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UK Police To Step Up Hacking of Home PCs

Posted by kdawson on from the must-be-ok-if-the-good-guys-do-it dept.

toomanyairmiles writes "The Times of London reports that the United Kingdom's Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain to routinely hack into people's personal computers without a warrant. The move, which follows a decision by the European Union's council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state that drives 'a coach and horses' through privacy laws."

6 of 595 comments (clear)

  1. Is this....legal? by Smidge207 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Meh. Just another excuse to snoop on people without justification. If a warrant is issued then at least there is a paper trail leading back to who applied for the warrant any why. If this law goes through then it will be a free-for-all and history has demonstrated very well what happens then.

    Also, as far as I'm aware, UK security services have been doing this for some time, this simply makes it legal. Given the majority of the population are not very tech savvy their solution wouldn't need to be that complex, although I imagine its more complex than just a key logger. The only evidence I have for this is talking to people who work in these organizations. The advice to me was get using TOR (although I can never configure it right) so maybe its not too complex, or maybe they were double bluffing me. Who knows? I'm guessing the arrest levels aren't so high because they would have to arrest almost everyone under 30 who's been on a computer. Once they've got the logistics sorted I'm sure they'll happily cart us to the gulag though.

    =Smidge=

    --
    Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
    1. Re:Is this....legal? by MrPloppy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually the UK is NOT at the verge of banning kitchen knives. A group of Doctors suggested the ban of POINTED kitchen knives. By the way very few people in the UK actually wants fire arms to become legal. http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/46266/Ban-kitchen-knives-to-save-lives-says-doctor

    2. Re:Is this....legal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Firstly, you sound like one of those fucking gun-fetishist yanks. "Poor people without guns, that must be why they've no rights". No. The rights come through political machinations and the broad agreement of large groups of people. Change doesn't come because some isolationist nutjobs do or don't have guns.

      As an example, the UK government has to respect the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. Both these documents have regularly trumped the government in court, and didn't need a single gun pointed at the government's head to get them to comply.

      Secondly, private possession of firearms has not been "completely outlawed". There are plenty of people with rifles and shotguns next to their beds; Tony Martin comes to mind. You can even have your precious handgun if you can convince the police you have a "good reason" and they sign off on your license. Good luck.

    3. Re:Is this....legal? by Aceticon · · Score: 5, Informative

      Maybe you guys might want to figure out why the "young people" are pissed off and do something about it?

      Food for thought:
      - There is no family culture in England like there is in Mediterranean countries (think the whole "mama" thing in Italy)
      - There is no overall, unified set of traditions in England other than "go out and get pissed on Fridays"
      - Media continuously pushes the image that happiness comes from buying stuff.
      - There is no feeling of social responsibility like there is in Nordic and Germanic countries (for example, in Holland being called anti-social - asociaal - is actually an insult). Around here people are taught it's everybody for themselves and don't mind the others.
      - The local heroes that youths aim to emulate are not those of science, culture or law - they're mostly "celebs" whose business is show-business and whose product is being scandalous.
      - Parents are not made to take responsibility for the actions of their kids.
      - A culture of political correctness, small-powers, centralized command-and-control and common law has taken away or distorted the powers of punishment/reward from socially-important actors such as teachers and social workers.

  2. Re:How?? by arkhan_jg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Methods mentioned in the article include:
    quietly breaking in physically and installing a keylogger, parking up nearby and breaking in via the wireless, or sending a trojan via email.
    This gives them email, browsing history, local documents, and presumably other information going forward.
    They also have the capability under the RIP act to intercept emails, web-traffic and other 'net use via a tap at the ISP itself.

    All of this without any court oversight or warrants. But they'll only do it if a senior police officer believes it's necessary to gather evidence of a crime carrying a sentence greater than 3 years.

    Well, that's alright then! as long as a policeman is suspicious of me, that's a perfectly good enough reason to remove all court oversight of police intrusion into my private life!

    Jesus.

    --
    Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
  3. Re:Good reason to use Linux by teabag_46 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The RIPA act http://security.homeoffice.gov.uk/ripa/ makes it an offence to NOT disclose passwords when required, by the law enforcement agencies of this country. Non disclosure is punishable by up two years imprisonment!