Slashdot Mirror
Warehouse or No, UK's Expensive Net Spying Plan Proceeds
Vincent West writes with this excerpt from The Register: "Spy chiefs are already spending hundreds of millions of pounds on a mass internet surveillance system, despite Jacqui Smith's announcement earlier this week that proposals for a central warehouse of communications data had been dumped on privacy grounds. The system — uncovered today by The Register and The Sunday Times — is being installed under a GCHQ project called Mastering the Internet (MTI). It will include thousands of deep packet inspection probes inside communications providers' networks, as well as massive computing power at the intelligence agency's Cheltenham base, 'the concrete doughnut.'"
Which is perhaps better than its current intended use.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
I think the best way we can fight the intrusion of governments into the privacy of our communications will be to flood the system with false positives.
car bomb
Maybe someone could develop an @home project that sends random packets filled with keywords to other computers running the client.
attack at noon
The only way we are going to be able to keep governments in check is by fighting for our rights.
kill the president
I mean, if we don't fight the powers that be, who will fight for us?
sarin gas
I'm not sure how they plan on doing this, but it seems a little dangerous to have a system with so much power. What exactly is going to happen if someone manages to turn this into a botnet? Something that big could probably knock out the root servers. Does anyone have more information on the structure of the system? Who came up with this idea? How many experienced opinions were brought into the discussion? From what I've seen in my own local government, a lot of politicians have warped visions of how the internet actually works, and what the dangers are (see: A Series Of Tubes.) Really, this seems like a radical case of the client who has grand visions of his super awesome website idea, but actually has no idea what he ~really~ needs. It just seems dangerous to have non-experts on the subject mandating what we do with the net.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
Don't forget CC All Your E-mail to Jacqui Smith Day.
Hurry up and fuck off then. This is just another tired meme used on every story like this.
Some of us have already 'fucked off' precisely because of crap like this. 'If you don't like it then leave' is just another tired meme used by closet fascists on every story like this.
Anyone who chooses not to leave the UK when the government's police state ambitions are so blatant will hardly be able to complain when, if Labour win the next election, they're unable to leave because they're denied a passport or an exit visa.
The idea that a people could be responsible enough to choose their own leaders was, in those days, a pretty unlikely proposition. Hell, it seems daft enough now. But the idea that you could circumscribe the power of the monarch by creating a constitutional monarchy - that was a powerful idea and its importance should not be understated.
[FUCK BETA]
So someone tell me why they don't use this "massive computing power" to run scientific simulations that will benefit humanity instead of enslaving it?
The problem with running away instead of fighting something like this is what happens when other countries do this? Are you suggesting that people flee those countries as well?
What happens when there is nowhere left to flee to?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me