UK Gov't May Track All Facebook Traffic

Jack Spine writes "The UK government, which is becoming increasingly Orwellian, has said that it is considering snooping on all social networking traffic including Facebook, MySpace, and bebo. This supposedly anti-terrorist measure may be proposed as part of the Intercept Modernisation Programme according to minister Vernon Coaker, and is exactly the sort of deep packet inspection web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee warned about last week. The measure would get around the inconvenience for the government of not being able to snoop on all UK web traffic."

Comments

What if Facebook forced encryption?

[davidwr]

What if Facebook and other sites enforced encryption? Sure, it would slow things down and increase their cost, but if they did, it would be "chic" to encrypt, and a generation of users would start demanding end-to-end encryption everywhere.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[drinkypoo]

Hell, what if they just offered encryption? To be fair, it would cost facebook a not-inconsequential amount of CPU time (with repercussions for power consumption and heat production) to implement, even if they needed no additional hardware (heh heh)

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[rillopy]

The U.K. snooping is probably going to be done with Facebook's support, knowledge, and help...

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Shakrai]

Hell, what if they just offered encryption?

What's the point of encrypting data that you are uploading to a social networking site for public consumption? And how effective would it really be at keeping the Government out anyway? What's to stop them getting a subpoena to pull the data directly off Facebook's servers?

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Firehed]

Content on Facebook (and any other social networking site with privacy controls) isn't for public consumption - it's for consumption by those whom you've marked as friends.

Encryption would prevent packet sniffing, and as Facebook is owned and operated in the US, I don't see how the UK government could subpoena the data successfully*. That whole jurisdiction thing - ya know.

*Unless they have servers located in the UK. With 200m or so users, they probably do Of course, Facebook could just threaten to block UK users, posting the contact info of various government officials so you can complain to them for forcing FB into such a situation. Facebook is easily large enough for that kind of stunt to actually work.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[causality]

The U.K. snooping is probably going to be done with Facebook's support, knowledge, and help...

Possibly. If not, it probably won't take much pressure to make them cave in. They'll be shamed into doing it by a claim that doing otherwise would be unpatriotic or would support the evil terrorists. Or they'll be threatened into doing it by a law that requires it, and won't have the courage to respond to that by refusing to service users in the UK. Some form of manipulative pressure will be used. Most people respond to pressure this way because it appears to relieve the pressure. What they don't know is that anytime you cave in to pressure, the relief is quite temporary -- by doing so, you teach others that this is the way to "reach" you and you invite more of the same. Bullies are cowards but they won't appear that way if you are even more cowardly than they are and are unwilling to take a risk to stand up to them.

Incidentally, I salute the accuracy of the summary:

The measure would get around the inconvenience for the government of not being able to snoop on all UK web traffic.

If that doesn't describe the freedom-destroying mentality, few things can. It never seems to occur to that mentality that the loss of freedom and privacy might be just the sort of destruction that our enemies wish to visit upon us. It makes sense, since they know they stand no real chance of winning a conventional military battle against the very-well-armed Western nations. If they're "street-wise" at all, and to avoid hubris you should always assume that your enemy is, then they have probably realized that they only need to attack us a few times and we will do all of the rest of the work of destroying what is good about our civilization on our own. It will, of course, be in the name of safety and security. When all of this started, I bet the terrorists never imagined it would be so easy -- just scare us a bit and we'll give up all of the things that we used to fight for. This, by the way, is why physical armaments cannot be your only source of strength. If they are, your enemy will merely attack you on a different front. All of this is quite predictable and easy to understand.

Perhaps the USA and the UK aren't so different after all.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[rm999]

"Sure, it would slow things down and increase their cost, but if they did, it would be "chic" to encrypt"

From what I can tell, kids hate pretty much every change facebook ever makes. Sure, it's uncool to not use facebook nowadays, but loving everything about facebook is probably even less cool. Everyone knows it's a site run by suits.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

Content on Facebook (and any other social networking site with privacy controls) isn't for public consumption

At a job interview (relatively high clearance required) my potential employer presented me with, among other things, questions about blog posts I had written. The odd thing? I never mentioned the account and I had never published any articles from it. They were just sitting on a well-known company's server in draft mode.

People have no idea how much is being collected and how many companies have been compromised, knowingly or not.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[interval1066]

@causality: "Perhaps the USA and the UK aren't so different after all."

Nope. We get our common law system from them, and since WWII (really, since the Cold War, but who's counting?) GB has been "Airstrip 1" to the US in all but name. The only real cultural difference between GB and the US is GB doesn't have as strong a sense of privacy and individualism as we do, so they seem to think nothing of handing over their freedom so that Big Brother can "...save us from the wrath of the Viking Hordes!" (Read your medieval history.)

As all naysayers regarding civil liberty chant; "What good is your freedom if you're dead?" seems to be the prevailing wisdom in Europe. Can't fault them too much, poor bastards, they have a legacy of subservience, caving, and generally attempting to wheel and deal their way out of disaster.

I'm frequently amazed, however, at how little regard the average EU citizen has for recent history. Every time something like Al Quaeda comes along they try to send a diplomat to "work it out" and they come home like Chamberlain waving a piece paper and yell "Peace in our time!"

Then Al Qaueda bombs one of their train stations.

What's that about???

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Cro Magnon]

Content on Facebook (and any other social networking site with privacy controls) isn't for public consumption - it's for consumption by those whom you've marked as friends

If it's shared among your 5,000 closest friends, I'd call that pretty public. :p

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Shakrai]

Perhaps the USA and the UK aren't so different after all.

Well, it seems that our system has more checks and balances than the UK does. We have 50 individual sovereign states that are still willing to flip Washington off every now and then. We have the Supreme Court which has shot down or at least severely constrained many attempts by the Executive and Legislature to violate our founding documents. The Upper House of our Legislature isn't toothless and actually has the power to stop legislation. We also (yeah I couldn't resist) have guns ;)

I'm hard pressed to think of what checks and balances remain under the British system. The House of Lords was defanged a long time ago and if the Monarchy ever refused Royal Assent I'm sure that would be end of it as an institution. Hopefully our friends across the pond will wake up before it's too late.....

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume Facebook cares about your privacy. If they aren't being singled out they won't care.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[cdhgee]

Facebook already does offer encryption - https://www.facebook.com/. Sure, not everything works 100% perfectly, and it sometimes reverts to plain http, but with the use of enforced https through NoScript in Firefox, 98% of the stuff on Facebook can be made to work reliably over HTTPS.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[causality]

Perhaps the USA and the UK aren't so different after all.

Well, it seems that our system has more checks and balances than the UK does. We have 50 individual sovereign states that are still willing to flip Washington off every now and then. We have the Supreme Court which has shot down or at least severely constrained many attempts by the Executive and Legislature to violate our founding documents. The Upper House of our Legislature isn't toothless and actually has the power to stop legislation. We also (yeah I couldn't resist) have guns ;)

I'm hard pressed to think of what checks and balances remain under the British system. The House of Lords was defanged a long time ago and if the Monarchy ever refused Royal Assent I'm sure that would be end of it as an institution. Hopefully our friends across the pond will wake up before it's too late.....

Those checks and balances are largely useless if most of the population honestly believes in the "safety is more important than freedom" type of fear-mongering. Pragmatically, this means only that those who would like to transform the USA into a totalitarian state just need to be more patient. Or they just need to remain underground.

What do I mean by underground? Look at how long the warrantless-wiretapping was going on, illegally, before it was exposed. Then look at how the Bush administration retroactively granted the telcos immunity from prosecution for assisting this illegal program (if that isn't a violation of "no ex post facto" then it should be). So, how many such illegal activities are happening right now that we don't know about?

It might be tempting to look at the UK and think we're so much better off. That's your ego talking because it wants to feel like a part of something greater than itself, namely, the national ego. But let's say that you are correct, that the USA really is better off than the UK. We're certainly walking down the same path. So, perhaps the UK is a little ahead of us and has already travelled farther down that path. That means that If we don't change soon, the UK is merely providing a vision of our immediate future. How about if we travel a completely different path that doesn't lead to the same destination before we make comparisons? I prefer not to be on a sinking ship at all. I like that much better than wondering whether the ship I'm on is sinking more slowly than the adjacent ships.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[AliasMarlowe]

If it's shared among your 5,000 closest friends, I'd call that pretty public.

5,000 closest friends? Even if I included all of my friends and acquaintences, and maybe also all of my enemies, I still might not reach 5,000. And I've lived in numerous locations on both sides of the Atlantic in the last 5 decades.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[antispam_ben]

I swear I thought the idea of these sites was to have your info publicly available so you could amass more and more online "friends." After all, isn't that the most important thing for teens, to be "popular?"

I really don't see how encryption could do anything but hurt a social networking site.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[mrphoton]

google mail offers this already, it is just a tick box in the options page.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[jmcvetta]

Pragmatically, this means only that those who would like to transform the USA into a totalitarian state just need to be more patient.

Hasn't this already been, for the most part, accomplished?

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[andy.ruddock]

You'll have to force https, almost every link I looked at reverted back to http.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, "no ex post facto" only prevents the prosecuting of laws that get passed after an infringement, not the converse.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Nick Ives]

We have the Human Rights Act which is enshrined a the highest law in the land. It grants things like a positive right to free speech as opposed to your first amendment which simply prohibits congress from abridging the right to free speech. This means you can't get sacked for your political beliefs like you potentially can in the USA.

The HRA is ironic considering it was this Labour government that passed it during its first couple of years. I reckon we can thank Cherie Blair for that as she's a barrister for Matrix Chambers (formed in 2000, after the HRA gained assent) who specialise in Human Rights law.

Of course both Tory and Labour hate the HRA and both sides like to take aggressive postures on "reforming" it, which would be ridiculous because all the HRA really does is give UK courts the power to incorporate into UK law the European Convention on Human Rights and the decisions taken by the European Court of Human Rights. The previous situation was that appellants had to take their case to the ECHR themselves and the government had to abide by that court's decisions. It was all very expensive and a lot of people simply didn't bother for that very reason.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same checks & balances that have existed since the time of the English civil war: independent judges and lawyers, the lay magistracy, and juries of commoners.

Add to that a vigorous and inhomogeneous press, direct mass communication ("the blogosphere" and trees of mobile phone texting), the regular sitting of Parliament (both houses) including televised question times, and the requirement of a general election at least every five years, and there are democratic checks and balances too.

The de-fanging of the House of Lords was the de-fanging of a non-democratic check and balance; until the 20th century, the vast majority of members in the House of Lords were there because they were the first born sons of members of the House of Lords. Yes, there were new peerages created pretty regularly (semi-annually, even), and non-hereditary (life) peerages came about, but it was not until the end of the 20th century that the average membership became overwhelmingly "earned" (for some value of earning) rather than "inherited".

Amusingly, the only members of the House of Lords with democratic mandates are the rump of hereditary members who were elected by the hereditary peers who no longer have membership in the House of Lords. It's not much of a mandate, admittedly.

The Monarchy was de-fanged during the English civil war, and the Restoration did not re-empower it. Since the start of the 19th century, no monarch has exercised *any* of his or her remaining prerogatives without the direct advice (sometimes prompted subtly by an equerry) of a privy council meeting including First Lord of the Treasury (now the Prime MInister) and a subordinate government minister. That includes even such matters as the disposition of monies granted by Parliament for the maintenance of the royal households, etc. It's not even really just rubber-stamped any more since the most recent rearrangements of the Department of Constiutional Affairs in the Ministry of Justice.

The monarch is -- and should be -- just a robot doing the bidding of the Prime Minister of the day, acting only when the PM, his or her deputy, or codified successors simply cannot, for unexpected reasons. The only foreseeable (yet still unexpected) reason that comes to mind is the second election in a row producing completely deadlocked House of Commons where no faction is likely to be able to operate effectively. (First time that happens, the PM is still the PM and gets to face the House of Commons; second time that happens, the PM advises the Monarch on who the replacement should be; if that replacement is unable to operate in the House of Commons, and the House of Commons does not suggest a way of determining who *could*, then it's anyone's guess what should happen, however I imagine that if this actually happened, the House of Commons would probably advance a bill seeking to codify the practice, as it has in many other areas in which the monarch used to have personal corner-case reserve powers).

The United Kingdom is now effectively a federal state, with powers devolved to e.g. the National Assemblies for Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland; it is removing the oddity of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom "living inside" Parliament; that court has already been asked to resolve differences of opinion in matters of the division of powers between the national assemblies and the UK Parliament; that court has a long history of invalidating a number of government actions as being ultra vires with respect to power delegated by the UK Parliament; it has a long history of invalidating Acts of Parliament as being in conflict with more-established items (including Acts of Parliament) of Constitutional Weight;
it has a less-long history of effectively invalidating a number of Acts of Parliment as being effectively ultra vires because they are incompatible with the UK Human Rights Act, which is de facto an item of Constitutional Weight; it is pretty hard not to see it as a Supreme Court comparable to that

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Nick Ives]

Possibly.

Definitely. They have to under the terms of the Regulatory of Investigatory Powers act. That act allows local councils to spy on you for almost any reason, of course it allows central government to spy on you on Facebook. Under the terms of that act if you fail to provide your private encryption keys then they can put you in prison: you have to show that you've deleted them.

If you work for an ISP, communications provider or some other organisation providing a service to a target you have to assist them in spying. You can't tell anybody, not even a solicitor. Note that this act was passed in 2000 before the "War on Terror" started. The most controversial parts of the act required ministerial activation but almost the whole thing is live now.

The excuse given at the time was that it was a tidying up exercise to regulate activities that the secret intelligence services were undertaking anyway; the point of the act was to move it all onto a regulatory footing. My cynical view is that the SIS wanted legal cover for their massive technical interception plans and so ended up with the RIP act safe in the knowledge that some future crisis would unfold that would give them the full act they wanted.

I wrote to my MP about that act when it was being debated about ten years ago; the most serious powers contained have only come into force recently and it's everything all the detractors said it would be. My MP didn't even bother to reply with a form letter even though I pointed out I was sixteen, knew more about the technology than they did and was willing to talk to them about it. The constituency I lived in wasn't even that large so it's not like my MP had massive time pressures.

They say they want young people involved in politics, that's just another lie.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[jonfr]

People have no idea, because the government wants to keep them in the dark. If the public found out, we would have riot on a new scale.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[digitig]

I'm frequently amazed, however, at how little regard the average EU citizen has for recent history. Every time something like Al Quaeda comes along they try to send a diplomat to "work it out" and they come home like Chamberlain waving a piece paper and yell "Peace in our time!"

Then Al Qaueda bombs one of their train stations.

What's that about???

Maybe we have more knowledge of recent history than you give us credit for. Chamberlain came back waving his "piece of paper" -- and promptly put the UK onto a war footing. He introduced conscription (first time we'd ever had that in peacetime) and massively ramped up military production. He sacrificed his career and reputation to buy the UK the time that it desperately needed, so we didn't enter the war until we were in a position to hold off the nazis. I reckon Chamberlain should be considered one of the great heroes of WWII. Were it not for his shrewdness and self-sacrifice we would have been under Nazi occupation before Churchill got a sniff at Number 10.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Rue C Koegel]

if you don't want to allow your government to drag you on one path or another subvert it... how? well not by blowing up the capital. subvert it by replacing it's many functions with citizen--not corporate--controllable organizations. and by replacing corporations with controlling interests with localized non-profit cooperative orgs.

you name the corporation and i'll list off how to replace it with an non-profit org, and how the non-profit will undoubtedly be able to provide better services and products.

i'm talking about things like: state independent non-governmental non-profit member controlled insurance agencies that can provide all manner of insurance... and can pay out all funds paid to them, except a minimal amount for handling costs. heres 'at cost' insurance, and it can pay out for medical emergencies, vehicle collision repair, and elderly care, et cetera. who needs social security when there are non-profit insurance organizations that can pay you your unused money back later (tax free), and IRAs (also tax free)?

oh wait, this topic is about security and the internet.

so, who's really interested in spying on and limiting internet activities? it's not the government for the most part.

why not replace the music industry corporations, and movie industry corporations, and current organizations (riaa, mpaa), with truly non-profit, civilian interested organizations. there are several that are already in place and make the majority of truly quality films today anyway. most people don't know it, but many quality films are financially backed by either one use, or small non-profit organizations. they just need to focus on pushing the for-profits out of the picture by creating more diverse films, and advertising their services, as well as encouraging donations from the masses, and requiring that the tickets and DVDs for their movies be sold at cost, or so close to it that the difference is unnoticeable to the buyer. that difference can then be used to further their reach into the big for-profit's pockets.

the same goes for the music industry, imagine a world filled with quality music distributed by organizations that are interested in strengthening our societies culture rather than producing cheap cookie cutter goods to our youth that turn a quick buck--or a few million.

why would a non-profit be interested in limiting peoples ability to enjoy their wares, and why would somebody bother downloading something for free when the can get it at cost, and guarantee their continued access to low cost but high quality goods by paying that low cost, or even donating more to cover the difference for those who may not be able to afford that cost or may not be willing to pay it.

i don't see why there needs to be so much focus on keeping our data from the eyes of our government anyway. really there should be more interest in removing their reason for prying in the first place.

and yes, i realize this is all about the UK gov looking through facebook for terrorists. and no, i don't think our national security agencies should be privatized, not even as non-profit organizations. but honestly who cares if they're sitting in our bedrooms looking through our paper journals while we're at work, as long as they're not misusing any of the personal information they might find. if you're not a terrorist you shouldn't be worried. true privacy is after all wholly unachievable.

however there should be strict requirements just to justify the costs of exercising the ability to sniff packets and file legal claim to access data. there should be a required percentage of payoff to prove to the taxpayers that their work is proving fruitful.

if they set up a system to just watch everything, and play big brother, and it costs millions, but only manages to stop or identifies terrorists one out of every ten terrorist attack, or proves incapable of tracking a certain group. then those funds should surely be cut back and that agency should be put on probation for misappropriation of finances. and

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[interval1066]

Fair 'nuff. But if I recall correctly he was quickly replaced by Churchill for his effort.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[interval1066]

Ok, bad reply. Should have read "Well good for Britain, but Britain isn't the entire EU."
That's only one example I can think of when it comes to the EU and caving-type activity.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[interval1066]

Also, my words were "regard for" not "knowlege of".

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[7-Vodka]

How was your name linked to these?

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[digitig]

That's part of what I meant about him sacrificing his career and reputation. Those were the days when a politician might put the country before his career. Seems like another world, doesn't it?

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's when I get up and walk out of an interview, unless I'm fucking starving.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Brickwall]

Kudos on the subtle working in of Orwellian references. I'm just waiting for the mandatory telescreens. Let's see - complete FTTH installs, and one more 9/11 act - I'd say the over/under is five years.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[lawaetf1]

It's bad enough that facebook results in more lost productivity than hangovers and the flu combined.. and the hundreds of megawatt hours of juice they burn. Lets not ADD to their leaching of vitality from the human race and the planet by burning more power to AES:

"Snooky Socks wrote on your wall: "lolz, last night was sooo fun! Check out this pic of Jeremy dancing with Jenn!!!11 :)"

Really.. encryption tools are plentiful and free for anyone that is planning an insurrection.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

There would have been no ww2 in the first place, if it wasn't for certain interest groups from financial circles interested in it.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[bitrex]

http://downwithjugears.blogspot.com/2008/10/heretical-two-denied-bail.html The "Heretical Two" were convicted of eleven and five counts respectively of "hate speech" in the United Kingdom under acts passed in 1986 and 2000,for material they posted on the Internet which wasn't even hosted in the UK. They are currently awaiting a hearing on asylum in the United States. Apparently this UK "Human Rights Act" gives a positive right to "free speech" so long as the speech doesn't infringe on any number of other speech prohibitions - such as being against immigration or denying the Holocaust.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

*Unless they have servers located in the UK. With 200m or so users, they probably do

An increasing number of companies in Europe are explicitly requiring all the personal information they hold also to be hosted within Europe, to be sure they comply with data protection legislation. They're screwed if the hosting government decide to be abusive, but at least this way they're covered against claims they allowed other governments (such as the US, where privacy and data protection laws seem to be even looser than they are here) to be abusive.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Brickwall]

Much the same exists in Canada. We have a national and ten provincial "Human Rights Commissions" (HRC's), which are ostensibly there to protect human rights (e.g. discrimination in housing, employment, etc.), but which have recently had a number of high profile cases where people posting Internet comments have been accused of racism, etc. In one noted case, a member of the HRC anonymously trolled on a site, and then charged some of the responders with human rights violations.

In another, noted author Mark Steyn was charged when a Canadian news magazine printed an excerpt from his "America Alone", whose thesis was that demographics in Europe are overwhelmingly showing that "native" French, Dutch, German, etc. women are having children at a below replacement rate, while immigrant Muslim women were having four, five, or six children each. By simply projecting those trends, Steyn noted that in a few decades, many so-called European countries would have large Muslim populations of voting age, and that that may result in the imposition of sharia law, etc. after Muslims take control of the legislature.

These HRC's seem to used increasingly to stifle free speech, not support it. MiniTruth, anyone?

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Nick Ives]

This is, of course, true. Incitement to racial and religious hatred is also banned, for better or in the latter case due to how the law was framed, worse.

I wasn't saying our system is perfect, just there are checks and balances! Very few countries have absolute free speech - our libel laws have the most chilling effect on free speech - but what speech isn't regulated should in theory be free and is protected by law. Getting those in power to abide by the law (that they made!) isn't always easy though!

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA mentions that they are probably looking at webmail as well. I have gmail set up to use ssl all the time, so what are they going to do about that? Not much point storing the encrpyted traffic given that ssl keys are one-off and effectively disappear after use.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[digitig]

There would be no wars, period, if "interest groups" didn't fund them. The interesting questions are which interest groups and why they fund a particular war.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[AGMW]

Incitement to racial and religious hatred ...

What I find puzzling and V. annoying is the UK Gov's apparent need to make so many new laws focusing on the minutae - Why not just "Incitement to hatred"? Why specifically racial and/or religious? Is it OK, then, to incite hated against women or even (think of the) children? Short or overly tall people, don'tcha just hate them eh? Ginger people, though god knows they've got it coming! Regional differences, 'cos those easy to get on with and otherwise outwardly pleasent West Country folk get my goat with there 'oh do stay for a cup of tea and some scones with cream and jam' - DON'T THEY KNOW I'VE GOT HIGH COLESTEROL! Sheeeez!

Same with our driving laws where we have a specific law against driving whilst using a mobile 'phone - Why not just "Driving without due care and attention" - hey! That's already a law, so why the fuck not just enforce it!

The current UK Gov are such a bunch of muppets, and I'm not sure the next bunch will be much better either! The problem is that the current breed of politicians don't seem to understand that their careers should mean nothing against the backdrop of doing the right thing, but it's all about sound bites and how to fool the population into voting for them again next time!

Saddest of all, it would appear that mostly their muppetry seems to fool the population. I seriously worry about us here in the UK sometimes!

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[daveewart]

Content on Facebook (and any other social networking site with privacy controls) isn't for public consumption - it's for consumption by those whom you've marked as friends.

I can't work out whether you're being serious, being naive or being a troll.

The act of posting anything to sites such as Facebook should be made on the assumption that it *might* become public. Assuming otherwise is just naive. If I post stuff, I only *expect* my friends to see it, but I tailor what I write on the assumption that it is completely public.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[joss]

> Content on Facebook (and any other social networking site with privacy controls) isn't for public consumption - it's for consumption by those whom you've marked as friends.

You mean, those you've marked as friends and those that facebook decides to sell the information to.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

Using HTTPS to transmit posts and such to any site would mean that the government cannot tie those posts to you unless you are stupid enough to use your real name. Sure, they know that you made a post, but they cannot be certain of the contents.

Just because it's for public consumption doesn't mean that the public, government or anyone else needs to know where it's coming from.

I like to take it one step further though, and use SSH tunnels to a proxy outside my own country for everything. The government cannot even tell whether I made a post to /. or checked my emails.
All they know is that I have a constant connection to one server elsewhere.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Shakrai]

Using HTTPS to transmit posts and such to any site would mean that the government cannot tie those posts to you unless you are stupid enough to use your real name

Yeah, unless that site keeps logs and/or timestamps your posts and the Government is smart enough to figure out what an IP address is......

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've just created a greasemonkey script to force facebook to stay on https while leaving other external http links alone.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/44558

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Simon Brooke]

As all naysayers regarding civil liberty chant; "What good is your freedom if you're dead?" seems to be the prevailing wisdom in Europe. Can't fault them too much, poor bastards, they have a legacy of subservience, caving, and generally attempting to wheel and deal their way out of disaster.

I'm frequently amazed, however, at how little regard the average EU citizen has for recent history. Every time something like Al Quaeda comes along they try to send a diplomat to "work it out" and they come home like Chamberlain waving a piece paper and yell "Peace in our time!"

Then Al Qaueda bombs one of their train stations.

What's that about???

Motorists in Britain alone kill, every single year, more people than Al Quaeda have ever killed, world wide, in any single year. On the general scale of things, Al Quaeda are an incredibly minor threat. You are less likely to be killed by Al Quaeda than you are to be killed by falling down and bumping your head.

Yes, we are destroying all the things which made our civilisation worth living in, but we're not doing it because Al Quaeda are a serious threat. We're doing it because our politicians think they can get away with it. In the meantime, we only make Al Quaeda stronger by pandering to this ridiculous and disproportionate fear of them.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[mdwh2]

I can't work out whether you're being serious, being naive or being a troll. ...

The act of posting anything to sites such as Facebook should be made on the assumption that it *might* become public. Assuming otherwise is just naive. If I post stuff, I only *expect* my friends to see it, but I tailor what I write on the assumption that it is completely public.

This is completely irrelevant - the issue was about using encryption to prevent the Government snooping on it, in which case, the fact that the information isn't published to all is certainly relevant. Yes, if Facebook one day suddenly decided to publish it all, it wouldn't work, but that's no different to them one day deciding to stop using encryption.

Do you not say anything in email that you wouldn't want the entire world to know, btw, in case your ISP publishes your email? Or not say anything to anyone at all, in case they might tell the newspapers?

If you are so scared of trusting anyone such that you treat telling one person equivalent to telling everyone, you must either be a very secretive person, or you don't mind the whole world knowing about anything you do.

Why don't you post your credit card numbers on Slashdot? After all, your credit company *might* do that, so it's naive to think there's any difference, right?

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[Nick Ives]

Why not just "Incitement to hatred"?

Because there are certain things we should hate. Do you think it's a coincidence that James Blunt rhymes with cun...

Why not just "Driving without due care and attention"

Because it's virtually impossible to enforce that one unless you cause an accident: it's just a matter of opinion between you and the police officer.

And yes, senior politicians are hypocritical pricks. Almost all of the current labour government were student Marxists, even people like Mandelson. I suppose if you keep on turning to the left you'll eventually end up facing right though...

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[daveewart]

Do you not say anything in email that you wouldn't want the entire world to know, btw, in case your ISP publishes your email? Or not say anything to anyone at all, in case they might tell the newspapers?

Absolutely, you should certainly be aware of the fact that your ISP might 'publish' your email, perhaps by providing it to Certain Authorities. If this bothers you, use encryption, use it properly and be sure you trust your correspondents to do the same.

If you are so scared of trusting anyone such that you treat telling one person equivalent to telling everyone, you must either be a very secretive person, or you don't mind the whole world knowing about anything you do.

That's not what I said. I didn't say I was scared of trusting anyone. I implied that I don't trust Facebook not to either (a) make the information 'public' or (b) be forced to provide the information to Certain Authorities. Their recent fuss with their terms of service doesn't help install confidence in them.

I believe that treating "uploading content to Facebook" as "publishing to all" is a perfectly reasonable (and not necessarily paranoid) approach to take, in these circumstances.

Why don't you post your credit card numbers on Slashdot? After all, your credit company *might* do that, so it's naive to think there's any difference, right?

That's a ludicrous stretching of the argument. I trust my credit card company not to do that. Credit card companies are, generally speaking, good at keeping information secure. And it would not be in their interest to do as you suggest.

Facebook, on the other hand, have no such incentive to keep information on the site private.

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[mdwh2]

The downside is that it has a get out clause (something like "for the protection of morals").

The other problem is that whilst the Supreme Court can overturn laws, I'm not quite sure how that works here - for example, there was the recent case where a European court found that keeping fingerprints of people who were arrested but not convicted of a crime unlawful. Has the practice stopped? No. Has the law changed? No. All that's happened is that the Government have muttered something like "We'll take a look at it sometime, honest".

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[mdwh2]

I don't think anyone disagrees with you - of course there are different levels of trust that you might give for different companies. No one's suggesting otherwise, so that's a straw man.

The point is though that something on a public website could be easily trawled by the Government, whilst getting non-public information is far more invasive, both on an ethical level (because it was not intend to be public) and in the sense that it would require them to force ISPs to track or hand over the information.

The fact that Facebook could theoretically make it public if they wanted is neither here nor there, nor does it matter how likely they are to do so (and to be honest, I'd say it's unlikely - why the hell would they suddenly annoy all their users by making all private information public all of a sudden? Indeed, Facebook have been one of the better sites at having controls on the visibility of information).

Re:What if Facebook forced encryption?

[jollyhockysticks]

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/44558 greasemonkey script to keep you on https

Who cares

[sakdoctor]

It's social networking. The information is already public.
It's like snooping data on the way to being published anyway.

Re:Who cares

[D Ninja]

Well, yeah, but no. What goes on Facebook is public, but the real problem here is the expansion of the government (in this case, the UK) into areas that they do not belong for reasons that are, arguably, pretty stupid.

Additionally, some parts of Facebook are "private." IM conversations between friends, and the messages that pass between people on Facebook are two things I can think of. Those are not available to the general public (at least not via normal means).

But, again, the growth of the government into citizens private lives is the more important issue. Aren't any of the UK citizens concerned?

Re:Who cares

[MoonBuggy]

I care. I care because they're wasting my tax money in order to spy on me for no reason.

Re:Who cares

[sakdoctor]

Yeah, I better clarify.
I didn't for one moment want to downplay the threat of mass surveillance and totalitarianism in the UK right now.

BUT, it's facebook. My expectation of privacy on the medium would be lower than unencrypted email.
Which is already very low.

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, Facebook is mostly harmless (er, so to speak). Also, information published there should have no expectation of privacy.

However, it displays the nature of government in general - and the nature of the current UK government in particular. More observation, more regulation, more taxation, less freedom.

Since the UK has essentially made illegal the photographing of the police doing its thing, I believe it is now a de-facto police state. If you can't gather hard evidence on their wrongdoing (what is better than an image or a video?) the police are effectively unfettered.

Generally, governments do a better job of monitoring and taxing their citizens than they do providing them with services such as healthcare (maybe drifting off-topic - but illustrates the nature of the beast - see stories elsewhere about the further breakdown of the UK public healthcare system).

Re:Who cares

[malkavian]

As a UK Citizen, yes I am, and yes I do write the letters to the MPs to complain. The government we've had for the last 12 years, near enough, has overseen a huge erosion in the English Civil Liberties. Hell, it's architected them. It's been expanding for as long as it's been in power, pushing politically correct agendas, and trying to tag and barcode the populace on the sly (but these days, it's not on the sly; they just tag on "to counter terrorism", and leave it at that). And what really bugs me is that I lived through the 70s and 80s when the IRA were very active. Bombings weren't too uncommon, and we got through it as a populace. We were still free.
These days, there's been one real attack (and at the time, the UK was actually taking military action in the Middle East, as it is still doing), and the NuLabour overlords take that as affirmation that they can barcode, DNA tag, and record every single thing you do (attempts to monitor phone traffic, email, network, have mandatory trackers in your cars, they already have sensors in the waste bins you put your rubbish in to be collected by the bin men to record what you dispose of, CCTV that's used to spot people who take their kids to a school that they may not be in the official catchment area of, and other completely outrageous examples of totalitarianism that would have Orwell penning new chapters in 1984 over).
Actually, the register has a nice little snippet from our current overlords. I suspect they're ever so slightly slanting what was said, but hey, it says what a lot of us think anyway..

Re:Who cares

[calmofthestorm]

private messages? Who you look at? etc

Re:Who cares

[PhxBlue]

Actually, it's more likely they're going to waste your tax money to spy on Americans for no reason, because it's bad form for the U.S. government to spy on its own, and England is one of the United States' closest allies.

Re:Who cares

[purpledinoz]

Doesn't anyone pay attention to history? Just 20 years ago, the Berlin wall fell, freeing East Germany from the dark days of communist rule. Just 20 years ago in East Germany, ordinary citizens were under the watchful eyes of their neighbours, who were encouraged by the secret police to spy on their neighbours. Somehow, the UK and the US seem keen to tighten their control of their citizens, just like in the communist block during the cold war.

Re:Who cares

[M-RES]

But FB contains 'privacy settings' allowing you to set varying levels for different items/data/movies/images you post. You can allow them to be viewed publicly by anyone, or just by your 'circle' of friends (including people not on your friends list who are merely 'friends of your friends'), or just by people directly on your friends list, or by you alone.

So what you post on FB isn't necessarily any more public than the files you hold on your local machine connected to the tubes. If you proactively restrict access to those files, then it's an invasion of your privacy for the govt to snoop.

Re:Who cares

[seaton carew]

Concerned? Nah, not really.

The current incumbents are so fekking incapable they would struggle to work out which end of a USB stick goes where. The chances of them implementing *any* form of large scale IT system is zero. Zip . Nada. Not gonna happen.

They'll be out of office in a year or so anyway.

Re:Who cares

[D Ninja]

-1 Troll

I appreciated the poster's response, and I'm glad he cares about what his government is doing. The problem is, not enough people do care about things bigger than, "OMG!!!11! WHO'S WINNING AMERICAN IDOL!!11!!" There are so many more important things to be involved with in this world and the snarky kind of comment that you just made is not necessary, not appreciated, and pretty much shows what's wrong with the way our world is currently being run (where only a few people have power because everybody else says "I really can't do anything so why should I try?").

Re:Who cares

[Dogtanian]

Forced to choose, I'd rather they wasted my taxes by (not) spying on me incompetently than used them more "efficiently" to track me and every other damn person in the UK in the name of counter-terrorism.

Of course, the terrorists have already won- because the UK government's actions were exactly what all terrorists want, to disrupt and alter the behaviour of an entire nation on the basis of a small number of attacks. Remember that the next time you vote.

This assumes that the government didn't *want* to do this anyway, whereas it was more likely a convenient excuse that exposed their underlying control freak authoritarian mentality.

It's been said (by I forget who) that despite the Labour party leadership's political swing away from their early radical left-wing roots in favour of what I'd consider centre-right politics (*) and the post-Thatcherite free-market consensus, their underlying modus operandi and mentality is still essentially Marxist. In a lot of ways, the modern Labour party has the worst of both worlds.

(*) By post-WWII British standards; they're probably still commies by US standards, along with anyone to the left of Genghis Khan :-/

Re:Who cares

[AxeTheMax]

Well, till 20 years or so ago, the ideological enemy over in totalitarian Eastern Europe kept this lot over in the west honest. It was necessary to be different.

Now, the only ideological enemy is the Taliban, and you have to admit the UK and US governments show no interest at all in making women wear the veil.

Re:Who cares

[fulldecent]

You have it right there. The reason is so that they can take your tax money.

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

That was exactly the point of the Echelon network. Each country spies all other countries, except it's own. Country A sends a list of search words to country B. Country B then spies on country A, and reports the result back to country A. perfect work-around for laws that get in the way.
But this is no longer needed because countries now ignore there own law, or change them retroactively.

Re:Who cares

[malkavian]

There are two real options.
One is you attempt to use force, and then get gunned down in a blaze of stupidity by the military protecting the politicians, and be branded a terrorist yourself, and have your ideals associated with extremism, and thus debunked before sane debate can start.
Secondly, you pen a note to the representatives of your government expressing, as eloquently as you can, exactly why you think it's a terrible idea what they're doing.
Then you pen the media with the same.
And if you have a few spare minutes, you pen something to their opponents, explaining why this is a massively bad idea, and, if they've not already spotted it, how they can get a lot of political mileage out of stating a few points in plan simple English to the general electorate.
In short, I don't know if I've made a difference. However, I've tried the sanest route I can think of, and try to enlighten as many minds as I can.
If I made no difference.. Then so be it. Not everybody's a hero, and not everybody gets to save the world. However, the more people that try, the greater the chance will be that one of the multitude actually manages to do it.

Re:Who cares

[jmcvetta]

Concerned? Nah, not really.

The current incumbents are so fekking incapable they would struggle to work out which end of a USB stick goes where.

Assuming one's enemy is incompetent is a good way to end up dead or enslaved.

Re:Who cares

[Nick Ives]

yeah, but no

but yea but no but yea but no but the government cant look at my page coz im not friends with them but that slag shelly who i hate has a crush on that fat brown and i cant block her cos then kelly will like, totally hate my guts!

Re:Who cares

[geekoid]

"he government we've had for the last 12 years, near enough, has overseen a huge erosion in the English Civil Liberties. Hell, it's architected them."

From what I can tell from over hear accross the pond is that the economic crisis might be the lever that get's them tossed out.

Best wishes.

Re:Who cares

[Renraku]

When I send someone an email through Facebook, I EXPECT it to be somewhat private. Is it wrong to expect your email to be private? You can bet your ass I'd sue if I emailed a friend and told them I was flying to (location) this weekend and the FBI showed up at my door wanting to play 20 questions about my legal and in no way suspicious trip.

If I didn't want it to be private, I might write a comment on their 'wall' or comments section or whatever.

Re:Who cares

[jimicus]

Assuming one's enemy is incompetent is a good way to end up dead or enslaved.

Point well taken, but in this case the enemy has repeatedly shown that if the magic word "technology" is uttered, there is truly no start to their competence.

Re:Who cares

[omglolbah]

They will just use tax money to fund some private company to do the work :-p

Re:Who cares

[arkhan_jg]

Aren't any of the UK citizens concerned?

Loads of us. It even makes the front-pages of the newspapers sometimes. It's just the Labour government doesn't give a shit what the citizens actually want, and never has. Mind you, neither does the Conservative party, when they're in power.

2 million people, 1 in 30 of the entire population marched through London in protest against starting the latest Iraq war, with hundreds of thousands more at other major cities. And we all know how effective that level of protest was, given Labour still won a narrow victory at their next election.

Politics in the UK is largely based on tribalism. You vote for a party because that's who people of your region and class vote for, who they're traditionally aligned with. Then you get the odd election where the government was the last one in before a major recession, and hey, the other guys get a go. Guess which party isn't going to win their 4th election next year?

Re:Who cares

[phillous]

From what I can tell from over hear accross the pond is that the economic crisis might be the lever that get's them tossed out.

Partly true. I think the main issue, apart from the fact that they've now been there long enough for everything to be thier fault, is that whilst, technically, we elect a party, not a prime minister - the last general election, Tony Blair was PM. He stepped down, and we've had an effectively un-elected PM since.

Many people therefore feel that Gordon Brown wasn't elected... he's also a terrible public speaker, has no charisma or charm, and used to be the chancellor - so people blame him personally for the economic crisis.

Yeh. He's gone as soon he runs out of time. I'm not sure exactly how much longer he can defer a general election, but I know he's done it at least once.

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

More than you can possibly imagine.

( http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1165995&cid=27252893 )

But most people here aren't interested. I don't know why, I talk to my co-workers and they say they have nothing to hide. I try to explain that that isn't the point and with all of the information the government will hold on you that circumstances may conspire to confer guilt where none exists, but still they stare blankly at me. I move on...

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait till the "extreme porn" law starts biting. A bit of ankle will get you a lifetime membership of the sex offenders register :-P

Re:Who cares

[Alcoholist]

You could always move to Canada. And while I'm sure some will disagree, the government mostly leaves you alone here (well except at tax time, but fair enough). This might be because they are nice, but perhaps also because they are a little incompetent and don't know how to make crazy Orwellian laws. They've tried, but it never seems to work out. Either way, I'd say you're better off. Some of these stories out I hear about the government in the UK scare the hell out of me.

Nice place, Canada. Vast countryside, okay beer, close to America (shopping ain't bad there), no CCTV to speak of and all the rumours you heard about the snow are false.

Re:Who cares

[mdwh2]

Firstly, why draw a distinction between Facebook messages, and using email provided by some other company?

Yes, encryption is one viable response (which in fact is what someone suggested above for Faceboo), but (a) this doesn't mean that such mass surveillance laws are justified, and (b) in the UK, it's a criminal offence to not hand over your keys if asked to.

I know that Facebook is unfashionable here, but let's not forget the seriousness of these issues. Moreover, Facebook was merely an example - the plans cover all kinds web traffic. And your email is already intended to be covered, btw.

Google

[the cleaner]

They could always ask Google. Thanks to Google, whatever is in the Internet, stays in the Internet.

Re:Google

[xenolion]

we no longer need time capsules as long as we have Google. Why are people shocked about a government searching threw this data? you post it you want someone to notices it.

Re:Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are people shocked about a government searching threw this data?

Well, just how far did they throw it?

stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides being intrusive its not going to be very useful. I mean, how many terrorists are going to schedule their next bombing as a Facebook event and then say this is an open even you can also invite friends.

Re:stupid

[snowraver1]

Join my group!

Re:stupid

[Blakey Rat]

Someone make a note, that's probably the first (and last) time a Facebook link will ever appear on Slashdot. And even it's a 404. Heh.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Join my group!

You lied to me...

I can't. :(

Re:stupid

[nlann]

They are obviously not targeting terrorists.

They simply want to be able to collect more information (read evidences) about you and me, information that can be useful during investigations, or in a court.

Let's say you declare a very little income to your government, but at the same time you keep posting travel pictures, photo of your new Porsche, etc...

There are already companies which specialize in tracking and profiling people online. It's just a matter of time before police follows this trend.

Re:stupid

[scientus]

This is all a bluff because with encryption anyone can communicate securely. The Governments are freaking out that they dont have some knowing powers they use to have so they have to use FUD, and police state society to try to keep that control.

Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[girlintraining]

Terrorists? On MySpace? What, are they going to attack the train stations in their horned-rim glasses, striped shirts, excessive mascara, and tight girl pants? Unless they have the Perspective Gun (HHGTTG) that won't do a lot of damage. Really, even if they have razorblades they're just going to use them on themselves.

And Facebook. I can see it now...
11:15am - Jihad has been called! We are all so very excited, yes-m.
11:27am - is feeling very blue (they left to go get mcdonald's without me)
11:52am - Achmed didn't bring all the parts to build the bomb. We're watching House instead
12:56pm - Cutty really is a bitch! We must issue fatwa on her.
02:45pm - took nap. Unemployment called, they say I get free dollars. woo woo!
05:17pm - Achmed returns with rest of parts to build bomb, but comcast triple play package more fun
08:59pm - Got call from head of cell. Wants to know about bomb. What bomb? We lost bomb.
11:36pm - Go to bed. Really loving these american TV dinners.

Or not. Seriously -- we're just going to encrypt the crap out of everything in a few more years anyway, and the UK and other governments and piss off. Or we'll go back to having pseudonyms and fake identities online and only our friends will know the truth. *shrug* Terrorists... christ. I wish they would come and blow something up, just so we had the reminder they weren't entirely a figment of our imagination. In another 10 years, nobody will believe 09/11 happened because of all this screaming by politicians about 'teh terrorists' will have gotten so old people will start subconsciously rejecting anything to do with it.

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[JCSoRocks]

Well, you know, it's one way to kill Facebook.

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[Shakrai]

05:17pm - Achmed returns with rest of parts to build bomb, but comcast triple play package more fun, when it works
05:30pm - Comcast down again. Fifth time today. Achmed suggests using bomb on them instead.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[MadMidnightBomber]

No, it's *Ahmed*.

PS. I kill you.

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[cayenne8]

"Or we'll go back to having pseudonyms and fake identities online and only our friends will know the truth."

You mean you stopped doing this for some reason!?!?!?!

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[MadMidnightBomber]

Sorry, all the Ahmeds I have known have been Ahmed, but this one is in fact Achmed. Must be the American spelling.

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[Yvanhoe]

We need a new slang designed for this kind of snooping. From now on I'll call a party a jihad, I'll try to bomb girls, I'll get martyred out of booze and I'll stop lol'ing and replace that with Allah Akbar'ing...

You wanted Myspace ? You have to take all of it!

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[oldhack]

"11:36pm - Go to bed. Really loving these american TV dinners."

Hah! We've already won. All bow your head to "the other white meat!!!"

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or not. Seriously -- we're just going to encrypt the crap out of everything in a few more years anyway, and the UK and other governments and piss off.

THEY make the laws. The can criminalize encryption.

Or we'll go back to having pseudonyms and fake identities online and only our friends will know the truth

And all those who can find our IP and read our writings en route on the network.

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[Anonymous Coward]

comcast 07:45pm - Someone set us up the bomb!

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[pacinpm]

Seriously -- we're just going to encrypt the crap out of everything in a few more years anyway, and the UK and other governments and piss off.

Unless they declare encrypting illegal of course. Why encrypt if you have nothing to hide? You are not a terrist, are you?

Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees.

[TarrVetus]

"Or we'll go back to having pseudonyms and fake identities online and only our friends will know the truth."

You mean you stopped doing this for some reason!?!?!?!

I know this is probably the obligatory Orwell quote, but it just came to mind from this.

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system [...] It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. [...] You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

How ironic it is that the technology we imagined would free us more than ever before is becoming a medium capable of a new imprisonment. But it's not coming as Orwell suggested; it's coming with a smile, and a protective embrace--even if that embrace is an unprecedented, once-inconceivable death grip on free communication, thought, and choice, traded for security and caretaking.

Gee, I'm chipper today!

You just don't use CPUs for that kind of scale

[Colin Smith]

They'd have to go for hardware encryption/decryption.

 

Re:You just don't use CPUs for that kind of scale

[drinkypoo]

They'd have to go for hardware encryption/decryption.

What kind of scale? I said offer it. It's not clear what percentage of facebook's membership would use https:/// if they didn't offer any links and you had to alter the URL manually (oh, the humanity!) If their front-end servers had CPU to spare (e.g. the front-end was I/O bound) they might be able to serve the actual demand without any additional hardware.

Re:You just don't use CPUs for that kind of scale

[barneco]

Your foresight is truly astounding.

Re:You just don't use CPUs for that kind of scale

[w0mprat]

CPUs are now good enough for encryption, a few cores gives you hundreds of mb/s on AES for example. It's not as simple as that, with the added overheads on a server, but in outright costs it's not that huge.

Re:You just don't use CPUs for that kind of scale

[Anonymous Coward]

they'd probably use cisco ACEs to load balance the amounts of traffic which can terminate ssl in hardware anyway.

Wow

[overzero]

It's not often that I feel genuinely sorry for people who perform invasions of privacy. What's next? Having to read through YouTube comments? One of the glaring, non-ethical problems with Big Brother-esque surveillance is that total voyeurism just isn't as interesting as it sounds.

Re:Wow

[warren.oates]

There's a Jules Feiffer play, later a movie, Little Murders in which an FBI agent is reading one of the character's mail. This character starts sending letters to himself for the FBI agent to read, chiding him for invading other people's privacy and so on. Eventually, the FBI agent commits suicide.

Re:Wow

[Jaysyn]

Yeah, that's realistic. :D

not really

[jgtg32a]

The information may be posted publicly but there is an expatiation of privacy, as evident by the filters that you can set up.

Hmmm... you mean the CIA doesn't run it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought facebook was an intelligence gathering operation run by the CIA. If you think about it's the ultimate associative database that spy agencies would drool over.

I hate facebook.

Re:Hmmm... you mean the CIA doesn't run it now?

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

I thought facebook was an intelligence gathering operation run by the CIA.

It might be good for gathering stupid, but hardly intelligence.

Re:Hmmm... you mean the CIA doesn't run it now?

[maxume]

It must be really disappointing when the 6 billion of us that like your life-affirming level of paranoia end up surviving each day.

Re:Hmmm... you mean the CIA doesn't run it now?

[maxume]

Damn it. Lack, not like.

Re:Hmmm... you mean the CIA doesn't run it now?

[repapetilto]

Think about it. The people who run those agencies aren't really supermen or anything, their technology cant be that much better than the stuff you know about. That kind of thing would make perfect sense to try to do if your goal was setting up a system to make it as easy as possible to spy on as many people as possible just in case it might be helpful one day. Its simple and will pay for itself. Why not take advantage?

Re:Hmmm... you mean the CIA doesn't run it now?

[maxume]

It makes sense as a goal. Their quiet and total success is laughable.

Re:Hmmm... you mean the CIA doesn't run it now?

[repapetilto]

Well I'm not saying its true, really I say the CIA thing to people as more a joke than anything. But why does it seem so unreasonable just because it works... I mean I'm probably falling into the same "nah thats too perfect" trap as you. I wouldn't call that more rational though.

Re:Hmmm... you mean the CIA doesn't run it now?

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be good for gathering stupid, but hardly intelligence.

Oh I dunno - would make a great facial recognition training system with all that picture tagging that you can't turn off.

You are forgetting something.

[B5_geek]

Any form of communication might be used for nefarious purposes.
touch, sight, taste, smell. These could all be used to transfer information. Unless you plug into our brains directly you might miss something. Just give up.

Western society has forgotten what it means to stand up to oppressive leadership. We would rather stay comfortable and placated with our modern opiate.

Break the chains that bind you. Turn off your TV's, read books they don't want you to read, think for yourself.

One of the users on this board has a sig that is very significant:
There are 4 boxes to be used in the defence of liberty: Soap, Jury, Ballot, and Ammo. Use in that order.

I am a non-violent person (as are most of us). I believe more can be resolved with intelligent, logical discussion then could ever be resolved with violence, but I also believe that when the system is broken you cannot work within it.

Re:You are forgetting something.

[Shakrai]

We would rather stay comfortable and placated with our modern opiate.

Says the person posting on /.

Yeah, I agree with what you said, but it just had to be pointed out ;)

Re:You are forgetting something.

[B5_geek]

hehe, I did say _we_.

Re:You are forgetting something.

[kitsunewarlock]

Any form of communication might be used for nefarious purposes. touch, sight, taste, smell.

What does "bomb X tomorrow?" taste like?

Re:You are forgetting something.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's tragic is that people like you are laughed at where I live.

"You're saying we don't live in a free society? That's ridiculous!"

But it's not a ridiculous statement at all. The past 15 years has taken both the US and the EU much closer to totalitarian superpowers run by an elite of politicians rather than by the people.

People don't want this kind of monitoring everywhere, it's an agenda pushed by the ruling elite (which shouldn't even be "ruling" in the first place). Of course, saying this to any average person makes you sound crazy and paranoid so they stop listening and it all fells rather futile. :(

Re:You are forgetting something.

[joh]

I am a non-violent person (as are most of us). I believe more can be resolved with intelligent, logical discussion then could ever be resolved with violence, but I also believe that when the system is broken you cannot work within it.

Yeah, quite a while ago someone said we were in a time where it's too late to work from within the system but too early to just shoot the bastards. I fear we have moved on a bit since then.

Re:You are forgetting something.

[opposabledumbs]

Bitter...

Just be honest

[kellyb9]

Why won't the government just come out and say - "We want to see your private data"? I mean seriously, they're going to monitor traffic to stop terrorism. Maybe if they were this upfront about their operations, I can actually respect the fact that they were honest, but they actually think we're stupid enough to believe Al Queda has a Facebook group? WOW.

Public Info.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the information can be accessed by the public then I don't see a problem here... freedom of information man. Although when I want to crawl all of UK's public websites, please don't bitch at me.

Apologies for my last status update, UK government

[TheModelEskimo]

...I didn't mean to imply that the food I had during my recent visit to your country was really that bland. :P

naive

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously haven't considered what various national security agencies have; data mining the communications between people, spotting patterns and supposedly making obvious connections that weren't there before.

The problem is that this could be easily abused to track and find out stuff about anyone, not just the government's convenient excuse, terrorists. Given the automation of tedious work and ready access to such information, how difficult do you think it would be for a hostile government to find out that someone supported the opposition (even just through the pattern of pages they'd viewed) or were homosexual, etc.?

I say,

[Todd Fisher]

It appears Reginald Thornwallop hurled a goat at young master Convington. Alert the Queen at once!

This isn't really new.

[owlnation]

The UK Police already routinely scan YouTube, MySpace, Bebo and Facebook for "criminal" activity.

While Facebook stuff is already public, and you're utterly retarded if you post anything genuinely incriminating on it, there is still a danger -- now and in the future -- that the definition of "incriminating" may change.

The way The People's Republic of (formerly Great) Britain is going, it's only a question of time before your opinions (such as mine expressed here) will get you a visit from the State Secret Police.

Even if you are foolish enough to believe that Brown-shirt and his Jackboots, Smith and Straw, are not genuinely evil, the fact remains that the UK is now so controlled and monitored, that in the event of a dictator choosing to seize power, the UK population would be unable to fight back (the fact that much of the population is fat and drunk only helps the State cause).

There absolutely must be politicians in the UK who realize that all they need to do is pull the draw-string and the country is sealed up, and at their total mercy. All the pieces of the puzzle are there. It could happen any day. It is already too late.

Re:This isn't really new.

[Shakrai]

the fact remains that the UK is now so controlled and monitored, that in the event of a dictator choosing to seize power, the UK population would be unable to fight back

And whose fault is that? The idiots in Government passing the stupid policies or the population that has allowed (even encouraged in some instances) them to do so?

Re:This isn't really new.

[owlnation]

And whose fault is that? The idiots in Government passing the stupid policies or the population that has allowed (even encouraged in some instances) them to do so?

It is ultimately the people who are the problem. Not just those who voted Labour, but those who are police officers, civil servants, people who work in ISPs, those who sit and watch through security cameras, anyone involved with the E-Borders scheme, anyone in Customs and Excise, and many, many more.

"befehl ist befehl" was proven not to be a defence at Nuremberg. Anyone co-operating with these totalitarian schemes is just guilty as the oppressors that are most surely coming, if not already here.

It is too late. The E-Borders scheme controls entry and exits more surely than the Berlin Wall. The Security camera network means they know where you are while you are in the country. The internet monitoring means they watch what you are doing and know who your friends are, the phone call logging means they know what you are saying, the ability to detain you without charge for longer than anywhere only helps. The population is fat, drunk and broke, and ever more geared towards hating "immigrants", as today's BBC "have your say" only proves. The tripartite excuse of "terrorism", "paedophiles" and "knife crime" are perfect covers for any eventuality.

What more does any dictator actually need? The tools are all there, cheerfully implemented by willing members of the population. These tools will eventually be used.

Re:This isn't really new.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't help when the amount of legislation churned out is so vast. It's a monumental task for your average jo to pick through all of this and then to retain it well enough to challenge authority. Coupled with the fact that the UK government has taken to passing bits of insidious legislation in seemingly unrelated or innocuous bills. (See Coroners and Justice Bill - aimed at modernising the Coroners system introduces legislation related to the National Identity Register).

It is not too late if we (UK citizens) take a stand. If you refuse to stand up and be counted then accept it as too late.

The government is already working on retaining all UK ISP records for a year - it has been voluntary for the past year or so and with the EU data retention directive and the UK's own data retention RIP/Terrorist legislation it is soon to become mandatory.

Add this to the National Identity card/National Identity Register and the government will be able to track the majority of your life. To what end I can't say, I guess I have more faith in human nature than they do, but this is about more than terrorists, identity theft and benefit fraud.

It may be a bit melodramatic to say this but if you have ever seen the film V this feels like where we are headed.

I will refuse to cooperate and look forward to smarter people than me making the (pirvate bits of the) internet more secure from prying governmental eyes. The trusting nature of the internet is too much for governments to leave alone...

www.no2id.net

http://fitwatch.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-fitwatch-spotter-card.html

Re:This isn't really new.

[CmdrGravy]

Ah but assuming that some evil dictator did seize the reins and bend the country towards his own nefarious ends he is ultimately going to be destroyed by absolute indifference, apathy and incompetence. All the monitoring devices in the world aren't going to be any use at all when no one can be bothered to leave their sofas to come to your rallies or join your all conquering army of supermen. Sooner or later he'd just get bored and go off to find a more suitable country to use.

Re:This isn't really new.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok. you've spotted the trend. and it is real. The question is why?

Sure, there is ignorance. There is also natural authoritarianism. also, Government are always afraid of the people.

But actually, there is a reason.... (Is there a dramatic pause tag?)

Global warming.

Whilst all the wallies argue about who is responsible, and why, the clever money is on a 30 year or less crisis. As in the shit hits the fan.

My brother law is a scientist who has recently left the UK, and wrote a long explanation to my wife, imploring her to do the same.

And it is worth remembering that the majority of the firearms in the UK are in the hands of criminals. I look at fallout 3 as a training manual!

We cant forget

[moniker127]

This is what facebook is already used for in the US. I'm sorry, and I dont meant to sound paranoid- but COME ON. Several founders of facebook have present or former positions with darpa.

Can you imagine the reports?

[syousef]

At 15:43 terror suspect Lishmaki Alibababran tweeted "Whazup man?" to Obama Balali who proceeded to set his status to "Obama is watching 'UK today'. We believe this is part of a terrorist plot to stay informed about domestic and world news. Furthermore we may be able to use TV licensing laws against Obama as we have no record of him owning a TV license. This is further proof that piracy aids terrorism. In other news Beth Smith sent a private facebook message to Sally Tallman about Bill Wade that said: "He's soooooo hot". Sally was not impressed and replied "Stay away biatch, he's mine". Our operatives believe this may lead to violence and much bitchslapping at the Trinity school for girls on Monday morning and recommends that we send in a team of operatives.

Re:Can you imagine the reports?

[genner]

At 15:43 terror suspect Lishmaki Alibababran tweeted "Whazup man?" to Obama Balali who proceeded to set his status to "Obama is watching 'UK today'. We believe this is part of a terrorist plot to stay informed about domestic and world news. Furthermore we may be able to use TV licensing laws against Obama as we have no record of him owning a TV license. This is further proof that piracy aids terrorism. In other news Beth Smith sent a private facebook message to Sally Tallman about Bill Wade that said: "He's soooooo hot". Sally was not impressed and replied "Stay away biatch, he's mine". Our operatives believe this may lead to violence and much bitchslapping at the Trinity school for girls on Monday morning and recommends that we send in a team of operatives.

Sally is a lieing tramp.
Beth would never cheat on me.

Re:Can you imagine the reports?

[Culture20]

recommends that we send in a team of operatives.

Repeat: This is a purely observational mission. Do not intervene unless targets spot the multi-spectral cameras.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just saying.

Oh come on

[Peter_J_G]

Hitler stopped the German people from being able to protest with the Reichstag Decree - as no-one was able to protest, Hitler was able to build the worlds most brutal totalitarian state and invaded Poland in 1939, Britain and France declared war, a generation was devastated in the hope that future generations might live without tyranny. In 1945 the allies declared victory and said never again. To protect the world from war they had to protect the citizen from the state - in 1950 the leaders of the war torn countries of Europe came together to try to prevent these horrors from ever happening again, in comes the European convention of human rights authored by Winston Churchill, and contained the fundamental protections of an individual from their own government, including, ban on torture ,no detention without charge, innocence until proven guilty, right to privacy, right to protest and freedom of speech. We in the UK have became too cosy with the idea that we have these rights anymore. I often wonder when people will wake up and realize they have had their freedoms taken away. I wondered if it would happen when they gave taking pictures of police a maximum 10 year jail sentence - nope. I wondered if it would happen when they allowed records of phone calls, web history and emails to be for police - nope, I wondered if it would happen when someone was arrested under the anti-terror act for shouting "rubbish" at a New Labour party conference - nope. Wake up.

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that mainstream news outlets don't cover this stuff at all. Every time one of these new laws comes up I check the news channels and there's never anything there.
Unless you are actively watching for these things you'll never know it is going on.

Re:Oh come on

[harry666t]

How do you wake a human up?

Re:Oh come on

[repapetilto]

The same way you titillate an ocelot.

Re:Oh come on

[DNS-and-BIND]

So...you won't be doing any of the fighting, then? You'll be leaving it to others to take bullets for your freedom, and you'll support them with PayPal donations and strongly-worded messages of support on slashdot.

PS you Godwinned yourself

Re:Oh come on

[Peter_J_G]

When did I say that I didn't want to do any of the fighting?

Re:Oh come on

[squizzar]

Not wanting to downplay everyone's favourite bad guys - the Nazis - but arguably Stalin was responsible for the most brutal totalitarian state.

"People could be imprisoned in a Gulag camp for crimes such as unexcused absences from work, petty theft, or anti-government jokes. About half of the political prisoners were sent to Gulag prison camps without trial; per official data, there were more than 2.6 million imprisonment sentences in cases investigated by the secret police, 1921-1953." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

Now that is scary. How close to that are we?

Re:Oh come on

[CmdrGravy]

I think Russian peasants were being sent off to what were basically gulags long before Stalins time. I believe that only 50 years before Stalin there was an entire class of Russians known as serfs who were essentially slaves and could be killed, tortured or sent off to Siberia on the whim of any of their betters.

Oh I forgot to add

[Peter_J_G]

Failure to hand over encryption keys carries a 2-3 year jail sentence.

The Real Way to stop Government Internet Snooping

[al0ha]

Is to refuse to use the Internet for commerce. If the populace of Britian, or any "Free" country for that matter, made it clear that if their government implements draconian snooping technologies, they will stop using the Internet; well you get the picture. I personally would join that fight in the US. I certainly don't *need* the Internet; it is a convenience.

idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, terrorist groups who aren't fucking morons have long since switched all their communication to encrypted e-mail.

Seriously, Facebook?

Re:idiots

[chord.wav]

Hint: They aren't really after terrorists

Re:idiots

[i_b_don]

It's not about what you post, it's about what you read. How about youtube? You think they care about what funny cat video you watch? They're a lot more interested in what political videos you go and click on. That's how they "judge intent".

Watch out, the thought police are coming.

Once the government can monitor everything that goes into your head and comes out of your head, democracy is doesn't stand a chance.

d

Re:idiots

[domatic]

Actually Facebook would be good for a scheme long used by intelligence agents. "Hi, My name is Fred." posted at a particular time does not appear to be threatening in any way but could decode to something like "Implement phase 2 of the plan". Done correctly (both direct sender and receiver unknown to each other and the same dropbox never used twice) it is highly resistant to the kind of monitoring the UK wants to do.

Maybe they want to find Princess Margaret pics..

[GPLDAN]

Jason Statham was in a film called The Bank Job, a film which was actually pretty good. In it, they break into a bank in 1970 and get into safe deposit boxes. One of the boxes has pictures of Princess Margaret in flagrante delicto.

Maybe that's what this is all about. Snooping facebook so that there aren't any nasty pics of the royals giving head.

UK Governments is in mah lolcatz...

[Phizzle]

...snooping on teh terrorats.

Usenet

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

I though all the terrorists were hiding in the high-traffic (pr0n) Usenet newsgroups. I'm soooo out of touch.

Re:Apologies for my last status update, UK governm

[MadMidnightBomber]

You take that back! We have some of the finest Indian cuisine in the world.

How Long?

[blueZhift]

I've been watching these developments in UK for the last few years, and I still wonder how long British citizens are going to stand for such brazenly proposed invasions of their privacy. What kind of loons come up with this stuff? What terrorists are using Facebook to openly plan their attacks?

Re:How Long?

[spacefight]

IMHO, what is needed is a revolution, as voting isn't helping (see Obama, so much about "change") at all nowadays. The brit gov is screwing their people for so long now and nothing happened...

Re:How Long?

[phoenix321]

That's one of the reason I'm tagging ALL of the stories about the UK with

"crazykingdom"

Because I've read not a single post on /. that did not report on sheer lunacy and absolute mayhem thriving in the kingdom of the mentally insane.

And it's not just /., but all news site I ever read in several months, yes, this includes those of British newspapers. Great Britain is either on the brink of self-destruction or only n weeks before revolution, I don't know yet.

Re:How Long?

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's not just /., but all news site I ever read in several months, yes, this includes those of British newspapers. Great Britain is either on the brink of self-destruction or only n weeks before revolution, I don't know yet.

Firstly: The surveillance stuff is genuinely sinister, agreed.

Secondly: Do you really think you get a balanced view of the UK from the newspapers and /. ?

We have been a lot closer to some sort of breakdown before. In the past 40 years we have had periods of rioting, serious national strikes, national 3-day week with rotating power cuts, unemployment at nearly twice the current level with some areas virtually devoid of jobs, devstating IRA bomb attacks etc.

We have *none* of those things going on now. At the moment people are pissed off with the goverment (and will probably vote them out next year) and fearful for their jobs. That's it. We haven't even had any teeny little riots, or any organized civil disobediance, or any of the things that pave the way to upheaval or revolution. Unfortunately most people don't give a toss about surveillance or civil liberties unless and until it affects them directly and visibly.

You Have 3 New Invites.

[senorpoco]

Event:: Terrorist type things Network:: Everyone Where:: The Secret Rendezvous Time:: 11:15 Notes:: Bring your own bomb. Really? they are going to spy on people who add Muqutada Al Sadr as their friend.

There's a way...

[hyades1]

If the government wants to snoop Facebook, the pure volume of communications means they'll have to use some kind of filtering process. Take a page from the spammers' book. If enough people lard their communications with UK relatives and e-friends with buzzwords like "bomb" and "nuclear" and "nitrate", the cost to go through them and decide that they're all crap would be huge.

Time to have some fun, and invite these fascist pricks to honk on BoBo.

UK snoops bored to death

[russotto]

As government jobs which don't require being shot at or handling NBC waste go, the job of Facebook snoop is pretty lousy. Most of it is content-free chatter, but at least it's chatter by people you know. Having to monitor the content-free chatter of tons of strangers must be incredibly mind-numbing.

Right, that's it...

[Landak]

I'm writing to my MP, with a long list of everything that's been reported here. It might do anything, but he'll at least respond. I'm fed up with this incompetent government being completely and utterly unable to do anything without bringing terrorism and an illiberal attitude into everything. Argh.

You can't photograph the cops in the UK??

[cayenne8]

"Since the UK has essentially made illegal the photographing of the police doing its thing, I believe it is now a de-facto police state. If you can't gather hard evidence on their wrongdoing (what is better than an image or a video?) the police are effectively unfettered."

When and why did this happen?

I know in the US, if the cops see you filming them, they will often try to harass you, but, I've never heard that it was downright illegal to photograph the police in action in a western nation like the US or UK??

Details please?

Re:Apologies for my last status update, UK governm

[baKanale]

I wouldn't describe foods like eel pie as bland so much as mildly frightening...

Not Orwellian

[Epeeist]

Orwell was distinctly against this kind of activity.

What I think you mean is Stalinist.

Well, there's 1 entity that actually cares...

[jforest1]

about what I'm doing and who my friends are.

--josh

Re:You can't photograph the cops in the UK??

[AxeTheMax]

You can (since last year I believe) be prosecuted for collecting information about police officers, soldiers, et.c. if the information could be used for terrorism, and it's up to you to show that it was not intended for that purpose. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/philipjohnston/4632459/Why-cant-we-take-pictures-of-policemen.html

Re:Maybe they want to find Princess Margaret pics.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no idea why that's flamebait. Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction:

http://fascinatinghistory.blogspot.com/2005/07/duchess-of-argyll-and-headless-men.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret,_Duchess_of_Argyll

I am fed of hearing negative stories about my gov.

[mrphoton]

I am fed of hearing negative stories about my government, I would like to say something positive about them namely,
We only have to put up with them of another 442 days! Whooooo. Then we can vote our un elected PM and his Stalinist chum jacqui jackboots smith out of office.

Another option..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, that's like asking people not to breathe. Let me show you how unworkable that is: ask people to rigidly stick to the parking laws for a month. Although that would totally nuke the revenue of one of the filthiest types of bottom feeders apart from AIG management, nobody will.

How about helping everyone to encrypt whatever they can? At the moment, encrypted traffic is still fairly rare and thus identifies itself as of interest. The moment it happens by default it's going to be a sod to keep track of everything and they will have to go back to basics: focus resources where there is probable cause.

Terrorists now leaving Facebook in droves!

[antispam_ben]

Either that or they're starting to post some wildly misleading info on their Facebook and other social networking site pages.

I remember around late 2001 or 2002, it was reported that "the terrorists" were using porn chatrooms to communicate, at least until that news was reported to the press, then they moved on to some other clandestine way to communicate.

With all the web forums, Usenet, email IRC and other Internet traffic, the government really will have to snoop everything to track terrorists.

for what reason

[Disco Hips]

Honestly, what kinds of hot (political) info would someone expect to find on Facebook? Is it because it's popular? Hence it must be monitored? Here's a clue to the UK government: don't trust the banks, don't go to war on flimsy excuses, don't spy on your electorate. How's about money saved by avoiding the above on: better investment in UK business, better investment in healthcare, better investment in, err, the UK.

Maybe this question is too simple...

[Anonymous Coward]

But how would these UK data collection servers cope with a DoS attack? Not directly on themselves, but say there were 3 or 4 DoS attacks simultaneously on different websites...

And if they can withstand absorbing that much data long enough to discard it automatically, why isn't that technology on the open market?
(cue James Bond music)

New mod category...

[Stanislav_J]

The UK government, which is becoming increasingly Orwellian...

We need a new mod category: "understatement." I'm thinking more and more that Orwell was an optimist...

Re:New mod category...

[jimicus]

We need a new mod category: "understatement." I'm thinking more and more that Orwell was an optimist...

Not really.

If you read 1984 (which so few people who talk about it actually have), you'll know that literally everything people did was monitored - right the way down to the way they spoke, the way they carried themselves, facial expressions, everything. If there was even a hint, a nervous twitch to suggest that the person didn't love Big Brother, they were taken away for "re-education".

Orwell couldn't have predicted the Internet. But if he had known about it, I have no doubt that he'd have mentioned something about it offering no privacy.

Re:You can't photograph the cops in the UK??

[IIH]

Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act same into force earlier this year: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7888301.stm

Re:I am fed of hearing negative stories about my g

[General Melchett]

Okay, first things first:
        We did vote GB in, If you read up on UK election law, youâ(TM)ll more than likely find that you vote for the party, and the party chooses its leader, who becomes prime minister. Basically, you vote for the party you want to represent you, and they choose from their ranks someone to do just that. And since labour was voted in, we get a labour prime minister for the duration of the term.

Secondly, the alternative at the moment is infinitely worse, in the shape of a vapid, bandwagon jumping Eatonian and his gang of old boy chronies. I have absolutely no doubts whatsoever that given the chance, the conservatives would be pulling this bullshit only on a larger scale. And if you disagree, please read into their treatment of dissenting voices during the 80â(TM)s, i.e. strikers/protesters. Not to mention the fact that these muppets have not a single coherent policy to say for themselves.

Change for changes sake is not necessarily a good thing. Iâ(TM)m as fucked off as the next guy with the string of BS coming out of downing street at the moment. The list is seemingly never ending, involving data security, the fucking hilarious âdigital Britain reportâ(TM), the constant CCTV camera coverage, and ridiculous policy after ridiculous policy, but Iâ(TM)m also certain that things would get a lot worse under conservative government. Privatisation of things that shouldnâ(TM)t be privatised (read NHS), taxation policies designed to keep rich people rich, and loose regulation for companies are all things this country really doesnâ(TM)t need, and would be instigated in a heartbeat.

Basically, iâ(TM)m fairly certain weâ(TM)re fucked either way, and iâ(TM)m moving to Scandinavia...

Solution...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Solution: https//facebook.com

Re:Solution...

[u38cg]

Given the volume passing through Facebook's servers, it is pretty unlikely that such a system would not piggyback on their own servers in their own datacentre. What the hell, they'll probably just make an anti-terrorist app that everyone will install anyway...

Terrorist's Handbook v.1.1 Addendum

[teeloo]

Step 1)
Recruit my fellow co-conspirators (in person).

Step 2)
Establish a set of strict protocols for communication. This might include drafting up a cypher system for anything written.
- never use the phone
- if you need to communicate long distances, only use ciphered craigslist ads - ***DO NOT USE FACEBOOK***

Step 3)
Plan

Step 4)
Procurement

Step 5)
Execute

It would destroy their business model

[betterunixthanunix]

Facebook is not there as a charity. They are there to make money, and they do that by tracking, recording, and analyzing everything you do on their website. Encryption on Facebook would destroy their ability to do that, or at least significantly weaken it, so they will never offer it.

Re:It would destroy their business model

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in the slightest.

Do you know how HTTPS works? It's exactly like HTTP, but all messages between the client and the server are encrypted. Those messages are obviously decrypted at each end or they would be unusable.
If the server could not decrypt what you sent, then it wouldn't even know you'd sent a valid HTTP request, let alone which page you wanted.
If your client could not decrypt what the server sent, it would not know that it was valid HTML, let alone how to display it on the screen.

So thanks to the marvels of decryption, facebook will still be able to see every little thing you do on their site.

Say wha?

[FShort]

I for one welcome our new limey overlords.

Nope, it's mislabelled

[cheros]

Orwell's approach took too much manpower (in principle you still need to trust a few people to do the monitoring).

What the UK Government is doing is imprisonment of innocent people: it is creating a Panopticon out of a whole country.

The signs are all there:

- continuous, seemingly unbroken coverage of the people watching you (the idea is to make you feel you're always being watched)
- penalties of minor infringements (also easier than solve the odd murder*)
- pretty much random justice ("We're the state, we have the power, we don't care, you don't count")
- total absence of humanity in the system

So, it's not 1984 - that's just a part of it.

Good, because terrorists regularly use Facebook

[master_p]

Oh, terrorists love Facebook so much! they always announce their plans in Facebook, in order to have their friends comment on them.

The terrorists also put the pictures of the terror act (you know, big-a$$ explosions and sh1t) on Facebook.

Someone in the UK gov has become paranoid...

Re:Good, because terrorists regularly use Facebook

[daveime]

It's funny because the usual choices for "describe yourself" are :-

Single
Married
Looking for Friends
It's Complicated
etc.

I don't recall seeing any along the lines of :-

Looking for buildings to blow up
Looking to convert the world to Islam
Looking for friends who also hide in caves a lot

Faith =/= reality

[freaker_TuC]

Do you really think, any decision taken now taking away your civil rights, protecting the government even more;
would be changed just by changing one person? I've lost that faith for a few years now, after regarding politics in detail ...

Once it's in place it usually stays there unless it's really *needed* for the common people to get rid of it; and yet; there are still ridiculous laws around...

Re:Faith =/= reality

[mrphoton]

Well yes I do and here is why:
1. Assuming Labour do not get re-elected, the most lightly party to take over would be the Conservatives. One of there stated policies is to scrap the ID card scheme:

http://www.conservatives.com/Campaigns/ID_Cards_Labours_Bad_IDea.aspx
2. Considering just the ID card scheme for a moment it will cost a load of cash. The goverment is way over spent, and who ever comes to power will have to make cutbacks. This one very obvious target - the public wont miss it. The only reason it have not been scraped is because it is sombody's babby and the goverment has 'comitted' to it.
I do agree with you centiment some what, but I do feel the current lot have a very Starnilistic tendency, and so far the Conservitaves under Cammoron have consistantly voted against crazy stuff like the 42 day dentention period. --but as allways that is only me opinion.

but "they" keep getting away with it

[Anonymous Coward]

"befehl ist befehl" was proven not to be a defence at Nuremberg. Anyone co-operating with these totalitarian schemes is just guilty as the oppressors that are most surely coming, if not already here.
 

but still few were punished even if befehl ist befehl was not a defense at nuremberg

Facebook Privacy.

[geekmux]

Content on Facebook (and any other social networking site with privacy controls) isn't for public consumption - it's for consumption by those whom you've marked as friends.

Ah, or until the parent company that you have ZERO control over decides to change their TOS and keep all your shit anyway and even make it public, or use it themselves. Of course, that's never happened before, right? Riiight.

Just remember you own two things on Facebook. Jack and Shit. And Jack was just sold off and shut down.

...Facebook could just threaten to block UK users, posting the contact info of various government officials so you can complain to them for forcing FB into such a situation. Facebook is easily large enough for that kind of stunt to actually work.

Yeah, funny thing about biting the hand that feeds you, especially the Gov-hand that can control large ISP connections. It's a two-way street, and in the end Facebook will need customers a lot more than ANY Government will need Facebook.

Soldiers, Politicians and...

[Anonymous Coward]

Members of the security services too.

So you can't legally take a picture at

Buckingham Palace (always a few cops & soldies about)
Parliament Square (cops and sometimes a politician or two)
etc
etc
etc

I am thinking of writing to the Aldershot Garrison Commander about the legality of taking pictures at the Army Show in July (I have a family member taking part) Under current laws, ANYONE with a CAMERA could be tossed in the back of a van and deposited in Belmarsh for 28days, no questions asked, no right to a lawyer unless they are approved by MI5/MI6 etc etc etc.

Role on the next election (ok I hope that the tories might just repeal some the NuLabs crazy laws)

Makes sense to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree with what they're doing but the government has already decided that is going to keep records of who people are communicating with. They already have plans to do this for email but since Facebook is becoming a popular alternative to email it makes sense that they'd stretch the laws to include contact through other mediums.

That being said I think this is a good example of why this new "super database" will do nothing to stop serious organised crime but will do plenty to keep tabs on the general law abiding public. People can get around it by using another form of communication. They've included social networking sites because lots of people use them. But there's nothing to stop people setting up something similar that's outside the scope where data is collected.