Slashdot Mirror
UK Police To Step Up Hacking of Home PCs
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."
Hack into people's PC? How do they do that, and what do they get out of it?
You just got troll'd!
so it seems that 1984 only got the year wrong after all. unfortunately the fear and paranoia in the public's mind is only going to fuel more of this ridiculous nonsense.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
from their point of view it is, in the US and presumably the UK the constitution would say otherwise but since when do any of them bother following their constitutions? They can get away with this nonsense because not enough people are fighting it and too many people think "well only terrorists and other criminals should be afraid." The thing to keep in mind is that once you can justify unconstitutional acts against criminals there isn't too much standing between that position and "lets violate everyone's civil rights."
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
It is not possible to allow the "good guys" only to have access to secure operating systems and security technologies such as encryption while simultaneously locking the "bad guys" out. The British government will have to decide what is more important, providing secure online banking, shopping, and other electronic services as part of operating in a modern economy OR hobbling the information economy with restrictions to catch a few more low-level or careless "bad guys" at the expense of even more loss of privacy for millions of ordinary British citizens and substantial encumbrance of legitimate economic activity involving computers, the Internet, and other "sensitive" technologies. If it is easy for the police to "hack in" then it is easy for the spammers, terrorists, or anyone else to "hack in" as well. The British reaction always seems to be, "We ought to have a law against that!" instead of simply acceptating that bad things will sometimes happen despite the best laid plans or intentions and moving on with "acceptable risks" in an open society.
Has it occured to anyone else that with all of the surveillance and tracking going on in the UK that they might simply make certain crimes, like say identity theft, more attractive without really reducing the overall amount of crime or catching those who are actually responsible?
Identity theft has risen sharply in the UK in recent years, as it has globally. A specific example include people cloning or stealing car number plates so they can drive in the London congestion charge zone without paying, and somebody else gets the fines.
Government advice? Spend a significant sum replacing our number plates with ones that break if they're removed, or pay credit-insurance in case our financial details are stolen.
I'm sure it's occured to the government that people are starting to use identity theft more to avoid detection. They just use that as an excuse to pass ever-more draconian laws allowing them to dig into your private-life ever deeper without warrants; in case, you know, you're a terrorist.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
it would be quite better if the resisdents of the UK did boot these scumbags out on their arse but I bet like the US at least a third of them are foolish enough to give their government that kind of power... the "only terrorists are against this massive spying" rhetoric is far too prevelant for the average joe to successfully fight this nonsense and the politicians who suggested this nonsense.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
A direct consequence of this is that it only takes one (or more?) people in law enforcement to believe that you try to keep something from them to be sentenced two or five years prison.
No one will ever know it if you just forgot the password.
Have you ever forgotten a password?
We manufacture more landmines than China.
"But again, truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty you need only look into a mirror."
I used to think V for Vendetta was fiction. It's starting to look like a documentary.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Has it occured to anyone else that with all of the surveillance and tracking going on in the UK that they might simply make certain crimes, like say identity theft, more attractive without really reducing the overall amount of crime or catching those who are actually responsible?
Well, my first thought was that it's only a matter of time until they learn that part of the rise in identity theft is because some of the cops are setting up profitable businesses on the side, subletting their access to citizens' computers to the identity thieves.
Have there been any cases like this in the UK yet? I'd expect that they are happening now, but the information may not be public yet.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I think it might be time for people to encrypt their systems. Linux makes that easy. I think Windows does too. I'd rather trust Linux, though.
But if your system gets its hard drives copied, you want to make sure the data can't be recovered easily.
People have a right to privacy.
They have effectively all been removed in practice. To put things in perspective, this country is on the verge of banning kitchen knives to try to reduce violent crime (now that private possession of firearms has been completely outlawed).
15 years ago, after their big round of gun bans, we asked if there were to be a rash of stabbings would they try to ban knives. The response was "Don't be ridiculous.", now that there has been a rash of stabbings they are actually going to try to ban knives. When youthful criminals begin to bash each other on the head with Cricket bats, they will register and ban Cricket bats. Then rocks, then sticks, then anything not made of nerf.
It's not a slippery slope anymore, it's a waterslide.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
So, uh, then I'll just use a screwdriver and have fun stabbing you or I'll just smash your head in with a stone.
Or how about kicking the shit out of you with a pair of Doc Martens?
How about a nice baseball or cricket bat to the head? A shovel will do just fine as well but STOP! Hammertime!
Why don't I just use a scarf to strangle you?
Where do you want to end this crap?
You might enjoy living with mandatory children's cutlery, I don't.
The UK has potentially more surveillance than North Korea, but it's been useless in preventing crime.
And don't give me that shit about saving lives.
The UK doesn't have proper health care and just last week two ambulancemen were arrested for letting a man die because "he was not worth saving" ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article5420921.ece )
There are far more serious issues the UK should deal with than cutlery.
You will never "prevent" crime. You can make it less appealing at best.
"Knife crime" will turn into "screwdriver crime" if you ban pointed knives.
Or they'll sharpen points on their knives themselves. It's not hard.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
It's called free society, people die, deal with it.
Truecrypt will allow full encryption for either a Windows or Linux system. However, even if you have full drive encryption, once your computer is hacked and accessible while running data can extracted from it.
Didn't the UK also have a semi resent law about being forced to hand over passwords as well? If so encryption won't protect you much, as long as whatever you are hiding is worth spending the five year penalty in jail.
Well, let's pretend we're in an imaginary world where:
1. There are no pointy things other than knives.
2. It is impossible to make things pointy.
3. Criminals obey they law.
Congratulations! In your imaginary world you have reduced deaths due to stabbing. Unfortunately deaths due to slicing are at an all time high.
If I break into your machine and am accessing it at your user level or at a higher level I will be looking at the same contents YOU are looking at - which is to say unencrypted unless you have lots of stuff you leave locked up and never use (lol). Encryption is GREAT when someone kicks in the door and runs off with a system that's sitting there turned off. It's less great when they get in while you're using it via network or physical means - you know grabbing your ass and shoving you away from the keyboard.
Crypto isn't the magic wand to fix this....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Maybe you guys might want to figure out why the "young people" are pissed off and do something about it?
Frankly if I'm going to stab someone I think I might choose a good Phillips head screwdriver over a kitchen knife anyway. Knives tend to make good slashing weapons but stabbing might be a little better with something thin and pointed. the screwdriver will certainly raise fewer eyebrows when I am walking away with it and there's no chance of my hand sliding down the hilt to injure myself and leave DNA behind....
BTW, I carry two knives regularly. Handy little things they are and I've yet to feel the urge to plunge one into someone or hijack a plane with them - and yeah I flew with them prior to 9-11. I guess you guys are as much into security theater as our TSA is huh?
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
You do of course have a CREDIBLE source for this right? I notice you didn't cite it - pity that (lol). I call B.S. on this and am happy to have my pointed kitchen implements. Hey, of that percentage what percent were self defense killings? And how exactly was this tally figured out? Who paid for this research? Oh man the questions are endless on this!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
The U.K. government might as well just announce that their subjects no longer have any rights at all. They have effectively all been removed in practice.
This is where a unified, written Constitution comes in handy. Yeah, those can be abused as well... the Right wing points to courts basically ignoring the 10th Amendment for decades, and the Left Wing points to a number of Bush wartime programs. But the fact is, it's still much easier to plead your case in courts when you have your Constitution on paper, in clear written form, instead of a collection of traditions and court cases.
Want to complain that the US government is doing illegal searches and seizures? At least you have a 4th Amendment to point to and say "you're violating this law". In a country with an un-written Constitution, even if there's a court precedent on the issue, without a written Constitution, the government can simply decree a thing, and it's so, until they're booted out of office.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Then those doctors have never prepared a meal more complicated than a microwave dinner. I have several different kinds of knives, and I use them properly. Pointed knives have a useful, necessary function as a proper chef's knife.
What's the criminal punishment in the UK for a teenager who is found carrying a knife, incidentally?
You sir are incorrect. The 18th century citizenry had a few other things that the 21st century citizenry doesn't: Equivalency of arms and armory; support of a major 3rd party nation; distance (and more importantly time) from the British resupply depot and home base; an obviously corrupt and overbearing rulership of foreign British nationals.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Or they'll sharpen points on their knives themselves. It's not hard.
But that's simply not true. There are enough crimes of passion that people would never stop in the middle of to fabricate a weapon. That alone would save lives. I'm not saying it's a worthy justification, but it simply isn't true to say that they'd find another deadly weapon. Yes, they may then just strike with their hands in an attempt to kill, but it is less likely to succeed than a gun or knife.
Learn to love Alaska
Funny how the UK is slowly turning into Nazi Germany, while the US turns into the Soviet Union.
so how is that working out in the USA? you guys sure showed your government how you felt when they tried to open guantanomo bay, introduced the patriot act and started an illegal war in the middle east didn't you?
Yeah, that showed em! And to think, they might have got away with all that crap if you guys didn't have your guns...
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Then those doctors have never prepared a meal more complicated than a microwave dinner.
Actually, I find pointed knives critical for preparing microwave dinners. How else do you puncture the film across the top of tray?
No, it won't. If you're performing a crime of passion, you will likely strike at full force. Human flesh isn't very strong; even a butter knife will do serious damage, simply because it is a thin object.
A sharp knife allows you to cut meat with precision, since you don't need as much force for it. A dull one will still cut meat, but you lose that precision and need to use more force, thus increasing the chances that the knife will slip and the damage it does if it will. Thus this kind of idiocy is likely to cost, not save, lives.
I'm pretty sure you can kill a human with a meat tenderizer. It's a spiked steel mallet, after all, and usually stored near sharp meat-cutting knives.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The way to reduce all crime, including knife crime, is to leave behind barbaric bullshit like Death Penalty. Not even the Roman Empire, which it's habit of crucifying criminals or throwing them to lions if they were feeling nice, managed to stop people from being criminals. "No mercy" simply means that the criminals will respond in kind, and make sure to leave no witnesses; it won't make them stop them being criminals, or others from becoming criminals. It will just turn a life of crime into an outright war, with all the collateral damage that implies.
Besides, all rights are dependant on the right to life. If the state has a right to suppress that just to make you feel safer from knife crime, why wouldn't it have the right to suspend any other right to make anyone else feel safer from the criminals/terrorists too ? And, if Death Penalty is an option, how much effort do you think it would take the government to frame a political dissident and have him executed ?
You can't stop knife crime no matter what you do, and getting "though on crime" will simply make the criminals though on you and cause lots of unnecessary grief for no gain. Just like the War on Drugs, or any other similar campaign. It makes for a nice election speech, but is quite a brain-dead policy to actually implement.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
...young people are killing each other more and more.
Why do you think that is? All this discussion of ways and means of killing one another is very much secondary. The key question is, why do people want to kill one another at all? Human beings are ingenious, and will always find a way to do what they want.
Universal education was supposed to make us all more enlightened, tolerant, and humane. How come the opposite seems to be happening?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
In the UK the perceived problem is "youths" going out armed with knives. There have been a lot of headlines recently wrt youths being stabbed to death. It's not obvious how much this is the papers blowing up a topical issue and how much is an actual increase in fatal youth on youth violence.
It may be that the decision to use the knife is a spur of the moment "crime of passion" thing, but the decision to carry said knife is certainly premeditated and there's no reason to suppose that adding a point to an otherwise round ended knife wouldn't also be done.
It is an offence in the UK to carry almost all knifes[1] in almost all circumstances in public. There are exceptions, folding pocket knifes (knives that do not lock open) with a blade of less than 3 inches and when you have a legitimate reason (e.g. a chef returning home from work or someone who has just bought a knife and is going home with it) but the law is an absolute offence with statutory defences (i.e. it's presumed you are guilty unless you can assert one of the defenses) so woe betide that chef who forgets and leaves his knives in the boot of the car when he goes into town to do his shopping.
[1] Actually it's any bladed or pointed article or offensive weapon. A child's plastic sword is illegal to carry in public, as is a spare safety pin that, AIUI, the mother of the bride always carries "just in case" (although that might come under traditional or religious dress defence, I'm not sure)
http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&title=Criminal+Justice+Act&Year=1988&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&TYPE=QS&PageNumber=1&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=2116646&ActiveTextDocId=2116820&filesize=4468
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
Just to follow up - the "plastic sword" thing isn't completely a joke:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1084886/Rambo-student-charged-possessing-inch-plastic-knife-case-dropped.html
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
It's strange how I can apply every point to my mediterranean country just by replacing "mediterranean" for any other vague reference to some zone with family connotations.
For example, change the sea reference to "italian" and you can apply the entire post to Spain.
What you describe is not a british culture illness.
Is it? Or are the newspapers just writing more about it?
Remember a few years ago when gun crime was the "big thing"? Despite the stats showing that only a vanishingly small fraction of violent crimes in the UK involved a gun at the time... It was an impression created almost exclusively by the media with the help of family and friends of victims that were trotted out as "evidence" of how Britain was facing a plague of gun crime.
I am not saying knife crime isn't a problem - it is certainly a bigger problem than gun crime has been in this country since before the hand gun ban -, but I haven't seen any stats, just reports from the same media that never retracted or apologized for their unsupported "We are all going to be shot to death, OMG!!!!" scare stories.