looking at estimated-age-of-the-universe timespans to break a 128-bit key. And encryption systems using larger keys are readily available.

Re:encryption

[Original Replica]

It costs them very little to hold a gun to your head and demand "Hand over the encryption keys."

I wouldn't be surprised if encryption starts becoming the norm, that all encryption keys will be required to be registered with the government. Unregistered encryption will be illegal and the public will applaud as the government sends the men with guns to drag you away, because you will be a "dangerous criminal with suspected connections to child porn and stolen credit card numbers" *
* This is how it will show up on your local Evening News.

Re:encryption

[timmarhy]

fine do it. i'll give you my duress key and all you'll get is happy spans from my family holiday and a bunch of annoying hiku's i wrote.

modern encryption is robust enough to deal with anything you want to throw at me. the idea that you could compute my 27 character long pass phrase is stupid as well.

Re:encryption

[ijakings]

But imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these!

Ill get my coat.

Re:encryption

[timmarhy]

it's called a duress key. you give it to them and all they see is boring nonsense you want them to see. if that isn't enough then you never had a hope to begin with and you were going to jail no matter what so it's a moot point.

Re:encryption

[jinxidoru]

It costs them very little to hold a gun to your head and demand "Hand over the encryption keys."

It actually costs quite a bit to do something like this. You really have to have people in your pocket to be able to pull off stuff like that. Seriously. What are they going to do once they have the gun to your head? Pull the trigger? That's when the real revolution begins. People will only accept so much.

I know that I'm going to be flamed by a bunch of libertarians by saying this, but how long ago was 1984 written? 24 years past the apocalypse and I'm still doing fine.

Re:encryption

[inzy]

Safest way to not get caught doing anything is to not do it!

Or just connect to your neighbour's wifi :-)

of course, there's no possibility whatsoever for abuse of power here is there? or for someone to make a mistake and arrest me for doing something unusual but legal?

so, no. i'll keep my privacy and not have to justify it

Re:encryption

[stephanruby]

use it. it won't be long before every communication is encrypted and signed

The UK authorities are way ahead of you on that one. If you use encryption in the UK without giving your private key to the authorities, then you're already breaking the law.

Re:encryption

[Nefarious Wheel]

To break 256-bit encryption you need about the same energy as is generated in supernova explosions.

To which the government will respond "Ok, how do we generate one of these supernova explosion things?"

Re:encryption

[pentalive]

I think it's already illegal to withold your encryption keys in england. I don't know what they do if you lie though.

Re:encryption

[bob.appleyard]

1984 was published in 1949 (and it was written by a socialist)

Re:encryption

[kipman725]

the mere possibility of a duress key allows them to keep you in jail till they get the info they think you have.

Re:encryption

[SiriusStarr]

The point is that if everyone starts using encryption (or even say 5%), you're talking about millions of people. Do you really think the government is going to lock up a couple of million people? There aren't enough jails to hold them all. You'd end up with a situation along the lines of file-sharing. Is it illegal? Yes. Can you be punished for it? Yes. But is it likely? No. So long as the number of criminals far outstrips the ability to prosecute them all, people will continue being "criminals".

Re:encryption

[Rhodri Mawr]

1984 was written in 1948. Orwell, quite famously, swapped the last two digits of the year.

Re:encryption

[Reziac]

Exactly. It's not what you do, it's how you spin it.

Re:encryption

[Reziac]

When gov't gets a wild hair up their ass, nowadays they don't round up entire neighbourhoods. They instead concentrate on a few select individuals. All well and good if you're not one of those individuals... which can be unfortunately rather random, and can nail you even if you had nothing to do with whatever "threat" is the bogeyman this week.

Re:encryption

[Reziac]

That may work... or they may get wise to it, realise there's a lot of discarded data here, and figure out to demand your OTHER key.

Re:encryption

[ozphx]

And then someone with actual skill, rather than a basement geek that thinks truecrypt is cool, is going to pull the smart data off the hard disk, examine the access patterns, determine that there has been enough random access to the "blank" area at the end of your partition, call it as probable cause and demand the real key.

My advice is to not use software for big boys if you don't know what you are doing.

Re:encryption

[JaredOfEuropa]

Why not add to your enemies' expenses, especially when it costs you nearly nothing?

It doesn't cost them anything either since it's all paid for by the taxpayer. For instance, last month our gov't slapped a 100 "CO2" tax on the ticket price of transcontinental flights, and since none of that cash is being spent on CO2 reduction, they can probably afford the gear to break keys. Alternatively, they'll force ISPs to block all unsanctioned encrypted traffic, all in the name of "fighting terrorism" of course.

Re:encryption

[lgw]

You have no way to prove you've given the government your last key. Therefore, they'll never have a reason to stop torturing you for information. Way to go.

Re:encryption

[myowntrueself]

To which the government will respond "Ok, how do we generate one of these supernova explosion things?"

I believe that the standard procedure in SGC is to dial a stargate to a black hole and then drop the gate into a star.

Credit goes to Sam for this one. Destroyer of Worlds.

Re:encryption

[LaskoVortex]

It costs them very little to hold a gun to your head

If everyone encrypts, it becomes a lot of guns. That can get expensive too.

Re:encryption

[dgatwood]

Unless the drive manufacturers are doing something way, way outside the spec, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring does not record any such access pattern statistics. It merely records a total read count for the entire device, total error counts for the entire device, etc.

At best, you could obtain the block remapping information and prove that any block that was remapped must have been written to at least once over the lifetime of the device. You could not prove that the remapping was not done during the factory burn-in period, though, AFAIK, nor could you show that the block was in active use.

Now if they stick a packet sniffer on your ATA bus, maybe you could get access pattern data. Then again, if they can do that, they can also likely recover the key, put a password sniffer on your keyboard, etc.

Re:encryption

[Reziac]

No, you only need to make a few scary examples. Everyone else will fall into line after that. And that's all they really want.

Re:encryption

[creaktive]

Hey, remember that?!
Compressed VoIP Calls Vulnerable To Bugging
Exactly the same principle could be applied on HTTPS connections, also:
The Pirate Bay SSL proven ineffective
Think VPN if you want a bit of privacy ;)

Re:encryption

[OldManAndTheC]

But in the meantime, several well-connected government contractors will make boatloads of cash, so it's not all bad!

Re:encryption

[Original Replica]

Seriously. What are they going to do once they have the gun to your head? Pull the trigger? That's when the real revolution begins. People will only accept so much.

If that gun is a Taser, then yes they will pull the trigger, probably after you are already handcuffed. It is a great way to cultivate an attitude of compliance, regardless of things like right and wrong. Notice how the author of the linked article urges people to never challenge a police officer. I agree that one should never physically challenge an officer, but the serf mentality has progressed into not even verbally questioning an officer's actions, all because of the increasing likelihood of getting tasered. No my friend, the police pull the trigger all the time, there is no revolution.

Re:encryption

[ozphx]

*shrug* I read an article on it a few weeks back, had a look and couldnt find it again.

Still, it only takes a tiny amount of evidence your hidden partition exists for people to find out about it. Temp files refering to the X drive? Prefetch data? Non-zeroed swap? Shit that the logical disk manager leaves lying around?

And thats assuming the people asking for the hidden partiion are the "good" guys. It'd be a real clusterfuck if the "bad" guys decided that you might have a hidden partition that you don't. Rubber hose cryptanalysis that can only be stopped by divulging a password you don't have :P

Re:encryption

[bob.appleyard]

It was published in 1949, though. 8th of June.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

Re:encryption

[a1ok]

the idea that you could compute my 27 character long pass phrase is stupid as well.

Hmmm ... just realized, this might be one of the reasons that far too many sites & programs still insist on 8 character or less passwords - else they would be much harder to crack!
I've given up on even trying to use spaces or really long passwords even on banking sites for the past few years, will have to check and see if things have improved at all.

Re:encryption

[1u3hr]

The UK authorities are way ahead of you on that one. If you use encryption in the UK without giving your private key to the authorities, then you're already breaking the law.

However, it puts the brakes on. They can't just pipe everyone's data into the Mother of all Databases as they can now, when it's almost all cleartext. They'd have to at a minimum get some papers signed by an offical to demand the keys, for which they'd have to have some kind of excuse. Sure, if you're a "person of interest" you're screwed, but you are already.

Re:encryption

[1u3hr]

It costs them very little to hold a gun to your head and demand "Hand over the encryption keys."

No, gun-toting government goons are actually a quite expensive and limited resource.

If you're seen as such a threat that the government would do that, they are already capturing all your data. The issue is extending surveillance to EVERYONE, ALL THE TIME. If that can be done by leeching data from ISPs, they will do it. If they have to get some goon to threaten each person individually to decrypt the data, that limits the scope considerably. From millions to "mere" thousands of subjects.

Re:encryption

[ScrewMaster]

Depends. The government would like to intimidate us into not using encryption in our daily lives. The problem comes in when not using encryption becomes at least as dangerous. Then, millions of people get put into a very difficult position, and that's not a situation that can last very long.

The way matters are going between ordinary Internet-using citizens and online criminals, we're all going to be forced into using encryption at some point. If the Feds try to take that away from us and get ugly about it, we're all going to be between a rock and a very hard place.

Re:encryption

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

True; but at least that way you will know if they've taken an interest in you.

So long as you are transmitting in the clear, you know that they could be listening; but you don't know one way or the other, and don't have enough evidence to prove anything. You have to live as though you are being watched; but you can't protest without looking like a paranoid nutjob. If they have to send a goon with a gun to get the keys, you'll know when that happens.

Re:encryption

[Reziac]

Excellent points. Which do you think the gov't will choose -- our security or their paranoia??

I think it will swing first one way, then the other, depending on what spectacular scare has most recently populated the bogeyman slot.

Re:encryption

[Reziac]

Goes to demonstrate the growing disparity between how well the cops are armed, and how well the citizens are armed, eh?? not only by guns, but perhaps more importantly, by non-lethal weaponry that as you imply, does a wonderful job of teaching compliance. So the cops are now better-armed in terms of self-will, too. And THAT is the most critical disparity -- seeing ourselves as at the cops' mercy, rather than as their civilian friends and partners.

Re:encryption

[h4rm0ny]

It costs them very little to hold a gun to your head and demand "Hand over the encryption keys."

But in this case, you are alerted to their investigation, which is valuable in and of itself. The public can be alerted as to how much spying is going on. It prevents widespread and automated snooping, such as scanning for keywords.And it gives you the option to say "no - I wont hand over my keys." It's unlikely to be literal gun to the head and even then, some people would refuse. Who was it said that 'Freedom is being able to say no and take the consequences' ?

Re:encryption

[mrjb]

Easier said than done. If you use webmail, for instance, the bits that ask for your password may communicate through https- but once you've entered that password, the actual content of your emails is not encrypted when in transit, so it is sensitive to sniffing. Likewise, most websites that you visit are unencrypted by default- including slashdot.

Re:encryption

[Reziac]

Don't know, but it sounds like a quote from someone recommending civil disobedience.

Re:encryption

[aproposofwhat]

What do you think the Large Hardon Colider is for?

Sheesh!

Re:encryption

[janrinok]

That's not entirely accurate. You must handover the key to any suitably authrorised individual upon demand. If they don't ask, you do not have to give it.

But the solution is easy. Start flooding the internet with encrypted data. The government will not be able to cope with the demand and will begin to ask for keys. They will next forbid the use of encryption unless specifically authorised. This will affect business although the companies will undoubtedly comply. The next stage is to flood the internet with random data. It is not encrypted but they will not be able to tell the difference without expending considerable effort. They will then have to introduce a law forbidding the transfer of data which appears to be encrypted. At which point you start flooding the internet with binary snapshots of part of your computer OS. It is not encrypted data, it is not intended to appear as encrypted data, it is simply data that is only recognisable by a small minority of individuals. Pick the code from snapshots of 6502, z80, pdp11, digital watches, etc just to make if difficult to devise automatic systems for identifying the origin of the code. Or send a series of telephone numbers, or geographical coordinates, or calculate the surface area of a pencil to 1000 decimal places and send the number in groups of 5 figures. And so the battle goes on. Each time the government will have to expend significant energy trying to block all the loopholes in its laws and will be facing a deluge of data which they cannot hope to decode - even if such data is 'decodable'. The data itself will not be illegal and the bureaucracy of trying to combat it will drown the system.

The criminals will not be affected by any of this. They will continue take the risk and use encryption without authority or simply hide behind the terrific amount of data that is swirling around on the net. The government will realise that their legislation is achieving nothing and will have to look for alternative measures to combat crime - which is what they should have done in the first place. Just as they have the right ot open your mail with a duly-authorized warrant, they cannot practically hope open all mail in order to try to find something that indicates criminal intent.

This is like any electronic warfare problem. For each measure there is a counter-measure and it is simply a matter of taking each step at a time to ensure that your opposition has to keep working hard to keep pace. I am not suggesting this to support criminals and paedophiles, but as a lesson to the government that it cannot hope to remove encryption for existence or to prevent its use. It is an essential part of our business life, commercial activities depend on the passage of none-textual data and every computer contains the code to send binary data to another source. For example, Microsoft's 'phone-home' data. Of course, if is possible to look at every item of data and devise a method of automatically identifying its 'threat' value. Is it 586 or Z80 code, is it being sent to a specific IP address, or does it contain easily identifiable start and end markings? But each of these, particularly if experienced sequentially, will increase the effort on the part of those trying to prevent the use of encryption such that it significantly increases the cost of the task for little or no appreciable gain.

I'm sure that some of you will be able to pick holes in parts of this strategy but other equally smart people will be able to suggest the corrective action. That's what makes electronic warfare, to me, quite irresistible.

Re:encryption

[KlausBreuer]

...and it won't be long after that that encryption will be prohibited.

Re:encryption

[Wowsers]

I'd like to encrypt emails, but everyone complains on something simple like adding digital signatures to the email, I get "what the hell is this sh*t?" Apparently MS-Outlook / Outlook Express do not like the digital signatures from applications like Thunderbird that understand OpenPGP signatures, they add loads of "garbled text" to the message.

So I can't sign my emails as having 100% come from me, what hope for persuading people to encrypt when they use such backward email packages?

Re:encryption

[aaaaaaargh!]

Although there are many mathematical properties of ciphers you can exploit to ensure that a cipher doesn't have flaws, there is no mathematical proof of the claim that common symmetric ciphers like AES, Camellia, or Twofish are secure.

Essentially, cryptography is still a black art.

So you base all your confidence on the fact that the few dozen civilian researchers competent enough to master the math haven't found a method to break them so far, whereas for example the NSA is said to be the largest employer of mathematicians world-wide and works on breaking ciphers for the past 60 years or so. Nobody will do an exhaustive key search to break a cipher, but perhaps this is not needed. Don't get me wrong, unless there is further evidence there is no reason to distrust our ciphers---but you also shouldn't trust them unconditionally. (except for the one-time PAD if used 100% correctly)

Re:encryption

[RockDoctor]

If you use encryption in the UK without giving your private key to the authorities, then you're already breaking the law.

Not quite ... if I understand the law correctly (and I hope I do, it affects me), failure to provide the authorities with effective keys to encrypted data when they request the keys, without lawful excuse, is a crime, with jail time for contempt of court being an option. That's immediate jail time.
I'm not aware that it's been tested in court yet ; the meaning of "lawful excuse" hasn't been tested (let alone appealed), the proportionality of detention hasn't been tested (that, for starters, can go to Europe). IANAL, but I can see holes in it. Not that I would like to be on the receiving end.

You don't have to give your keys before you start using encryption, only on receipt of a lawful request for them from a legally authorised person. Oh, there are two more undefined terms.

Re:encryption

[Rogerborg]

Perhaps a big boy could find that article for you?

Re:encryption

[AmiMoJo]

In most cases when encryption is used on the internet, you can't hand over the keys because you don't have them. Computers negotiate the keys between themselves, then destroy them when finished. No human involvement required.

That's how it works when you use SSL to connect to your bank.

Re:encryption

[Das Modell]

The people will gladly accept anything the government can think of, no matter how stupid or offensive.

Re:encryption

[Fweeky]

I'm pretty sure SSL doesn't have one of those.

Re:encryption

[wild_berry]

In the UK already, they don't have to be registered but they do have to be disclosed when requested. See the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which is a good measure of how 'free' the UK is.

Re:encryption

[TheRaven64]

That's true. There are, however, 2^128 possible 128-bit keys. To put this in perspective, there are around 2^32 people in the world. The age of the universe is about 2^59 seconds. If you had once computer for every person in the world, and they all ran trying to crack the same 128-bit encrypted bit of data from the start of the universe until now, then, on average, you'd need a speed of 2^36 keys per second for it to have a chance of it working.

In practice, you are likely to have somewhere between 2^10 and 2^16 computers. If we assume 2^16, and you want it to crack it in a year (around 2^25 seconds) then you need each one to try 2^86 per second. The computer I'm typing this on is a 1.5GHz PowerPC. It can decode AES-128 at around 2^24 bytes per second. Assuming that you need about 1KB to tell if you've correctly decoded the data[1] then this is 2^14 attacks per second. If we assume that computing power will double every year, then in 72 years it will be possible to crack AES, if you are willing to devote a 65 thousand machine cluster to decrypting every message - certainly not a solution that would scale to decrypting every email.

Note that there are other, more efficient, attacks on AES, but they don't reduce the complexity by much. Still, a lot of people are switching to 256-bit AES now, which is basically uncrackable on any non-quantum computer network.

[1] Note that this kind of attack is called a known plaintext attack. When doing this kind of exhaustive search, you will end up with every possible combination of bytes in the output. If you know some data from the plaintext then you can compare it to the data in the decrypted cyphertext and then decrypt the rest of the message when they match.

Re:encryption

[gramty]

Under UK law failure to provide all decryption keys on demand is a serious criminal offence. Unless you can *prove* that you can't decrypt the data you are presumed guilty. Given the difficulty in proving a universal negative, plausible denial mechanism such as those in TrueCrypt could land you in serious hot water.

Re:encryption

[shutdown -p now]

The point is that if everyone starts using encryption (or even say 5%), you're talking about millions of people. Do you really think the government is going to lock up a couple of million people? There aren't enough jails to hold them all. You'd end up with a situation along the lines of file-sharing. Is it illegal? Yes. Can you be punished for it? Yes. But is it likely? No. So long as the number of criminals far outstrips the ability to prosecute them all, people will continue being "criminals".

They won't arrest all the millions, but they can pick a few at random, and make an example out of them, with extended press coverage etc. I would imagine any illegal usage of encryption would drop sharply after that. Would you want to risk it, knowing that you could be picked as a scapegoat? After all, as far as many are concerned, they "have nothing to hide", anyway... and when the alternative is jail time, the choice is pretty clear for the most.

Re:encryption

[Skjellifetti]

The next stage is to flood the internet with random data.

Some of us have been doing that for years.

Re:encryption

[Bloggs_99]

Given the UK Gubernments current track record on IT projects, if they had 20 years and unlimited funds, they stil couldn't get this to work. And most Uk citizens are groaning under the weight of tax, tax, stealth tax, fuel tax, ticket tax more tax. This is just another politicians dream of more control.

Re:encryption

[janrinok]

Thanks for the links. However, although the main link exists, many of the others on that page are currently showing 404 errors. Perhaps this is a temporary phenomenon. And I haven't found any working link that suggests flooding the web with random data but perhaps that is one of the error pages.

Re:encryption

[alexgieg]

the idea that you could compute my 27 character long pass phrase is stupid as well.

Well, if medicine and biological engineering continue progressing at a geometric pace, in a few years they'll simply scan your password out of your brain (not to mention anything else you're trying to hide). Then things will start becoming interesting.

Re:encryption

[Sloppy]

It costs them very little to hold a gun to your head and demand "Hand over the encryption keys."

Actually, that's only cheap if they just pull the trigger without bothering to question you. And even then, after a while it gets hard to hide all the bodies (ask the Nazis).

If they question you, then you just spent probably several humans' time, and then they really only got a passphrase instead of a key, so then they have to go back to your house and take the computer and decrypt the key. And what do they get out of it? They get your weekend party RSVP or forwarded-check-out-this-lolcat-picture or something else that they didn't really want. Remember, they don't think you're a criminal. They're just fishing, and hoping you might be that one in a million person that they're looking for.

If everyone encrypts so they have to threaten everyone's life, they need a sizable fraction of the whole population, working on this full time. It's not worth it. And there's a reasonable chance of the revolution happening before then. You might get away with pointing guns at many innocent people, even killing them. But it's a huge risk.

Re:encryption

[Sloppy]

But even with RIPA, they don't have the key until they demand it. Once someone gets in your face and demands your key, then you know your key is compromised, and you can make a new one to use from that day forth. Even under RIPA, mass-scale passive surveillance isn't possible if everyone encrypts.

Re:encryption

[Sloppy]

And if you don't encrypt, they still can't stop torturing you, because they don't know for sure that you don't encrypt. You might as well do it anyway.

Re:encryption

[Sloppy]

Well, that hasn't happened yet. Make them do it, and they just might wind up being the scary example.

Re:encryption

[alexgieg]

What are they going to do once they have the gun to your head? Pull the trigger? That's when the real revolution begins. People will only accept so much.

In China they did and still do exactly this. You're causing minor annoyances, you're condemned to 20 years of torture at a political prison. You continue being annoying, they shot your neck (100% guaranteed to kill), then bill your family for the execution costs.

Listen, most people aren't revolutionaries. They only want to go along with their lives. Revolutions don't happen when "the people" rise. Revolutions happen when "a group" intent in taking power rise. Sure, "the people" in general must be willing to accept the new government, or at least not mind the revolutionaries, what usually happens if the current institutions aren't popular and the revolutionaries show they can hold ground and enforce their way.

But "not minding" is the most normal people will ever do. There's no point fantasizing it'll ever be different. It won't.

Re:encryption

[Sloppy]

It doesn't cost them anything either since it's all paid for by the taxpayer.

The taxpayer is the asshole who gave them that power in the first place. If people don't vote against blanket surveillance, I want them to pay higher taxes. Without liberty, there's no point in having a good economy.

Re:encryption

[pwizard2]

It costs them very little to hold a gun to your head and demand "Hand over the encryption keys."

Of course, if they pull the trigger, they will never get the keys. Are they really going to take that risk when they don't know what your encrypted data is? They will never know if they don't get the keys, since brute-forcing 256 or 512-bit AES is a fool's errand these days.

Re:encryption

[ichigo 2.0]

Well if things get that bad then we're already far past the point of "encrypt everything".

Re:encryption

[ozphx]

Entirely possible. Now if only I wasn't too lazy to go thru your posting history to find a reference to you eating _anything_ :D

PS: Anything I post drunk counts double, as beer makes me smarter.

Re:encryption

[Smauler]

I think you've just solved the Fermi paradox... All alien life has destroyed itself creating supernovae so that they could break 256 bit encryption. And now we're one step further, you fool!

Re:encryption

[creaktive]

SSL is still vulnerable to the known size attack: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=803927

Re:encryption

[CrazedSanity]

For those sending information that seems suspicious, or sent from somebody that the government is already suspicious of, this is certainly a possibility. But for Joe Schmoe down the street sending encrypted data, the government probably wouldn't care enough. Especially when enough unknown people are sending encrypted data, the people that are supposed to "weed out" the suspicious stuff will just get scroll blindness.

On the other hand, in a room full of unknown people, one person sending all data as encrypted might raise an eyebrow. This is why everyone should encrypt their data all the time, no matter how important or useless it is: increasing the signal-to-noise ratio makes attempts to find suspicious content infeasible at best.

Re:encryption

[geekgirlandrea]

Well, no, there is no proof that there isn't some *other* way to break AES or whatever faster than brute force, but the original poster was proposing that a brute force attack on a 128-bit key was a physically reasonable thing to do.

Re:encryption

[SiriusStarr]

Yeah, and a few people have gotten stuck with $75,000 fines from the RIAA, but that doesn't stop filesharing. Hell yes I'd risk it; my civil liberties are worth a 1/500,000 chance of being thrown in jail, and while not everyone agrees with me, enough people will to make it impossible to persecute any sizeable percentage of us.

Re:encryption

[toriver]

No, party election committes made a choice and said to the voters: Pick between crap and shit, they are still going to screw you over.

Me, jaded?

Re:encryption

[ultranova]

The next stage is to flood the internet with random data. It is not encrypted but they will not be able to tell the difference without expending considerable effort. They will then have to introduce a law forbidding the transfer of data which appears to be encrypted.

Nah. They simply make it a finable, not jailable, offense to not provide decryption keys on request. Then your civil disobedience campaign simply turns into a revenue generator.

I've missed my true calling as a politician >:).

Re:encryption

[jinxidoru]

And the beautiful thing is that there are so many cases where these sorts of things have gone to the court and the court has ruled against the police. We are not powerless.

Re:encryption

[jinxidoru]

Yes, this sort of thing still occurs in places like China. Remember that, as far as progression goes, China is still quite a few years behind us. We always talk about how bad things have become. No, they've always been bad. Things are getting better. If a cop beat someone up 100 years, do you think there was any remote hope for justice? Hell, no! Things have a long way to go before we live in a Utopian society, but they are certainly improving.

Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[BPPG]

Most network encryption methods might not be 100% bulletproof, but if more people did it, massive data collection projects like this would be a lot less worthwhile.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Penguinisto]

...if more people did it, massive data collection projects like this would be a lot less worthwhile.

...until governments begin outlawing network encryption, that is.

I doubt it would happen (VPN's, SSL and such being big fat obvious reasons), but I could see a government or two requiring all encryption users to hand over copies of private keys and to register their encryption tools/mechanisms with the local police department.

/P

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Reziac]

Doesn't Britain already have a law in place requiring you to hand over encryption keys on demand??

I see that as a very short hop from "on demand" to "as required by law for all encryption users".

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[BPPG]

**Sigh

I guess you'd have to start writing in code as well as using encryption then.

Hey, can someone snurf me a baloney kargel? I looked on the stardiffel and didn't see any kegels for it.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Sloppy]

That's why I advocate people using PK even when they don't have a trust path to the recipient. Yes, they can MitM you (until you get around to a secure exchange -- and then you know that someone had been messing with you earlier) but you still kill cheap passive surveillance -- you're making them MitM you. If more people did that, Big Brother would be fucked.

Get on the Wot when you can. Until then, though, encrypt anyway. Get your key out there where we can all see it. Certing can wait.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[squizzar]

But if _everyone_ is using encryption, how will they know what's worth looking at to demand the keys? Demanding keys from a large number of people will (hopefully) lead to a bit of resentment, which will of course force this to be repealed, in line with the demands of the populace. A bit like speed cameras,fuel tax, alcohol tax, and foxhunting...

Yeah I'll keep dreaming

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Brian the Bold]

You're right, Part III of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act does indeed allow for compulsion in dissemination of keys.

That's why it is important not to store anything sensitive in encrypted form, but to pass it about using methods where keys are ephemeral and are never in the possession of the person targeted. If intercepted data simply cannot be decrypted, the authorities will come to understand that they are unable to seize anything of value.

Perhaps this would be enough to get them down from their insane power trip and back to sensible levels of state vs individual power.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Reziac]

Likely so. Sometimes the old methods still work the best.

Word 64 on page 300 of the 3rd book on the 2nd shelf at the Cleveland Public Library. Word 6 on page 23 of the 9th book on the first shelf at the Los Angeles Public Library. Man, this is tedious. Maybe I'll just walk over and tell 'em!

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Reziac]

Well, we all know what happened to foxhunting....

And if you want to evade the notice of most people, just backdoor everything that's legal, and make everything else a felony.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Reziac]

As I recall, that law says that if the person doesn't have the keys, tough shit for them, they can sit in jail til they come up with said keys, up to five years.

So far the gov't hasn't done a good job of understanding that cameras on every corner don't gain them anything; I just don't seem them figuring out that collecting a bunch of encrypted data, and holding people ransom for keys that don't exist, is even more futile.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[seanadams.com]

Hey, can someone snurf me a baloney kargel? I looked on the stardiffel and didn't see any kegels for it.

You mean Cockney then?

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[LaskoVortex]

the user never knows the key used?

They'll make not knowing the keys a felony.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[dgatwood]

So give them your keys. All 10,000,000 of them. Nowhere in the law does it say you have to help them figure out what key was used. It says you must either make the data available in an unencrypted fashion or provide the keys. It is still permissible to provide so many keys that (random luck notwithstanding) it will statistically take longer than your lifetime for them to pick the one that actually decodes the data in question.

I refer to this as the IBM defense; I heard an anecdote once that IBM, during discovery in a lawsuit against Amdahl (I may have the players wrong, though, so don't quote me on that), was ordered to turn over complete documentation of some part of their system, so they took their documentation, loaded it into an IBM mainframe, generated a core dump, and printed the contents (presumably in hex or binary form) on fanfold paper. The story goes that they then brought in about thirty of those boxes in response to the judicial order, and noted that there was an entire warehouse full of them if the opposing counsel would like to read the rest.

You get the picture.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[a1ok]

With all the newer smartphones and other devices having so much computing power, I sometimes wonder why someone doesn't come up with an app to encrypt the chat between 2 smartphones dynamically.

Say A & B are (talking on phone / chatting on IM/ videoconferencing). The program on the sender's end generates a key (even symmetric is fine) and sends it to the same program on the other end. After this, all communication is encrypted - with the added twist that either side can semi-randomly change the key used (say A sets 'every 2 mins since last change' as his setting, and B sets 'everytime I laugh' :)

Since all comms. are in-band, any snooper who has the *entire* conversation could just start at the beginning, get the first key sent unencrypted, then listen in to the convo. But it would be impossible for anyone who can't get a complete record, and also much harder for people to randomly listen in from the middle of an ongoing chat.

Additionally, besides encryption it could have the added bonus of data compression, which means better error correction or higher fidelity for analog audio (cell phones) etc.

Of course it might have to be activated manually or use some signalling mechanism to detect that the phone on the other end supports it, but mass snooping should become much harder.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[advocate_one]

that could be automated by having the text of the book(s) available and using a program to pick out suitable word locations (don't bother with pages, just use lines and position of word on the line). The text of the books would have to be encrypted though if you're doing that and the passphrase to login to the program to access the encoding/decoding features would need to be kept secret...

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Tim C]

Yes, it's one of the provisions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (the RIP Act - how appropriate). However I challenge anyone to hand over the keys used during an HTTPS session...

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Bonobo_Unknown]

I find that the word 'smurf' can be substituted for any other word, thus protecting your secret.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Reziac]

Good idea... In fact, interfacing a text library with existing spammer software might be a good base, since some spambots already create fairly convincing prose. (Might as well make 'em work FOR us for a change. :) You wouldn't need to encrypt it, just make sure the "key" (which could be another apparent-junk text message) is both separate and to all appearances unrelated. Maybe it's a textfile on a website, thus "unrelated" to that "spam" email encoded "by the book". (There's a name for our new software :)

(Or maybe we'll decide this is all too much work, and revert to messages left under rocks.)

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Reziac]

That will work ONCE. By next time (and as I recall, something was also done about the "IBM defense") the law will be amended to "thou shalt hand over the CORRECT key without obfuscation or burying it in garbage".

Encryption is not the answer. It's like waving a red flag in front of a bull. At best it's a temporary retreat -- and it IS retreat, it is not defense against an overbearing government. How far will you accept being forced into retreat before you push back??

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Reziac]

An AC says, "The key is not to encript but to use ordinary English or language of choice to convey the message in ordinary text."

This is pretty much what I've been saying. If you must keep something private, at least don't wave the red flag about it. Keep it "normal" and unremarkable, to avoid notice entirely.

It's still retreat, but more likely to leave you free to undermine other assaults on your freedoms (tho I have a hard time imagining that in Britain nowadays).

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[DamonHD]

The (Tory) UK government of the day many many years ago mooted a law where all encryption keys would have to be filed with "Trusted Third Parties" (TTPs).

I had a stand-up row with the DTI minister at a Commons meeting about this. He said that British Telecom could be one of those TTPs. I said that they couldn't even bill me reliably, so how was I to trust them with all my banking keys and private data; if they compromised my keys and possibly caused me horrible inconvenience and/or embarrassment could he even see someone in charge being fired? He went rather red.

I argue that the fuss last time was why this didn't happen, and why we have the very-marginally-less-egregious RIP Act, though that alone was one of the reasons I gave up running an ISP.

Rgds

Damon

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[I cant believe its n]

I know you are joking, but you are on to a great principle: we need to raise the cost of reading someones messages or rather, the automated reading of a message.

I prefer the idea of making the encryption key open to any human but impossible or hard for a machine to come up with.

This would work like:
1. Take a picture, for example of a dog.
2. Send the picture along with your encrypted messsage.
3. Dog is now the decryption key.
4 ???
5. Profit (from the government being unable to automate listening in on you)

A sequence of pictures could make up a longer passphrase(CatTableFlower). I'm sure there are just 4 possible photo motives people would normally send so the password could be the name of the individual animal/person if the receiver is known. The whole point of this is not the exact protocol of what password is used. The point is to send information that machines would have a hard time interpreting, but a human would not.

A working scheme could be to take a picture of a picture of a celebrity. That way you will send a unique picture of Gisele Bundchen for example, and only a computer with great knowledge of women would come up with the right password, whereas a lot of /.:ers would have no problem with this. You could also send pictures of GW but that would be less plesant for the eyes and perhaps too humorus.

This would not prevent anyone actively looking for information about you, and no one could claim you are sending encrypted "terrist" messages. You can just say, "feel free to look, but please do so manually".

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[shutdown -p now]

Demanding keys from a large number of people will (hopefully) lead to a bit of resentment, which will of course force this to be repealed, in line with the demands of the populace.

Not really. Just think of the children!

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[Enoxice]

We should all use the Marklar Method(?) to communicate our message. That way, they will no longer be able to understand conversation. You might think this method is simplistic and that they might be able to derive the message from the way in which the Marklar are used, but trust me, this method gets harder when the messages get longer and more complex than this.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[superbus1929]

For any effective revolt, you need to have the will of the majority of the populace. Otherwise, you are effectively - or literally - eliminated, branded a nutjob, your past is conveniently disseminated to support your nutjobery (even if they have to make some "edits"), and anything you did is rendered moot, as the government then goes on a counterattack; he posted at Slashdot? Let's check those people out...

I understand your point. But citizens in both America and the UK are placated to the point of being useless; it would take a tremendous amount of things to go wrong for the government for them to rise up enough to possibly wage a successful revolt. You're hoping on the iPod and O'Reilly crowd to back you up, and as long as the government protects them from darkies and kissing boys, they'll give up anything they have to.

Re:Another good reason to encrypt your data.

[WeblionX]

The children need a good beating.

Again?

[puppyfox]

Dupe! Oh, maybe not. I thought the UK already spied on everything? And Australia censored everything? And the US tasered everyone? And Italy ate all the pasta?

Re:Again?

[witte]

You forgot the evil Belgians.

Re:Again?

[ohcrapitssteve]

You're shitting me, we're out of pasta?

Let Them Try

[sexconker]

Humans have an annoying tendency to save things.
We fear our own demise, and we seek permanence in our surroundings and possessions.

We do the same with data.

We create far more data than we will ever be able to manage. In principle, it's a horrible idea. In practice, it's unfeasible. The only thing this will result in is harassment and inconvenience for people when the data is leaked/stolen/hax0red.

The government is NOT watching everyone - they can't. The government wants you to THINK everyone is being watched.

Re:Let Them Try

[Naturalis Philosopho]

One word, "panopticon". Jeremy Bentham was a man before his time...

Re:Let Them Try

[Gat0r30y]

The government is NOT watching everyone

Of course not, they just run all of the data through a bayseian filter (think spam filter) to determine whether or not you are a trrrst.

Re:Let Them Try

[tygerstripes]

The problem is not that they WILL inspect all data, but that they CAN. Once it's enshrined in law that the govt has the right to snoop on every communication you have, you have no comeback. It's a significant step - some might say THE step - towards a totalitarian police-state.

It's not unfeasible for the government to start maintaining an SMS-text dossier on every citizen, for example - just try encrypting those. And that's just with current technology. The proposal will only become more invasive and far-reaching in its consequences as monitoring and data-interrogation technology improves.

To be frank; as a UK resident, this scares the shit out of me.

Re:Let Them Try

[godfra]

Mod up, c'mon, that was funny!

Re:Let Them Try

[Lost Race]

Humans have an annoying tendency to save things.
We fear our own demise, and we seek permanence in our surroundings and possessions.

We do the same with data.

Wow, that's definitely not why I save things. It just easier to throw something out later than to retrieve it from the landfill.

Re:Let Them Try

[sexconker]

But what do you save - everything?

Do you save spare parts, useless, broken, or obsolete items? Do you save random crap because it has "sentimental value"? Do you keep old documents that are no longer relevant?

If you just save useful things, you're doing it right.

If you save everything that is potentially useful, you're doing it wrong.

Re:Let Them Try

[Lost Race]

"Right"? "Wrong"? Says who? When I run out of storage space, I get rid of things. With good organization and plenty of room, having lots of junk is not a problem. Think of it as caching -- obsolete objects retained for potential future use because otherwise empty space would be wasted. Naturally even plentiful space is limited and some objects' storage costs exceed their potential value, so those things go away immediately.

My point was that I don't save stuff just to annoy you, or because I fear my own demise. It's purely a matter of efficiency. In fact, I'm curious how you made that connection between the fear of death and the "annoying" tendency to save; they seem completely separate and unrelated. Once I'm dead all my possessions can go into the incinerator / grave / dump / butchershop / laboratory / dime-store / whatever along with my body, for all I care.

Re:Let Them Try

[sexconker]

A very basic part of being alive is self preservation. A very basic part of being human is knowing that we will die. These two don't really jive together, so we seek to rectify them in various ways.

Either we search for the fountain of youth, freeze ourselves, or pray to some sort of deity, or we build pyramids, build walls, or donate to get buildings named after us.
Common folk can't do such things, but they engage in mass reproduction and self-sacrifice for future generations, or passing down of heirlooms, stories, and other typically useless items.

History? Archaeology? Han shot first?
We have an innate desire to preserve items and information, even if useless. After all - that item might be useful one day (old pointy stick might save life, just as old floppy drive might save computer). Useless items or stories won't save us, but will make sure people remember us (Grok killed big cat with own hands, "15:17:22 [Grok] Grok (~Grok@12.94.177.155) has joined #LinuxForCaveMan").

But hey - you're probably young, no need to worry about it now. People typically express this trait more when they're old, waiting to die.

No surprise

[Teun]

The UK government proposing these kind of things should not be a surprise, worrisome is that other governments might see this as a great example.

The eternal optimist in me feels some will see this as a step too far.

Re:No surprise

[Darkness404]

No, what is worrysome is they assume that everyone could be a terrorist. If we assumed everyone within a 20 block radius was a murderer, real murder cases would take forever to be solved. Same with this, if everyone is a terrorist, they look for all the people who are obviously not terrorists and try to make them be a terrorist rather then actually figuring out who really are terrorists (and no, 80 year old English grandmothers are not terrorists).

Re:No surprise

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The eternal optimist in me feels some will see this as a step too far.

Oh, I would think that's a fairly safe bet. The Information Commissioner will be all over it, and the public profile of his department is rising every time he speaks these days. The courts will be all over it, since blanket surveillance is going to be just a little difficult to reconcile with article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Opposition are already all over it, since any sort of claims about adequate data protection by the government are a joke thanks to repeated media coverage of numerous major leaks in recent months. Speaking of the media, they'll love this too, as it's another good opportunity to bash the government while it's down. And all of those are before we even get to the practical issues like who is going to pay for all of this and the overheads it would impose on service providers, presumably at their own expense if historical moves are anything to go by.

Finally, of course, we have the guy in the street who gets to vote, and he's becoming a lot more aware of privacy and data protection issues at the moment. Fortunately, the government will probably be so busy looking for a new Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer after the summer recess that they won't be able to do much about this, and they're toast at the next general election anyway since it's pretty hard to find any major group of voters they haven't seriously upset lately in one way or another.

Re:No surprise

[the eric conspiracy]

The eternal optimist in me feels some will see this as a step too far.

Eventually something so repugnant will happen that all of this will be swept away. The shame of it is that it will take that repugnant event. In the US we went through a lot of this during Vietnam and the civil protests - eventually the FBI and CIA were raked over the coals for excessive surveillance of US citizens.

Now I think we are going through the same cycle again - and the result will be the same.

Re:No surprise

[Gat0r30y]

80 year old English grandmothers are not terrorists

Thats just what they want you to think. then bam. tea and crumpets everywhere. oh the humanity!

Re:No surprise

[godfra]

Couldn't agree more. I'm voting tory in the next general election, time get these wankers out.. and yes replace them with another bunch of wankers, but at least the tories only care about sorting themselves out, not about prying into your every move.

Re:No surprise

[lysse]

True to all of that - but because of the way the British political system is arranged, they still have a year during which they can pretty much fuck things up for whoever comes along next - even if they change leader there's not actually a requirement for a general election until 2010; they still have a substantial working majority; and the Lords can only defer legislation for a parliamentary term. If they really wanted to fuck it up for the Tories (just as the Tories were suspected of doing pre-1997) they could have some real fun.

Not to mention anyone who believes that the Tories' current excitement about libertarian issues is anything more than a vote-winning strategy has a very short memory indeed. Most of the illiberal measures Labour have enacted or announced were first mooted by the Tories when they were last in power - and for much the same reason, a desperate appeal to the lowest common denominator in a last-ditch scrabble for votes (Britain is sadly full of plebs who tend to regard civil liberties as weird and dangerous) - and nobody centralised quite like the Tories, all in the name of an efficiency that utterly failed to materialise (size ALWAYS adds overhead). Granted, there are some Tories who are staunch libertarians - there are even some Labour members who are staunch libertarians - but by and large, in this country the people attracted to power think they have a right or a duty to interfere in everyone else's lives.

Re:No surprise

[Raedwald]

The eternal optimist in me feels some will see this as a step too far.

Whether you should be optimistic about it is questionable. A wheeze that New Labour hit upon to avoid accusations of being "soft on crime", a favourite jibe of the Conservatives, was to advance extremely oppressive law and order proposals, wait for the complaints, then scale them back.

Re:No surprise

[arkhan_jg]

This is all well and good, but pretty much all the data that they want to collect is already being *voluntarily* stored by ISPs and telecoms for up to a year at their own expense.

This law, pushed through the EU in 2005 with a lot of help from the UK government so it would be europe wide, is now being implemented here - but it just gives the force of law to what is already being done by gentleman's agreement, and extends the length it can be held somewhat.

Telecoms data (who you called, when, and where you were according to the cell towers) is already kept for 12 months, email headers (from, to, time) for 6 months, the list goes on. The only major extension over what they're already doing will be web logs (domains, not urls or pages) from 4 days up to possibly 2 years.

Councils, customs and excise, the police, security services etc etc all have access to these records at will without the oversight of a court or the need for a warrant - with the right paperwork, pretty much any government body can pull up huge amounts of personal detail about you already. The tories want to reduce the time it takes to do the paperwork, but they're quite happy for the police to carry on having access to this mass public surveillance data collected by the ISPs and telecoms companies.

There's already been cases where councils snooped on email records and phone logs over dog mess and rubbish dumping, our put surveillance on a 4 year old to see if she really lived within the cachement area for a good school.

Re:No surprise

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The thing is, the absurd abuses of the system by local councils and the like are currently fairly high profile, and anyone who tries it again is likely to see the world from the perspective of a head rolling down a hill shortly afterwards.

Oh, and a lot of the data being held by ISPs and such is far from voluntary, because the framework for doing a lot of this dirty work was set up under RIPA several years ago.

Re:No surprise

[idontgno]

True. It's a trivially small step from organized gang activity to terrorism.

I used to feel sorry for Britain

[MikeRT]

But then they showed how well they had learned their mistake under Blair by keeping Labor in power. Truly, to paraphrase Mencken, they are getting what they want and getting it good and hard.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[serviscope_minor]

But then they showed how well they had learned their mistake under Blair by keeping Labor in power. Truly, to paraphrase Mencken, they are getting what they want and getting it good and hard.

Wow, you are truly ignorant. Of the votes cast, 37% went to labour. Reread that number. 37%. The voting system is hoplessly biased, so naturally the people that it favours will never remove this bias. So tell me, what part of 37% makes it apparent that we wanted labour?

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[MikeRT]

Wow, you are truly ignorant. Of the votes cast, 37% went to labour. Reread that number. 37%. The voting system is hoplessly biased, so naturally the people that it favours will never remove this bias. And how, pray tell, did a left-wing party that was dominated by a man who dragged your country into a war that was wildly unpopular get 37% of the vote? The Republicans were not as bad as Labor, and have gone from a fairly solid majority of our entire body politic, to being steadily ousted in each congressional election. Even long-time Republicans are starting to send a big FUCK YOU to the RNC when it comes rattling its tin cup in their direction.

Either labor is entirely supported by the dregs of British society that depend on the welfare state, or there is a lot of bullshit from leftists in Britain. Something like "OMG those Conservatives are teh fascist!" when it's obvious on both sides of the pond that Labor is the quintessential fascist party of the UK.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[Conspicuous Coward]

The first past the post system used in the UK is pretty dismal, I actually think the number who voted labour in 2005 is closer to 35%; but nevertheless Labour received more votes than any other party at the last general election, in any electoral system they would still have been a major part of the government. Any way that you look at it that's still 35% of the voting public who are prepared to vote for a murderous war criminal who's been systematically dismantling civil liberties since 97. That's frightening.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[StrawberryFrog]

So tell me, what part of 37% makes it apparent that we wanted labour?

37% percent is more than the others got.
Don't pretend that it didn't happen.
Which after that Iraq and WMD malarkey, is a disgrace that they got that much.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

But then they showed how well they had learned their mistake under Blair by keeping Labor in power.

Oh, come off it. At the last election, the Labour Party came second in England. They only took power again because of the Scottish vote, and Scotland is not affected by several of Labour's more heinous policies because of devolution. In fact, only 22% of the electorate (37% of those who actually voted) supported Labour, which makes the absolute majority they received in Parliament an obscenity.

And that was when they still said Blair would serve a full third term, not the current administration who have no legitimate mandate whatsoever.

And in reply to your later post: yes, a significant number of votes for Labour do come from scroungers who don't contribute anything and live entirely off Labour's benefits hand-outs, but that's not what got them in for the third term. The largest opposition party managed to go through about 17 leaders in as many months or something prior to Cameron, so there was the little problem of who to vote for instead of Labour at the last general election. We simply don't have any significant moderate, central parties in the country today, despite the huge number of voters whose preferences appear to support one, so the anti-Labour vote split. Until someone manages to get a moderate, centrist party off the ground or there's an upset significant enough for one of the smaller parties to pick up some momentum, everyone in that category has no-one stepping up to represent them.

And for the record, Labour have been smashed at every single election since they fluked their way back into office. It is clear what the people do want, but Labour didn't have the integrity to ask them by calling a general election when Brown took over, because their polling told them they hadn't a prayer of winning it.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[StrawberryFrog]

Either labor is entirely supported by the dregs of British society that depend on the welfare state, or there is a lot of bullshit from leftists in Britain.

I'd say it's more likely that their supporters are ignorant and short-sighted, fell for the war and terror rhetoric, and don't really care until it hits them in the wallet. I don't really think that that makes them left, but "New Labour" is determined to blur that distinction anyway.

The proof of this is evident: It has now hit the voters in the wallet, and Labour's support is now in the toilet.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[mikael]

Labour party seats tend to be in high density council housing, while Conservative seats are in rural or suburban seats. Since the electoral commission tries to keep the proportion of the population represented by each MP at around 40,000 - 50,000, this means that Labour gets more MP's, even though a demographic map of the UK shows the majority of the country supporting the Conservatives. At the same time, Labour are encouraging the conversion of suburban housing into high density housing through the use of "garden grabbing".

A quarter of all families in central London are single parent mothers... Other deprived parts of the country approach 50% of the population working in the public sector. If you want to check up on the demographics of a particular area, check the Acorn map.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[damburger]

Less than 30,000 people voted for Tony Blair. Other people voted for other Labour MPs, and most of them did that because they are old enough to remember the last time the Conservatives were in power and it makes them shudder.

The Lib Dems are a joke, and always have been. They and their predecessor party have not so much as sniffed power in 80 years.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[damburger]

A centrist party would be left of all the major parties in Britain now, since politics went Thatcherite. This is why there is such a low turnout.

Every party is now about hammering the working class to give the rich a tax break. Every party is now about punishing single parent families for being single parent families. Every party wants the rest of the country to bend over and take it up the arse just to keep the City sweet.

That is why people do not vote.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[arkhan_jg]

There are entire sections of Britain that were so badly and totally screwed by Maggie Thathcher and the conservatives that they've refused point blank to vote Tory for the last 25 years. With the rural southern vote guaranteed to make large swathes of the countryside Tory, regardless of the merits of any particular MP, that wraps up about 50% of the vote, even when both party leaders are frankly scary men - Michael Howard was a BAD choice as tory leader, he reminded people of the bad old days.

Hell, there are 25% of Americans who think GW Bush is doing a good job, even now. Some people you just can't reach.

Still, 37%, with the tories on 34% should have made a bigger difference than it did to the labour majority. Due to first-past-the-post, and the bias against rural communities with it, Labour won nearly twice the number of seats as the tories. The electoral system is pretty broken.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[Anonymous Coward]

Either labor is entirely supported by the dregs of British society that depend on the welfare state, or there is a lot of bullshit from leftists in Britain.

New Labour are not left wing. They are almost as right-wing as the Conservatives these days.

See the Political Compass.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[blackest_k]

To be frank the biggest reason Labour has spent years in power was Margret Thatcher. That venomous bitch was evil personified.

Go watch something like boys from the black stuff to get a feel for Tory policies.

Gordons not popular now but I'd rather not see the likes of Thatcher back in power.

Renationalising or taking a majority share in a couple of energy companies and he could win a general election. It's just a little crazy that foreign owned energy companies are taking money out of Britain.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[Tim C]

And that was when they still said Blair would serve a full third term, not the current administration who have no legitimate mandate whatsoever.

Unfortunately that's the way it works here in the UK - we elect the party, the party selects a leader, that person is the Prime Minister. Voting for a given person to be PM is understandable, but not the correct thing to do given that the party could potentially remove them at any time if they decide they dislike them.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[kaos07]

If Britain was replaced with "America" the response would be "both parties are the same!!!!!!!". Why do you think Britain is different?

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[aproposofwhat]

To be frank the biggest reason Labour has spent years in power was Margret Thatcher. That venomous bitch was evil personified.

Too right, mate.

State funeral? Fuck that, I'll be having a street party!

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[teh kurisu]

They only took power again because of the Scottish vote

That's a myth perpetuated by the right-wing English press. It's not true.

Labour has a majority of 64. Scotland only elects 59 MPs.

Labour has 38 of those Scottish MPs. So removing Scotland entirely from the picture would leave Labour with a majority of 37 in England, Wales and NI (the English press often forgets that you can't just remove the Scottish Labour MPs, you have to remove the Scottish opposition too).

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[CmdrGravy]

Whatever your personal opinion of Maggie the fact is that the UK was in a better position when she left power than it was when it was taken over from Labour. Labour has the country in a worse position now than when they started, as they always do.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[teh kurisu]

Oh and by the way, it's looking very likely indeed that, come the 2010 General Election, the Tories will form a government with an overall majority.

Scotland's policies on constitutional matters, foreign matters, defence, the economy, immigration, energy, trade and industry, drugs, broadcasting, election, employment, health and safety, social security, gambling, data protection (yay for relevance), firearms, extradition and emergency powers, medicines, abortion, human fertilisation and embryology, equal opportunities, treason, time zones, fishing and weights and measures will be decided by a party that is consistently polling third in Scotland.

Is that fair?

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[andy.ruddock]

And *more* right-wing than Margaret Thatcher's government.
There is no longer (and hasn't been for quite some time now) a socialist option in Britain.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[CountBrass]

Because it's a recent phenomenom in the UK. Until "New Labour" Labour and the Conservatives were very different, there was a real choice.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[AmiMoJo]

It's got nothing to do with how poor Labour is at most things, and everything to do with how well they have run the economy and how useless the opposition are. People might vote for someone else but they don't want to risk their wallets and remember what happened in the early 90s the last time the Tory Party was in, plus Cameron has no actual policies so it's not like he can even attack the government on that front.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[kaos07]

Oh come on. You'd have to go back a few decades for that.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[StrawberryFrog]

It's got nothing to do with how poor Labour is at most things, and everything to do with how well they have run the economy

Yeah, that's the thing that worries me:
Huge numbers of Iraqis dead - vote them back in
Inflation at 4% and house price no longer rising insanely - throw them out

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Both of the two largest parties in England have distinct tendencies to the right, certainly. The irony of that in the case of Labour is pretty impressive. I'm not sure how you could argue the same for the Lib Dems, though, given that they are almost diametrically opposite: every monetary policy they propose pretty openly bashes someone or other with above-average earnings in order to reduce taxes on their voters^W^W the lower paid or unemployed, their transport and environmental policies are heavily supportive of the little guy with limited money, etc.

Don't forget that there are major parties in the other regions outside those three as well, but their political goals are often heavily influenced by issues of devolution (or not) rather than your typical Westminster mess.

There are smaller parties that really are much more balanced in their views, but none currently has a critical mass in either public awareness or political power (such as even fielding a candidate in most areas) so some sort of major event would be needed to raise their profiles for them to make a difference: a big donor to give them advertising clout might do it, or some sort of well-managed merger between parties with broadly similar political views perhaps. I've always been curious what would happen if the smaller parties all pooled resources to run an advertising campaign pointing out that people don't have to vote for the big parties and showing how much more balanced the political landscape could become if some minor parties took a few seats in the Commons, but I suspect the big parties would counter with their usual "only parties X and Y have a chance in place Z" spin (which should be illegal IMHO, since it breaks the rules about stating facts) and this would be sufficient.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Factually, you're correct about the way the system works, broken as it is (since it means votes count only towards electing a legislature, when in reality some, probably most, voters intend their vote toward electing an executive).

Nevertheless, in this specific case, whether Blair would be replaced by Brown was a huge issue at the last general election, and Labour were only returned to power after giving a very clear statement that this would not happen. Our laws do not provide for removing from power a political party that deliberately violates a promise given to the voters before an election, either, but such behaviour is still unethical and the party can no longer credibly claim to have a popular mandate if they do so; quite the contrary, in fact.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

My apologies, that was a poor choice of words. Labour only won the popular vote because of contributions from outside England. They would indeed have taken power comfortably anyway under the current "first past the post" system.

In your other reply, you wrote:

Scotland's policies on [numerous subjects] will be decided by a party that is consistently polling third in Scotland.

Is that fair?

Well, that depends. If you accept the first past the post system, then yes, it's perfectly fair that the third party can swing the vote if the first and second parties disagree and neither has an outright majority. The fallacy of third party dominance arises because people forget that the first and second parties can vote together, in which case typically the third party's opinion will be irrelevant to the result.

Of course, then you have to get into whether the relative weight of parties in terms of votes they get in Parliament compared to popular support is reasonable, which it clearly isn't under first past the post.

Re:I used to feel sorry for Britain

[AmiMoJo]

Try to look on the bright(er) side - it's probably not that people don't care about the war or the fact that 1984 is fast approaching. It's just that they care more about economic stability and keeping their job.

forgot something

[hurfy]

Aren't they supposed to at least SAY 'for the children' or something?

*sigh*

Not necessarily a bad thing...

[Gat0r30y]

I've often wondered if there is a way to make disturbing draconian legislation like this and turn it around. I think that there is - radical transparency in government. Allow every government agency access to the public's SMS and email data, but in conjunction publish the SMS's and emails of every government employee, so the public has access to them. If there is no right to privacy, and they are doing nothing wrong, they should have nothing to fear right?
On another note completely - what is the over under on how long till this is abused (and they get busted)? I have 3 weeks.

Re:Not necessarily a bad thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bruce Schneier would like to have a word with you: The Myth of the 'Transparent Society

Re:Not necessarily a bad thing...

[CrazedSanity]

I give it about 10 minutes before it is abused. I would say it would probably take much longer--on the order of 3 weeks--to discover the abuse, however.

Snoops mining

[UnixUnix]

My friend in London is being snooped upon 300 times a day already by videocams. Now that her internet usage will be recorded we can only hope that authorities attempting to coordinate the two will use the Last Hope for Freedom: Windows.

Re:Snoops mining

[Anonymous Coward]

"My friend in London is being snooped upon 300 times a day already by videocams."

What's her website and how much does she charge?

Re:Snoops mining

[TheThiefMaster]

It's not the cows you should be worried about, it's the TREES!
They're plotting against us I tell you!
Every day they invade further into our cities. They've clearly already got to the planning councils. Have they got the government yet? I don't know.

I'll stay indoors, it's safer.

Oh come on, you know they're already doing it

[Anonymous Coward]

At least the UK gov't has the decency to tell its citizens they're being spied on. I assume everything I do is being monitored by SOMEONE. The time is long overdue to build public key encryption into our devices.

Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[Anonymous Coward]

what's the fuss about? if you've got nothing to hide, them you've got nothing to fear.

oh, as a side-point, this legislation is now required due to an EU directive and I noticed that the entire EU commission have made themselves exempt from any such troublesome monitoring.

Some software that you should look at

[apathy maybe]

http://www.gnupg.org/ - The GNU Privacy Guard

http://getfiregpg.org/ - FireGPG, "encrypt, decrypt, sign or verify the signature of text in any web page using GnuPG" (untested by me).
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3424 - another Firefox extension, also untested.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3208 - another one that may be useful (untested).

http://www.gpg4win.org/ - something for MS Windows

Remember folks, even if you aren't in the UK, this still affects you! If you communicate with people in the UK, if you have email based in the UK (I have a Yahoo.co.uk email address, in addition to my 50 other email addresses...), etc. ...

It is as simple as installing Firefox, installing GNUPG, and installing that extension that lets you encrypt text fields when you are emailing...

And don't forget TrueCrypt http://truecrypt.org/ though it isn't strictly relevant in this case, it is always relevant.

Re:Some software that you should look at

[OriginalArlen]

Except that RIP, passed in 2000 (yes dear, pre-911) means you go to jail if you refuse to divulge your keys when asked (and if you let anyone else know that you've done so, even passively, e.g. by no longer replying to emails. Some of us protested about this at the time, and oh! how the tin-foil hat jokes flowed, yea verily even here on Slashdot if I remember right. And in real life - it was more a case of backing away carefully whilst smiling cheerfully and maintaining eye contact.

FWIW I donate to No2ID and Liberty, amongst other organisations active in this area. And I may even be holding my nose and voting Tory next time, if they make authoritative statements that they'll roll this crap back... something I swore I would never, ever do. (Leftie UK readers of a certain age will know what I mean.)

Re:Some software that you should look at

[damburger]

Don't put your faith in tories, behind each one of those old school ties beats the black heart of a fascist. They are only opposing this legislation whilst in opposition as a mercenary attempt to gain votes.

Re:Some software that you should look at

[psykocrime]

F%!# Tories, vote Libertarian.

Re:Some software that you should look at

[nurb432]

While i agree 100%, and *we* will do it, the problem is the other end. Unless encryption is turned on by default, and installed automatically the average joe will not be doing it, and with 1/2 the link unencrypted its completely open in effect.

Full disk encryption should be standard as well.

This isn't just the UK, remember most governments are already snooping.

Re:Some software that you should look at

[Maelwryth]

Speaking of encryption, can we veiw Slashdot using ssh?

Re:Some software that you should look at

[damburger]

Whoever modded this 'troll' should understand the difference between a troll and someone who disagrees with them.

Re:Some software that you should look at

[jonaskoelker]

It is as simple as installing Firefox, installing GNUPG, and installing that extension that lets you encrypt text fields when you are emailing...

Firefox, email? What do they have to do with one another?

And get offa my lawn! ;)

Re:Some software that you should look at

[caluml]

HTTPS would be a start, no? IPv6 too, while you're at it. Cmon, into the 21st century with you, Slashdot.

As Mandy Rice-Davies would say

[T1girl]

"He would, wouldn't he?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_Rice-Davies

Why are we surprised?

[TubeSteak]

The Conservatives have criticised the idea, with the Shadow Home Secretary saying, 'yet again the Government has proved itself unable to resist the temptation to take a power quite properly designed to combat terrorism to snoop on the lives of ordinary people in everyday circumstances.'"

The USA already did that, just not on the same scale.

If a law doesn't say "only to be used for purpose X" then assume it will be *(ab)used as widely as possible.

*is it really abuse if the law isn't limited in its breadth?

Re:Why are we surprised?

[shermo]

The difference is that in the UK there are actually figures in government who oppose the power grab.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to stop it.

Re:Why are we surprised?

[pentalive]

What is a "shadow home secretary" ? Just the title sounds scary and bigbrothery.

Re:Why are we surprised?

[JohnBailey]

What is a "shadow home secretary" ? Just the title sounds scary and bigbrothery.

The opposite number of the actual one in the party that is not in power. Kind of mundane actually. There is a "shadow" every main position in government held by someone on the other party who basically says "you don't want to do it like that"

The opposition say...

[catalupus]

The Conservatives have criticised the idea, with the Shadow Home Secretary saying, 'yet again the Government has proved itself unable to resist the temptation to take a power quite properly designed to combat terrorism to snoop on the lives of ordinary people in everyday circumstances.'"

An of course, once they are in power, they will stop the data logging? - or will they conveniently forget and keep it going?

Time for Google Net View (TM)?

[argent]

Right now you need a court order to get this kind of creepy access to data from Google. It's time to turn this around and let everyone have access to he latest cyberstalking technology.

Open source it

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, though, if you want to solve the problems of government intrusion, you gotta open source the government.

The project is already underway, and they are looking for more programmers to help.

Re:Open source it

[Original Replica]

Seriously, though, if you want to solve the problems of government intrusion, you gotta open source the government.

To make any significant change to the deeper power structures of any large government you need a revolution. People in positions of global scale aren't going to give up that power just because you have a lot of signatures on a petition. You cannot vote high ranking bureaucrats and lobbyists out of power. But for ordinary citizens to attempt to use force to uproot those currently in positions of power would require them to be "terrorists" (gasp!) The only way to take down a large modern government without warfare is to wait for it to collapse under it's own bloated weight like the USSR did.

Re:Open source it

[Original Replica]

"When Metascore implementations form within communities, they will periodically ask the existing government (or other authority) to cede power to the open source communities pertinent to their region."

Yeah, the State and Federal governments are really gonna respect that. There are two scenarios that could realistically happen, One is the perpetual ineffectuallity of something like The Second Vermont Republic. Where it is just ignored until it becomes a joke, or you get The Montana Freemen, where a belief in individual sovereignty is repudiated by Federal Agents with big guns and armored vehicles, while any valid claims for secession are ignored by the media in favor of painting you as nutjobs. You don't actually think that government owned voting machines are ever going to show a vote in favor of secession or major government restructuring do you ?

Re:Open source it

[Candid88]

"People in positions of global scale aren't going to give up that power just because you have a lot of signatures on a petition."

Um, this "petition" happens every few years, it's called an election.

"To make any significant change to the deeper power structures of any large government you need a revolution."

"deeper power structures"? What on earth is a "deeper power structure"? Actual real-life, quantitative, examples please; not wishy-washy existential rubbish like such phrases usually represent.

Re:Open source it

[taff^2]

Shh! They'll hear you!

Re:Open source it

[skarphace]

People in positions of global scale aren't going to give up that power just because you have a lot of signatures on a petition.

The founding fathers did. Seriously, these guys could have setup an oligarchy and run the country as they see fit. Instead, the gambled and threw the power out to the people. And, you know what? It worked pretty well.

Then other countries followed suit and dabbled in more representative democracy. All this, without revolution, I might add.

Tunnel

[s7uar7]

And SwissVPN to a roaring trade from UK customers.

Re:Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[apathy maybe]

So you don't mind me watching you have sex (wait an anonymous coward posting shit on Slashdot, you don't have sex)? Masturbate? Bathe? Shit?

How about we set you up in a glass cage for a week in the middle of (say) Times Square?

Or, how about you read this article http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 linked to by another Slashdotter at one time. You have to register to download it, but a fake email address works just as well.

But more to the point, you have got something to hide, everybody does. Who hasn't broken the law at one stage or another? Speeding? Jaywalked? Partaken of some illicit substance? Blasphemed? (You know why Mary was a virgin? She only had anal sex.) You get the idea, everyone is guilty of something, and that means everyone has something to hide from the government.

Not even technicaly posible

[kipman725]

This is not actually possible. Those crazed fuckers want data on everything there is no way of storing that much data. Storing my own data for a year would be difficult probably requiring a whole Hard disk.

Re:Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[prettything]

if its a database wi data that holds personal data then subject access requestz it :) til it breaks bring back the ponies!

First Brazil, then USA... now UK

[Anonymous Coward]

How fast fashion moves. This new outburst of governments trying to legally spy on citizens have to stop! First it was Brazil , then USA, now UK... All in about 30 days! What is this? Some sort of disturbance before the dive? Are we really going to implement a worldwide 1984-like society?

They've tried this before

[99luftballon]

A few years ago then Home Secretary David Blunkett tried something similar with the RIP Act, which would have given these kind of powers to bodies as obscure as parish councils. He said it wasn't until his son (an IT consultant) sat down and explained the problems this could cause that he dropped the plans.

Even if such a plan were possible as the one proposed it would run into massive opposition, not just from the other two parties but from ISPs, phone companies et al. With Labour as weak politically as they are now I hope this one will be a dead duck.

Bear in mind as well that these documents always over egg the pudding so that some areas can be dropped as concessions. Nevertheless I'll be writing to my old MP laying out the reasons why this is a stunningly bad idea.

Re:They've tried this before

[pentalive]

Bear in mind as well that these documents always over egg the pudding British idiom... do you mean they add features they don't care about only to drop them while negotiating?

Re:They've tried this before

[Jacob91]

If you are going to be typing this letter, could you possibly send me a copy? I wish as well to foward it to my local MP, and feel that i would be able to get a few signatures on the letter to support my own. Thanks in advance.

It's a ploy people

[Anonymous Coward]

This will never happen - it's just a ploy. They'll water it down after an out-cry and we'll all say 'phew that was a close call.'

But of course the real aim was to get the slightly watered version approved in the first place. Job done government.

Re:It's a ploy people

[pentalive]

What is the watered down version... ISPs and such still have to collect the data, but it's not centralized? Don't the ISPs do this now?

Re:It's a ploy people

[WillKemp]

What is the watered down version...

The watered down version's probably carte blanche for their mates at Phorm.

Re:It's a ploy people

[arkhan_jg]

Currently, ISPs *voluntarily* collect and hold (at the ISP) website logs visited for up to 4 days, sms records (including location in lat/long) for 6 months, logon records for 6 months, email for 6 months, telephone calls (including location at time of call) made for 12 months and subscriber information for 12 months.

In all cases, details about the communication is kept, but not the content itself. I.e. email headers store the username used, the from and to email address, time and date but not the subject or body of the email. Website logs log the website domain with time and date, but not the individual page visited.

The UK police, local councils, customs and excise, the secret services, all sorts of local government bodies have access to this data upon request, no judge or warrant required under the RIP act.

The police also have the capability to install taps on individuals or in bulk with a warrant - the equipment is already in place, and is paid for by the ISPs. Recording telephone calls, turning on the microphone of mobiles remotely, triangulating mobile phone position in real time etc.

The main difference about implementing this EU legislation, passed in 2005 - and passed in part because the UK government lobbied heavily for it in the EU institutions - is it would extend all the traffic logging dates to up to 24 months, and make it mandatory rather than voluntary. It also proposes centralising all the logs in a government database in near real time. Currently the plod have to set up shop at the individual ISP to get the data, a bit of a pain if they need information from multiple sources.

The most worrying thing is the ease of access by all sorts of bodies, such as local councils, with no oversight by a court at all, which has already been abused.Councils have already used the information to investigate dog fouling and noise complaints, for example.

Re:It's a ploy people

[Weedlekin]

"Ps and such still have to collect the data, but it's not centralized? Don't the ISPs do this now?"

The EU date retention directive requires ISPs to keep logs of the fact that a communication occurred between specific individuals at a certain date and time for up to 2 years. Legal authorities can request these logs, but they must specify whose logs they require, and the range of dates involved, and cannot demand the contents of messages or other communications (which service providers are in any case not obliged to keep) because, as the directive clearly states, this would contravene European human rights legislation which guarantees the right to private correspondence.

So once again we have a very British law which will probably be blamed on Europe by the Daily Mail and its jingoistic "everything bad about Britain is the result of a conspiracy by foreigners" ilk despite the fact that most of what's in it is actually in direct contravention of current EC data retention directives, which specifically prohibit blanket surveillance of this type.

How screwed are we....

[rasteri]

... When the fucking TORIES are the voice of reason?!?

Re:How screwed are we....

[Dark$ide]

The biggest risk is if Labour get this crap in place. The "fucking TORIES" (as you put it) won't have the guts to tear it out.

That's what always happens when the UK Gov't changes. They continue with all the shitty projects that the last lot have started. They're hoping one project will be a success and they can claim the kudos for it.

Re:How screwed are we....

[IBBoard]

Mod parent up! Given that Labour are supposed to be left-wing and for the people while the Conservatives (Tories) are supposed to be the right-wing, it's rather worrying that the right-wing is the one standing up for civil liberties and common sense.

Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a "Labour suggested it so we must complain about it" stance as much as anything.

Re:How screwed are we....

[meringuoid]

Mod parent up! Given that Labour are supposed to be left-wing and for the people while the Conservatives (Tories) are supposed to be the right-wing, it's rather worrying that the right-wing is the one standing up for civil liberties and common sense.

Right-wing needn't mean Fascist. There's a long-standing tradition of Conservatism in which the Government does as little as it can get away with: less taxation, less expenditure, less interference with the public of any kind. We haven't seen too much of that tradition in a long while - Thatcher was the embodiment of the right-wing authoritarian - but with a reaction on against Labour's ever-more-intrusive nanny state, a Conservative Party running on a libertarian platform could do well.

To those who say this doesn't affect the innocent

[Anonymous Coward]

The government doesn't need to look at all this data for it to be a bad thing. What if you decide to speak against the local government or complain about the local police force? Don't bother trying to be anonymous because they already have enough logs to find you. Then they can either make you life hell by accidentally leaking information or simply by arresting you. I'm sure they can find probably cause inside all that data for you committing a dozen crimes and they don't need to find you guilty to make your life hell (ie: confiscate all your computers, return them 10 years later, etc.). Maybe you just went to the wrong website and are not being charge with pedophilia? If you're likely in a decade once you've had your reputation, job, personal life and so on ruined they'll drop the charges.

Governments are run by humans and humans are greedy, sadistic, selfish bastards who think they're always right. The more power they have the more power they can abuse and many of them will abuse it. They'll probably think they're doing it for the greater good and by some arguments they'd be right.

Labor party ?

[unity100]

sounds more like the fascist party to me.

you brits need to take matters into your own hands.

pwned

[theCat]

"All your SMS are belong to us. Beotches."

Re:Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[Reziac]

I randomly clicked the Brussels download location, and was handed a PDF without being asked for anything.

Interesting dissection of all the things we mean by "privacy".

Re:Send for BOFH

[sexconker]

The problem here is that you have to decide a person is interesting.

You can't keep all of their historical data around, then decide. You have to decide, then start keeping data.

You can have a small window where you keep all data for a certain amount of time, but there's simply far too much data for there to be any useful backlog to search through.

Deciding if a person is interesting is also very difficult. Truly interesting people will be using encryption, steganography, and disinformation. Uninteresting people will be clogging the tubes with "I'm gonna kill Bush I swear!!" The signal to noise ratio is astronomically low.

Keep in mind that the data doesn't stop - you have to be able to exceed (in storage and processing) the capacity of the entire population.

It's not possible.

Re:I Hate British People

[Anonymous Coward]

That's OK, we hate ourselves, too. That's one of our characteristics. In fact, I'm hating myself even for thinking this, let alone typing it in and posting it.

Re:Lets all use whitehouse.gov emails, NEVER saved

[sexconker]

Dear Americans.
We have gone through all the data, and we've found that your President Bush was a great guy with no faults.

Sincerely,
Tony Blair

WTF UK?

[necro2607]

What the hell is up with the UK Government that they constantly are all about shitting all over peoples' rights to privacy (perceived or otherwise)? It's like every few months there's some new story about the insane ideas they've come up with most recently about how to become as Orwellian as possible or something. These tards of narrow perspective need to take a step back and stop making national unilateral decisions (or proposals) based on their power-centric views that are endlessly apathetic/indifferent towards the thoughts and feelings of "the people". Even though I single out the UK government here because it's on-topic to the story, this seems to be a trend that's just about constant with the so-called "civilized world". I can see it doing no more than alienating the crap out of the general populous.

Re:WTF UK?

[nurb432]

the UK government doesn't have a monopoly on that.

Re:WTF UK?

[goodmanj]

Assuming you're American, the key difference between your government and the UK's is that when the UK government does this kind of crap, the media and political opposition actually A) notice, and B) complain, so it makes the news.

Re:WTF UK?

[magpie]

They're doing because they can.

Re:WTF UK?

[godfra]

They honestly believe that they know what is best for us. I am sure no-one in government is cackling and rubbing their hands together, they probably turn on the TV, see Big Brother and think that's all "we the people" have to offer.

The sleeper must awaken!

Re:WTF UK?

[necro2607]

No, I am in Canada, but that doesn't make your point less valid ;)

Who would you contact...

[Nyckname]

if your mail server ate everything and you'd like your backups from the gov't?

It is really simple, folks!

[mi]

a power quite properly designed to combat terrorism to snoop on the lives of ordinary people

That they aren't content with spying on just the terrorists, and leaving the ordinary folks alone, is evidence, that secret plans for "1984"-ish dictatorship are about to be hatched!!

Proposes?

[nurb432]

Or just wants to admit its already happening by making it 'legit'.

Wait every Email?

[TechnoFrood]

Including all the spam?

My taxes pay for this crap

[Dark$ide]

I don't care if the Gov't snoops on my internet traffic, I hope they don't get too bored reading my drivel.

What disturbs me about this is that it's my taxes that pay for this crap. I'd prefer them to spend it on something that's worthwhile, something that may be to my benefit - like roads, sewers, hospitals and ambulances. Instead Gorden Scunner Broon and his unelectable cretins (aka MPs) do this in the name of "National Security". This won't make an iota of a difference to national security.

They're also proposing to give us all biometric ID cards to improve national security. Sorry I meant force us to pay nearly a hundred quid each for a Gov't issued piece of useless plastic. That won't make an iota of a difference either.

They'll have a national database with stuff about each one of us. That won't make an iota of a difference for national security. It'll just be another expensive white elephant and another opportunity for them to lose a couple of CD-ROMs in the post.

I won't vote for Broon. I'll be voting for anyone other than Broon and his cronies. I won't have an ID card. I don't want email snooping.

Re:To those who say this doesn't affect the innoce

[pentalive]

To simplify what you just said... power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Wasn't it a British fellow who originally said that?

Camera's on Cops

[k1e0x]

Sure they want to spy on us, but what happens when you put a camera on police and record there actions? They don't like *that* very much do they.. people who *do* record the police often find themselves arrested for --insert bogus reason here-- and their camera blank when they get out of jail in a few hours with no charges filed against them.

If the state can record and monitor the actions of the people, but the people are unable to monitor and record the actions of the state.. then who exactly is master of whom?

Re:Camera's on Cops

[Candid88]

"and their camera blank when they get out of jail in a few hours with no charges filed against them"

Yea right, what a load of cr@p. If this actually did happen to anyone with half a brain, they would have a quickfire way of getting a compensation award and having the cop fired.

Any lawyer would jump on this easy chance to get some cash.

Re:Camera's on Cops

[k1e0x]

It happens all the time, go video tape a cop, see what happens.

It happens so often that there is demand for software applications for cell phones that store the video on online sources such as blogger so cops can't delete it.

Re:Lets all use whitehouse.gov emails, NEVER saved

[ozphx]

Were they not doing it all for you until you assclowns decided to have a revolution and elect your own leaders?

Good going there... :P

This is a *good* idea!

[buss_error]

Especially if you own stock in hard drive and tape OEMs!

Kind of sucks if you think the government ought to be something other than responsible, restrained, and democratic. Or harbor any terrorist ideas like, maybe a government ought to be required to have proof or at least strong suspician you're planning something Really Bad before they can monitor your every breath and step.

I can't recall where I read it...

[Panaqqa]

...but I do recall reading something quite recently about another project where data/video was being archived "to be used to fight terrorism". The powers that be swore up and down that it would not be abused. And months later it was being used by an automated system to issue parking tickets in an effort to boost revenue.

If this goes through, it will not take very long at all before the data is being used, whether by an authorized user or otherwise, for any or all of the following:

• Monitoring peoples' use of Internet at work for personal stuff
• Snitching to human resources departments which potential hires use online pornography, or were not at their doctor's office when called in sick
• Catching undeclared personal income earned through online activities
• Analyzing friend network patterns on social networks to detect "potential" drug dealers, leftists, other people the government doesn't like

Slippery slope and all that. This one should die.

Tories are at it also

[hack slash]

If you think that this initiative to snoop on all UK internet communications is unique to Labor, just look at what the Tories are proposing: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/12/tory_ripa_reform/

Rock & hard place. Time to bend over.

Re:Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[lgw]

More to the point than that very long-winded article: I don't need to be doing anything wrong in order to have something to hide! It's basic human dignity. There's a reason public toilets have stalls, and it's not so that US senators can get gay sex.

No worries

[Danathar]

If you have not done anything wrong then you have nothing to hide............

Can someone from the UK please tell me

[Tablizer]

...why UK citizens don't seem overly concerned? Have they not been burned enough in the past by likes of Nixon and J.E.Hoover (FBI)? True, civil liberties are being eaten away in the US also, but so far the UK takes the cake.

Re:Can someone from the UK please tell me

[lordholm]

I am living in the UK, but since I am not a citizen, I am not allowed to vote (taxed without representation); from what I'd reckon, there is a pervasive conservative culture here (certainly not in my circles), where people are still protesting to the decimalisation of the Pound and the introduction of the metric system for goods.

The point being, the internet is this new and scary thing that only "hackers" use, so they might as well try to control it as much as possible. No real brit would try to use it anyway.

Re:Can someone from the UK please tell me

[WillKemp]

No real brit would try to use it anyway.

Nah, most people use the internet in Britain. But it's true that they're conservative. Britain is probably one of the most conservative countries in the world - second only to Afghanistan, out of places i've been.

I think the real reason people aren't jumping up and down about it is because hardly anyone understands what it's about. Even though they all use the internet, very few have any real conception of what "data" is, or how it moves around.

The other thing is that they don't give a damn about anyone else. If it affects them personally, they'll make a fuss. If it affects enough of them personally, they'll take to the streets and riot. There's never been a proper revolution in this country, but it's not impossible.

The only real skill British governments need is the ability to alienate less than a critical mass of people.

Re:Can someone from the UK please tell me

[pewter_tankard]

...why UK citizens don't seem overly concerned?

Well, I am a UK citizen and am concerned so obviously I'm hiding it well... or else you're giving a hideous generalisation. Yes, it's probably true that the perceived threat of terrorism is causing the majority of the unthinking masses to accept some changes in the law without criticism... but that's been true in both the UK and US. After all, you lot passed the Patriot Act and you were obviously so concerned that you voted Dubya to remain in office three years later. In similar vein, the majority of UK citizens have (tacitly, at least) accepted some need for increased security after 9/11 so will probably see this proposed change in UK law in this light. That doesn't mean that the majority of UK citizens understand the full import of the privacy issues involved... but, like most Slashdot users, we're in an educated minority who do understand the differences.

At present, what's been presented is a consultation document from the Home Office. It's not been presented to Parliament for formal consideration as a change in the law. The Home Office have released the document to get feedback from concerned organisations (probably including those that will benefit from the data but also those organisations concerned with privacy and human rights) and citizens.

Also, as a consultation document, it does at least include the "do nothing" option in their table of possible options. Never underestimate the power of inertia.

I rather suspect that Liberty (the human rights organisation, not the rather expensive shop in Regent's Street, London) will have something to contribute to the debate. http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/

UK snooping, data storage

[Borg Bucolic]

I have to ask, is this news? Let me say this, somewhere in a hidden vault is an NSA computer searching (maybe using Google) and logging every instance where someone mentions the words president assassination nuclear Allah etc... Oops....

Re:UK snooping, data storage

[pewter_tankard]

Data storage? Oooh... cloud computing! Will it be cheaper and more reliable than Apple's Mobile Me?

Perhaps the security services just have a marketing problem. If they "sold" their services as a free replacement for Google Mail and Amazon S3, nobody would complain as much...

OK... time for a lie-down...

Re:UK snooping, data storage

[Borg Bucolic]

Data storage? Oooh... cloud computing! Will it be cheaper and more reliable than Apple's Mobile Me?

Perhaps the security services just have a marketing problem. If they "sold" their services as a free replacement for Google Mail and Amazon S3, nobody would complain as much...

OK... time for a lie-down...

Shhhhh, don't give them any ideas... BTW, maybe I'm being con-dense, what exactly is cloud computing? Is it shaped like animals or something?

The Shadow knows....

[pentalive]

Sort of a balance thing then?

Re:The Shadow knows....

[D-Cypell]

Yeah, they are just a person in the leading opposition party to fill the role, (the presumption is that the 'shadow home secretary' would become the home secretary should the leading opposition party ever get into power, but thats not always the case, usually there is a reshuffle of jobs after an election). Despite all the crap in our political system, this works quite well as there is always somebody in the opposition party whose job it is to keep up to date on the relevant issues. The shadow health secretary should, in theory, be quite well versed with health system policy so if the actual health secretary proposes some new legislation, the shadow health secretary is in a position to challenge that proposal. Checks and balances basically.

Re:Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[smoker2]

I don't see it as having something to hide.
To me, (a natural stubborn bastard), I don't just do things because somebody "says so". You want to read my email, fuck you. I don't care that it's just meaningless chatter between mates, or reveals my whereabouts next weekend, I just don't react well to "authority". I have a brain and I do use it, thanks for asking.
Reading my email is the same to me as "papers please". An unwarranted intrusion into my affairs. And while I may not stop using email, hold a demonstration against the government, or encrypt my email, you can bet your life that there is a simmering resentment growing inside, and one day (every opportunity actually) I will do something deliberately to fuck them up.
Civil disobedience is the only way left but it happens to be the best way. This isn't China, where people disappear and even the police have been fucked over by the government (wages row) so I don't think they'll last too long if they start to really turn the screws.
I just had a thought - is it ironic that the only group offering radical change are the terrorists ? It's not good change but it is radical. What we've got isn't working, but the "legitimate" alternatives are more of the same. I really hope that some forward thinking government sets up a system where we all get a say on important issues. Should we attack a country ? Let's ask our people. How much should we spend on health, let's find out. The back room stuff can be taken care of without asking everybody all the time, but the principles will have been chosen by the people.
This could be done relatively simply and cheaply using the net, public keys, VPNs and government servers. You could vote from the command line if you wanted. Your private key is your voting slip, and the database doesn't show which key went with which vote. Then we might not see any radical changes, but at least we would know who was making the decisions - us.
Of course this will never happen because the people in government don't want to give up their power, so the resentment grows. The government cracks down, more resentment. It won't be pretty.

Re:Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[smoker2]

This isn't China, where people disappear and even the police have been fucked over by the government (wages row) so I don't think they'll last too long if they start to really turn the screws.

What I meant to say was :
This isn't China, where people disappear. Even the police have been fucked over by the government (wages row) so I don't think the government would last too long if they start to really turn the screws.

encryption wont work

[lordholm]

This was already decided by the federal authorities (the EU) in the council of ministers a couple years ago. They where kind enough to ignore the European parliament's opinion as much as possible; as the council threatened to have it treated as a judicial cooperation matter (i.e. third pillar and only for the council).

Could people start realising this, that certain issues are decided on federal level here in Europe, and maybe fight it there. Whenever the federal law is implemented, it is to late to change it, with exception of some of the details (such as who is allowed to access the data).

The thing is about storing traffic data, such as the time stamps and from and to address of the e-mails being sent. This data will be available even in the case you encrypt your e-mails.

Most other states have implementing this, allowing the police, and only the police to request extracts of the traffic data registers when investigating crimes. The british version of this seem to go further in the access rights to the data, allowing not only the police to access the data but also for any other authority not involved in criminal investigations and without court orders.

It would be interesting to see if this would be in breach of the European data protection laws.

Re:To those who say this doesn't affect the innoce

[rastos1]

What if you decide to speak against the local government or complain about the local police force?

What if you phone/e-mail/SMS your doctor or lawyer? What if the organized crime bribes a clerk to find out when and where the police raid will happen?

The sad thing is that even if this gets rejected in UK now, it will come up again and in more countries in future.

Re:Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[mrjb]

I suggest you read I've got nothing to hide and other misunderstandings of privacy.

Re:Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[wolf12886]

But more to the point, you have got something to hide, everybody does. Who hasn't broken the law at one stage or another? Speeding? Jaywalked? Partaken of some illicit substance? Blasphemed? (You know why Mary was a virgin? She only had anal sex.) You get the idea, everyone is guilty of something, and that means everyone has something to hide from the government.

Another way to put it is that you have nothing to fear as long long as you don't in any way interfere with, scrutinize, or question the governments actions. You don't have to be guilty of any real crime (however small) these days, if they want to arrest you, there are plenty of selectively enforced and catch-all laws that will easily serve the purpose.

The legal protections on our freedoms have all but dissolved completely. Currently, the only thing protecting the freedoms we have left is the relative media transparency that the Internets been providing (the last thing a police state wants to do is stir up unified public resentment). At the rate things are going, the free internet won't last much longer.

Unless our societies change very much, very quickly, things are going to get ugly.

Not much to worry about...

[Bert64]

Considering all the stories you hear of UK government IT projects going massively over budget, failing in spectacular ways, and often getting canned completely, i seriously doubt they will be capable of constructing a system capable of doing this that actually works.

Re:Not much to worry about...

[Bert64]

And if they do, i'm sure the data will end up left on a train sooner or later.

Data protection act?

[IBBoard]

Given that the Data Protection Act lets you demand to see any and all data stored about you (and have it corrected if it is wrong), does this mean we'll be able to demand to see all of the government's monitoring of us? Or is there some get-out clause for Government stuff? I can imagine they'd charge a rather large "reasonable amount" for getting the information through the bureaucracy, though.

Re:Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[Weedlekin]

"this legislation is now required due to an EU directive"

Please cite the EU directive that permits (let alone requires) blanket snooping into _the contents_ of messages by any party, including a government.

Re:encryption - can't defeat UBE!

[Bert64]

Someone who freely admits he is not good at maths, hacked up an existing encryption cipher... I wonder if the end result actually works properly, or if he made some critical mistakes implementing it and ended up with a totally flawed cipher.
Cryptography is very difficult, it's easy to do something you think will make a cipher stronger, and end up weakening it.

It's times like this I'm glad I've given up.

[Pichu0102]

I live in the US where something like this probably already exists. At this point, I try to avoid being involved in politics, don't vote, etc, because let's face it, it doesn't do anything anywhere in the world anymore.

Thankfully, despite all the laws being passed to restrict us, we can still go outside and do things that make us happy. I mean, we might be being watched, but if we worry and protest everything that happened, we'd be even more stressed out and it wouldn't do anything.

My personal opinion is to not focus on that kind of stuff. When they come for me, they'll come for me. Until then, I might as well enjoy what time I have for freedoms now then waste some of that precious time on struggling.

Anyone else feel the same way?

Re:It's times like this I'm glad I've given up.

[godfra]

It's exactly this kind of apathy that has caused the problems you're complaining about.

"We have enormous freedom. That's not a gift that was given to us, it's a legacy that was left to us by centuries of struggle. By centuries of people that most of whose names are completely forgotten, the ones who created the freedom and the rights we now have, and that will be taken away unless you constantly defend them." - Noam Chomsky

Re:It's times like this I'm glad I've given up.

[Pichu0102]

The problem is, for it to have any effect, a much much larger amount of people would have to stop being apathetic all at once. In the world as it is now, this will never happen, so being apathetic or not really doesn't make a difference anyways.

Re:It's times like this I'm glad I've given up.

[Spatial]

Anyone else feel the same way?

Yes. His name is Winston Smith.

The nature of Power Seeking...

[MindKata]

"This will include an awful lot of banking data" and "I wonder what would happen if somebody decided to record and archive all "incidents of data exchange" on the UK government's end"

Its an interesting idea, but it would never be allowed to happen, as the people in power make the laws and so they will always create new laws to keep covering up what they do. They would cover it up by implying it was to protect the country, but it would actually be protecting people in power, from being removed from power by other people who seek power. People in power are power seekers who constantly seek more power and so more importantly, they also fear any loss of power. Its their fear of the loss of power which drives them to constantly close off ways in which they can be undermined by other power seekers.

The people who want power don't want an open and equal world. They don't want equality at all. They want to be higher up than others. They want to be the centre of attention. They want more money than others. They want more power than others and that power allows them to make the rules and laws by which everyone has to work. Throughout history the rules have been biased in the favour of the people in power and that will never change. So the idea of a totally open world is a scifi only utopian world, that cannot ever exist in a world that has some people who also seek power and that will never change. Plus these people who seek power ultimately make the rules, so they will not allow it to go that far, where everyone becomes equal.

What I find fascinating about this news, is how open they are becoming, about their goal of creating literally a total Big Brother police state. Its when they said this ... "The main reason for it is to assist in the investigation of crime," says a Home Office spokesperson. "Each local council can make a decision for themselves on what is the most interest to them."

The problem is, they make the laws and so they decide what is a crime. They are behaving with incredible self-righteousness. They always have this attitude of "trust us, we are only trying to help". What the fools constantly fail to see, is that they can ignorantly ignore the harm they are doing to groups of people, as they close mindedly seek to do various new things. (Like e.g. destroy a village of peoples homes to make a new runway). Yet in Big Brother police state, like they want to create, any attempt to speak out and so stop them doing what they are doing, will be see and labelled as a crime by them, as they are already doing with the protest law changes. There will be no way to stop them being unfairly to groups of people, in a world that automatically builds up a profile of ever persons attitudes over the course of their life.

The argument that's often used against this idea that they would bother to build up a profile of people is based on the idea that individuals are too unimportant for the people in power to want to record and profile them. While its true the people in power don't see most individuals as that important at all, what the people in power actually fear is large numbers of people moving together and against the ones in power. Its groups of people forming is what people in power fear and they always have throughout history. This is why people in power want to profile everyone to workout which groups of people can move against them. Power seekers fear groups of people moving against them, to block their ideas and stand against them and all large countries are governed by groups of power seekers using the same methodology. Its a methodology underlying all political systems, because its driven by the the underlying psychology of the the people who seek power.

So the idea of using the same Big Brother monitoring methodology against a government, to stop it behaving unfairly isn't ever going to work, as the people in power will simply keep changing the laws to keep protecting themselves and outlawing any attempt to monitor the government (For example, its

Re:The nature of Power Seeking...

[jaweekes]

I was born in the UK and moved to the USA in '95. One of the reasons I do not wish to move back is because of this type of thing. They already have cameras everywhere, and can track you in your car from one end of the country to the other.

When I talk to people in the UK about this, they almost always shrug their shoulders and say that you shouldn't speed, although they do think that it's getting out of hand.

I'm not sure how the people will stop this, as it looks like the Labour party has gone nuts, and an election is years away.

I'm still proud to be British; I'm just glad I'm not living there right now.

Re:The nature of Power Seeking...

[Smauler]

The cameras they use to track you aren't the same as the ones that catch you speeding, you know that right? Anyone who drives knows where speed cameras are anyway, so people just slow down for a 40 yard stretch then resume normal speed. Utterly useless things.

Also, there has to be an election in the next couple of years (before June 2010 - wow, it feels weird that that's less than two years away). You may remember no one actually voted for our current prime minister to be prime minister, so the last election was for Blair back in may 2005.

Anyway, looking at the success of CCTV with regards to criminal convictions etc, I don't think we need to be panicking just yet.... I'm guessing when it actually gets intrusive, people will become more annoyed.

Re:The nature of Power Seeking...

[Reziac]

Now there are vehicle-mounted speed cameras that are moved whenever they like... I don't know if the jurisdictions using them are camoflauging the vehicles or not. They're not legal in California (yet).

What's amazing is......

[mormop]

that this government doesn't seem to know when to stop. It's almost as if they want to to lose the next election. Maybe Gordon's tired of all the flak and wants out or maybe the Labour party has decided on a crash and burn exit from government.

While things are good, low inflation, house prices rising, government popular etc. people are more likely to ignore things like this. Once the next general election starts rolling and the Tories start drawing up a list of reasons not to vote Labour this'll be another entry handed to them on a plate by a government that's lost touch with the population. Somehow, I doubt there'll be another Labour government for a few years.

Re:Nothing to hide == nothing to fear

[godfra]

Well then good sir, as you've got nothing to hide we're going to install a 24 hour webcam in your bedroom. Is that ok with you?

In Soviet Britain ...

[Zoxed]

In Soviet Britain no-one dares critisize the State, even in jest, even on an obscure tech. website, as you never know who will be listening in.

Well...

[iviv66]

Shouldn't they worry about preventing people reading all their secret documents from laptops left on the trains, rather than trying to read mine?

Dystopia

[Das Auge]

What the hell? Are the US and the UK governments in a contest to see who can abuse their citizens the most? I say this and I'm an American!

I use to enjoy watching entertainment set in a dystopia of a ruined world lorded over by an oppressive government (i.e. Blade Runner and Neuromancer).

Now...not so much...

Well,I For One,Am Surprised

[flyneye]

Well,I for one am surprised,after all the Big Brother activity that the U.K. endures,that there isn't even the inclination of a revolt or replacement of government.
            But then,I look online and notice the number of people being tied up and beaten or abused by their own preference.Coincidence?
          Does a whole nation of people get off on the abuse they receive?
        Will they continue to bend over as Charles & friends approach with the enema nozzle?
          I have little hope for a world too lazy to make life better for itself.When the power lies in the hands of the elite instead of the common man,the pain will continue,without lube.
Here at least we occasionally assassinate either the body or the character of the politicians we grow tired of.(Bill,Hillary,Gore,Bush,pick your Kennedy,etc.)

Conservatives - bah, humbug

[AdamWill]

Say the Conservatives: "'yet again the Government has proved itself unable to resist the temptation to take a power quite properly designed to combat terrorism to snoop on the lives of ordinary people in everyday circumstances.'""

Sounds very impressive, yes?

Here's the self-same Conservatives supporting the extension of RIPA - the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act, another Act that was 'quite properly designed to combat terrorism':

"It is not right that we charge our police with combating crime and disorder and then tie their hands behind their backs in the name of Whitehall bureaucracy. Revising the RIPA framework so that authorisation - and all the paperwork that goes with it - is not required for basic police work is just one way the Conservatives will cut red tape to free more police onto our streets."

Is that the sweet sweet scent of hypocrisy? Why yes, yes it is.

Re:Send for BOFH

[eltaco]

well yes and no, you're totally correct, but miss one point (in essence more of an elaboration I would like to add): governments don't care about one crackpot (or many of them). what they care about is if one (or a group of) "crackpots" actually have it in their power to change anything. now this can start off simply by being able to reach a large audience or it can go as far as being able to wage world war 3. it's a threat assessment, which most usually does not start on the net, but rather by doing some nice old fashioned recce & research. so, yeah, the people they check up on are select, but the way they select isn't the net.

Petiton again proposal

[dud83]

Seeing as this is a proposal wanting public feedback please sign the petition I created: http://www.petitiononline.com/d4t4m0n/petition.html. UK residents, please sign, as it is only a consultation but it WILL be passed as a law next year if people don't object! I will send this petition to commsdata@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk, as per the proposal suggest under section 7.1, before the deal line of 31st of October 2008.

Re:Send for BOFH

[sexconker]

"The way they select isn't the net."?

Then what's the point of monitoring all data?
You can't keep it around.

It is FAR easier to monitor the tubes than it is to track people in real life. One of the things we DO know about active terrorist and criminal groups is they heavily rely on electronic communication. And most of that communication never touches silicon in the US.

This program isn't about stopping terrorists or real criminals, it's about keeping the local populace in line. They DO care about nabbing a random crackpot or pirate or white collar criminal or pedophile. That shit gets them press and gets people to fear them. They don't care who goes down, they just care that someone goes down, so the rest of the people will fall in line and pay for the privilege.

The plan here is to monitor all data, find some easy targets, and make an example of them. They hope that this will get people to fall in line. If this were the case, online piracy would have ended with Napster.
What will happen is people will be harassed and arrested and some will go to jail. People will bitch and moan on the internet about our freedoms, but Congress will do nothing. The Supreme Court will hear a case about it in 50 years and declare it illegal, but it will be moot. The program will have become boring after a few years and people will forget about it. People will commit crimes as always. Nothing will change in the long run.