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UK Government Says More Spying Needed
An anonymous reader writes "Our wonderful government here in the UK has decided we're not being surveilled enough, and agreed to spend £12 billion on a programme to monitor every Briton's phone calls, e-mails, and internet usage. According to various sources, upwards of £1 billion has already been spent on the uber-database. Rationale? Terrorism, of course (no prizes for guessing).
Needless to say, not everyone is as happy as Larry over this: Michael Parker pointed out how us Brits are being 'stalked.' I'm just looking forward to when the data gets lost."
""Our wonderful government here in the UK has decided we're not being surveilled enough, and agreed to spend £12 billion on a programme to monitor every Briton's phone calls, e-mails, and internet usage."
With economies going the way they are. job security will be spying on each other.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Damn, spying really is like violence. You know, like XML...
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Thats almost 200 pounds for every man woman and child in the UK.
--
IP Address Finding
Putting cameras in toilets. We must keep an eye on every movement the terrorists make!
well at least it is public here in the US the govt. still says that the NSA is not spying at the "NSA controlled a secret internet spying room in an AT&T facility on Folsom Street in San Francisco" quote from http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/rights-group-su.html see: http://news.cnet.com/AT38T-sued-over-NSA-spy-program/2100-1028_3-6033501.html
"I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
Soon the l337 h4x0r d00d5 will have access to private details of every citizen of the UK.
After wasting £500bn recently (nearly the entire budget spend by government in one year) on bank bailouts that didn't work, it's amazing there is someone out there still stupid enough to loan the UK money for such crackpot schemes (speaking as a UK citizen). This is on top of the £20bn being wasted for the ID card system that will also crash and burn.
Still, it's government, and they don't care about other people's money, because it's not their wages or pensions that are effected.
With encrypted links being made ever easier, and the /. story recently of Google pushing an easier to use secure protocol, these tracking schemes will ultimately fail, at vast taxpayer expense.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
The UK had its own domestic terrorists for decades: the IRA. Yet the government did not feel that such pervasive monitoring was necessary. Now, largely because of something that happened 3000 miles away, the UK feels that such pervasive monitoring is necessary.
I say BS: every agency is wetting themselves hoping to get their hands on this data so that they can pursue their own petty agendas in the same way as RIPA powers have been used for trivial reasons.
Everyone has something to hide. Not necessarily illegal, but enough to coerce behavior.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I have thought over it many times and, regarding myself, I have concluded: I would prefer to live freely and unobserved and someday die in a terrorist attack, than live in a "security" hell for all my life with cameras and RFIDs up my ass.
Put aside the fact that surveillance almost never stops a attack - only it helps find the burned-out guys.
And some semantics: How many of you walk in the street and feels ''terrorized''? On the other hand, how many of you feel terrorized by the fact that your every moment is on tape, and your personal data wanders in places you don't know?
With SSL access to gmail and increasing use of SMTP-TLS providing encrypted MTA-to-MTA communications, email is more often only accessible in clear text on the server. Since Google is a US-based company, does it provide access to people's mailboxes to the UK government. I am assuming that warrants for every gmail user in the UK would not be granted, so we are talking about warrantless access.
Or perhaps the UK government thinks that everyone in the UK uses a UK-based email provider?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
With the speed they loose the data they do have to collect much more just to have some left in their own hands.
I pity the poor saps who have to sit and listen to our phone calls. I come close to running out the room screaming with people I've known for years - whiney, self-indulgent moaning. Bitching about the weather, the government, the television, cars, public transport, the quality of the beer and then of course I've got this terrible pain in the diodes all down my left hand side...
Modern day Britain reminds me of the science fiction dystopia portrayed on the old British TV show The Prisoner.
It's sad and foreboding how social and technological dystopia's emerge from what was once only imaginative musings of science fiction writers.
As this BBC news article illustrates, even direct monitoring of a known suspects phone(s) in the lead up to a terrorist event still does not prevent bad things happening:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7606834.stm
How is the ability to monitor and store information on a whole population going to help? Who is promising that they can improve the situation? Who has their hand in the governments pocket?
We are fast heading towards a total surveillance society, and that will only have negative consequences for *everyone*, including the so called elites.
Peace,
Andy.
And you're ALL Number 6.
Do you have the courage that Number 6 had? Will you fight back against Number 2?
Are you just "A number" or are you Free Men & Women?
The choice is yours.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Now ... not so much. Is it really like this? Cameras and eyes on you at all times?
If you have nothing to hide you can revel in the fact you are safe, or at the very least when you are victimized it will be preserved for posterity!
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
I am sure many reader are probably aware that assets of Iceland's bank were seized using anti-terrorism laws. Out of curiosity for people from the UK, is there even any reaction to this misuse of power ? With the economic going down, and surely crime rate will rise, I wouldn't trust the civil servants with powers like this.
I live in Sweden, and it seems that the law that was supposed to be passed has been changed to be a bit less draconian.
But honestly, I don't think there is almost any point in trying to do anything about the actions, or symptoms, of terrorists and terrorism.
Increased security and surveillance simply doesn't help at all. It is to easy for them to just do something else. The possibilities are virtually endless.
Granted, some of the captured people that they claim was trying to commit these kinds of crimes probably would have carried them through...but if the society they had grown up in had been less insane, they probably would never have considered these actions to begin with.
The ONLY thing that can be done is to do something about the causes of it.
Instead, our governments are busy BEING the causes of it. Utterly cluless.
Now that that particular technological cat has got out of the barn door, how about the Google option - make all those CCTV's into publicly accessible web cams? Just think. With person recognition software tied in I could keep track of my wife and kids, check up on my gf, and in my spare time develop software to keep an eye on the local pedophiles and Muslim terrorists. Nah. I think I would prefer to trust Mr Brown (and whoever else can afford a private CCTV spy network) to do the right thing with all that private information.
A friend living in London received yesterday by mail two parking violations and one moving violation fine, total cost over 200 (pounds, not dollars). But it appears the UK does not yet have enough surveillance... maybe she can look forward to receiving five per day, not a measly three. Jeremy Bentham would have been proud.
I've escaped all this crap by moving to Germany. I never really like the way britain is becoming a surveillance state and moving here was such a breath of fresh air.
It wasn't that hard to find an IT job either, only one month of serious searching.
I'll never need one of these british ID cards, I'm not paying for that bloody database, and the DNA database here has people's names taken out of it if they aren't found guilty.
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
In the last 5 years, there have been roughly 100 deaths related to Terrorism in the UK. The death rate under the IRA was slightly higher at about 50 per year. Let's take that higher figure and assume some 500 deaths over the next 10 years.
So, to fight this, we have a £1 billion database, a £12 billion surveillance program, and an ID cards scheme costing £18 billion. £31 billion for fighting those 500 deaths, or £62 million per death presumably prevented.
Perhaps if this £31 billion was spent on subsidising healthy food or teaching kids to cook properly and healthily, we could see a drop in the several thousand heart disease related deaths each year. If it was spent on road safety perhaps we could see a drop on the 3000 or so people killed on the roads each year.
Why are we worrying about terrorism?
The king decries it!
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Perhaps you meant this word?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Just get a back door, or a government job, and stalk victims with more ease and comfort.
As I'm not from the UK, I have to wonder what sort of stalking laws this would break.
The government of course being exempt from them.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
This demonstrates how the laws can and will be used.
It justifies those who believe that when laws are proposed you should think of how it could be abused, not just how it could be used.
"The Treasury released a document to Parliament yesterday showing it used sections of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 to take control of the bank's assets, saying in the statement the bank's collapse may harm the U.K. economy. "
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aXjIA5NzyM5c
True. And people are missing the fringe benefits. It's also keeping the tigers out of my bedroom, protecting me from cheese falling from the moon and ensuring my molecules don't fall between the gaps in the molecules of the road.
Honestly, come and live in China and you'll be less spied upon than this.
I've never felt as free and anonymous as now, living in a not better identified middle-sized city in an anonymous province of China.
And then they say China is a repressive regime where you have no freedom.
:(){
What I find ever more concerning is not only the amount of spying, but how contrived the use of spying equipment has become.
Thanks to the The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, originally intended to prevent crime and stop terrorism, state bodies and councils are now authorised to use spying equipment almost at their volition.
According to an article on bloomberg, such use includes tracking down dog owners who fail to clean up after their four-legged friends, as well as catching people who are dumping waste etc.
I totally agree with you. I don't want the Government to read the email I sent to my mum, or listen in on my phone call to work. I *sure* as hell don't want them to read the TXT MSGS I send to my mates. The Government is clearly lying about their intentions with this! They don't want to prevent another King's Cross, or 9/11-type attack through this latest move to enhanced ability to conduct surveillance. They just want to listen in on my phone calls!
I mean, there haven't been any big terrorist attacks lately, and it's not like the people who work for the government and make decisions like this have any sort of knowledge that I don't. The news media tells us everything we need to know, so I don't see where these nanny-state bureaucrats get off trying to convince us that there's a problem when the BBC isn't worried about it.
This whole plan is clearly designed to prepare the UK for some kind of neofascist information-based coup from within the government.
</parody>
Public Service Announcement: Although unlikely, your tinfoil hat may have shifted during the course of reading this post. Please ensure you readjust if necessary in order to continue to filter out reality.
In other news:
It is with great sadness that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds report that the wild pigeon population is being totally decimated, yet strangely there is no evidence of the cause of the presumed deaths.
Wikipedia reports that the hit rate on a page about an interesting implementation of IP has increased by several orders of magnitude.
The IETF report that the RFC server for rfc1149 and rfc2549 have been pom-dotted into oblivion by millions of Britons determined to preserve their privacy.
The price of quality eggs of pure racing pigeon breeding stock has suddenly punctured the thousand pound barrier for the first time in history, resulting in the share value of the British Consolidated Pigeon Breeding Co. increasing by 500% per day for the last week.
Market analysts are dumbfounded.
Meanwhile, OUR wonderful governments here can not secure the voting rights against the scammers...
Dead people voting? No computers raising alarms...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Unfortunately most people fail to see the connection between lists and any danger. The lists are being made to influence people who speaking out against the ones in power. But most people fail to see the danger of giving the power seekers ever more data to mine on everyone. Knowledge is power and the ones in power seek the use that knowledge to prevent people standing against their point of view.
With ever more detailed lists on peoples views, soon we end up with people fearful of what they say on the phone and in emails, for fear of their views could even just risk being taken out of context and seen in any way critical of the people in power. At that point, the ones in power are influencing people directly.
At that point, we live in a police state, where freedom is gone and replaced by fear of the ones in power. Problem is, we are getting there now, and from here on out, its simply a matter of consolidation of ever more detailed data mining.
The central reason why centuries ago votes were made in secret, was to prevent the ones in power, from seeking to influence the voters. Yet the power seekers are forever seeking to game the system to gain ever more information on peoples opinions. Now the ones in power are building automated systems to influence people.
Throughout history its been shown time and time again that the ones in power become ever more corrupt over time without any feedback on how they are behaving. Its been show so many times through history.
Most people don't realise the game people in power are playing. People in power are not so interested in individuals. The ones in power are interested in adding everyone to different lists so they can then control and profiling groups of people, so they can then use divide and conquer tactics, to break groups of people up. The goal is that the fragmented groups cannot then stand and oppose the point of view of the ones in power. That is why they data mine.
The lessons of history have not been learned by enough people. Looks like the world is seeking to repeat the mistakes of the past. Freedom and democracy are constantly undermined by a minority of people in power for their own gain. Its just a matter of time and how far we are going to let them all game the system to push the excesses ever more unfairly in their favour. After all, its not as if they are robbing hundreds of billions of tax payers money to keep their rich lifestyles while millions risk loosing everything.
Anyway, if the millions of people can't buy bread, then let them eat cake. ... My point is, the names in history change and the names of their ideologies change. But what remains is basic human psychology and that doesn't change. The lack of empathy of the ones in power over their powerless minions never changes. For all their words, its only their actions which count and millions now face loosing their jobs and millions are treated unfairly by the ones in power.
In such a world, its no surprise that the ones in power would want to watch their minions very closely. After all, people could start to complain its getting all to unfair. But we cannot have that. We need ever more laws to protect the ones in power and ever more laws to keep the minions down and away from power.
The world will never change until everyone worldwide realises that people who constantly seek power over others have a recognisable cluster B personality disorder. All cluster B personality disorders are ultimately driven by fear. And the ones with the disorder constantly seek to control that fear and control everyone around them based on their fear. (There are multiple fears, two examples are lack of attention and the other is fear of lack of power. The attention seekers want more attention (they were deprived of parental attention as children. The ones who want power seek to prevent anyone ever having power over them again, the way they were treated unfairly as children)... The very nature of seeking power over others, means that person seeks to push other
You have to spend tons of money on spying on those who will get pissed off about the tons of money that is being spent on spying, instead of doing far more productive things with the money that those who are being spyed on, would benefit by.
As an example of what people want vs. the amount of money being spend to support pseudo defense against terrorism. Money that clearly should instead be being used to remove the reasons for any terrorist to exist or have the ability to gain support....
It is interesting that the current economic ballout of $700 billion is ...... well see the chart at the above link to the then military budget. And note the cost of eradicating small pox from the world, and recall Bush publicly using small pox as a terrorist possibility....
And the terrorist of 9/11..... a little investigation very strongly points to world stock market manipulation via nickel and dime draining of south east Asia as the main motivating and force behind the terrorism of 9/11. Even Ted Turner publicly said 9/11 was an act of desperation.
Would you pay for a service that was not working for your benefit? I suspect the answer is NO.
But you are paying taxes for a service that is not working for your benefit. Why? Because you are being threatened, terrorized to do so.
Boston Tea Party is history.... we all need an organized "stop paying for a service that are being used against us" effort.
Its very clear that there is an unhealthy power and money addiction being backed by threat from the government controlled military and police.
The amount of money being spent today as "protection money" is most certainly criminal in comparison to what it can be better spent on to make this world a lot safer via. making it a better world to live in for everyone. (except for the power, money and war mongers which are less than 1% of the over 6 billion human residents of this planet...)
A peaceful and effective effort to stop paying for a service that is so clearly and obviously not working. Any suggestions?
However, where I work the new building was designed and OK'd. The contracted parties are EXTREMELY unhappy because no changes were made.
They were expecting a change which they could charge for. The change then shows up other changes "needed" and they can be charged.
As it was, the company didn't do more than break even no the deal.
Contractors LOVE changes. Charging for them is the continuing stream.
The authorities (both government and corporate, if there is really a difference) now has such a technological ability to watch us and to manipulate the opinions of at least the weakest 80=90% of us, there could very well be no more mass uprisings, ever.
Too many people are all about themselves, their idiotic quest for acquisition and a pitiful concept of personal identity sold to them and a million other fools by professional marketers.
If you ever suggested the idea of violent revolution to one of the sheeple, and they agreed to it, they would simply say 'ok, you go first'.
Its a fairly hopeless situation right now.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Yeah, because being armed to the teeth really stopped the US losing its liberty, didn't it?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
"The scandal is, there is no scandal"
Do you really think that the American people would be allowed guns, even by the Republicans, if the government had even the slightest doubt in its ability to keep the population ignorant.
Americans are allowed more weapons by their government simply because they are more gullible.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?