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Sir Tim Berners-Lee Accuses UK Government of "Draconian Internet Snooping"
An anonymous reader writes "According to British daily The Telegraph, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has warned that plans to monitor individuals' use of the internet would result in Britain losing its reputation as an upholder of web freedom. The plans, by Home Secretary Theresa May, would force British ISPs and other service providers to keep records of every phone call, email and website visit in Britain. Sir Tim has told the Times: 'In Britain, like in the US, there has been a series of Bills that would give government very strong powers to, for example, collect data. I am worried about that.' Sir Tim has also warned that the UK may wind up slipping down the list of countries with the most Internet freedom, if the proposed data-snooping laws pass parliament. The draft bill extends the type of data that internet service providers must store for at least 12 months. Providers would also be required to keep details of a much wider set of data, including use of social network sites, webmail and voice calls over the internet." Jimmy Wales doesn't seem to be a very big fan of the UK snooping either.
Google already collects all this data and much more. They have analytics and various scripts like jquery embedded on around 99.9% sites. Facebook handles the rest. With Google closely working with NSA and other agencies, who cares? They already have the data right there. Google is officially the internets big brother, already!
Right to privacy? Nope. Freedom of Speech? Nope.
Although I think all the conspiracy theorists are crazy, the new world order is the eventual coalescence of the violation of inalienable rights and it's frequency of occurence across all nations.
Data collection/mining/snooping/browser profiling is so commonplace that pointing the finger in one direction seems almost wrong.
Your data is already being sold to advertisers by your phone company, by any form you filled in your details, by any "free!" email account etc. So many different companies and bodies are collecting data and personally identifiable information that we're becoming apathetic to it.
We need strong legislation and standards to make sure data collection is kept to a necessary minimum without infringing any further on privacy.
Some think an alternative to missing legislation is obfuscation of data. This requires a bit of an effort to give deliberate misleading details, temporary emails, use proxy IPs. This is not feasible for the vast majority.
We, the people, must strongly voice our discontent about such matters. Let's remind government officials that although the MAFIAA buys them lunch, it has a price.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Which "reputation as an upholder of web freedom" would that be? The one based on them censoring Wikipedia for showing an album cover? Or the one where you have to hand over encryption keys or be thrown in jail?
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
Even if you're not happy running an exit node, you can help speed up the Tor network by running a relay. All traffic through a relay is encrypted and kept within the Tor network, so you remain unidentifiable. It also helps obscure when you yourself are using Tor.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
There are also a large number of Irish people, a significant fraction of which used to sympathise with the the IRA..... .and we managed to resolve that issue without panopticon surveillance and giving up our human rights.
no taxation without representation!
Good luck with logging social network use. Facebook and Twitter at least seem to use https by default for me. Unless ISPs can force people to download trusted certificates for a proxy that decrypts, logs, then re-encrypts their facebook usage, they won't be seeing much.
Incidentally, I run my own mail server. I relay my mail through it using TLS, and it too uses opportunistic encryption when contacting other SMTP servers. My ISP sees nothing but encrypted data going past. Many public SMTP servers now are supporting opportunistic encryption and supports 256 bit encryption (in fact, if you want to pass a PCI-DSS ASV scan, then if your mail server supports encryption it must disable all weak ciphers).
(Disclaimer: I don't live in the UK, but I do live in a British crown territory - whether a similar law is passed here is not guaranteed, for example we don't have anything like the RIP Act)
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
"According to British daily The Telegraph, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has warned that plans to monitor individuals' use of the internet would result in Britain losing its reputation as an upholder of web freedom."
...
I assumed there was someone monitoring my use of the Internet, which is why I've always been cautious, at least with my home usage
AccountKiller
We've never had any bother from the Muslims here, at all.
Apart from the 77 bombings, the Glasgow Airport attack, the Exetrer bomb attack, shoe bomber and dozens of failed attempts and arrests.
The Australian Government is doing the same thing:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/04/1825205/australian-attorney-general-pushes-ahead-with-govt-web-snooping
For the first time in history people can communicate freely en masse and it scares them.
The source of this junk law is the European Union. It just so happens that the UK has implemented this directive. Others will follow suit if they haven't already!
"On 15 March 2006 the European Union adopted the Data Retention Directive, on "the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC".[1][2] The Directive requires Member States to ensure that communications providers retain, for a period of between 6 months and 2 years, necessary data as specified in the Directive"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention#European_Union
The Glasgow airport "attack" wasn't terrorism, it was two drunk Asian kids crashing a car. It happens all the time in Renfrew, it's a rough area.
The Glasgow airport "attack" wasn't terrorism, it was two drunk Asian kids crashing a car. It happens all the time in Renfrew, it's a rough area.
I suppose they all plant car bombs in London before-hand, fill their cars with petrol and propane tanks, and that if they survive are Jailed for life for planned mass murder?
The only significant terrorist attacks in the UK have been carried out by white Christians .. We've never had any bother from the Muslims here, at all.
Talk about selective memory.. have you missed the last 10 years or so?
Does this not count as significant in your books?!
"The 7 July 2005 London bombings conducted by four separate Islamist extremist suicide bombers, killing 56 people and injuring 700."
Oh that? Hardly significant. Give me a shout when they get to multiple thousands, like the American-funded Irish terrorists.
What *you* have to realise that apart from the 77 bombings which were reasonably effective they were all pretty pitiful. The IRA terrorists really knew how to do terrorism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Manchester_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Park_and_Regent's_Park_bombings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Docklands_bombing
But even those were nothing. You have to remember that our grandparents and parents lived through this. Nothing since has been comparable in anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz
The whole point of terrorism is to instil terror. *NOT* to kill people. That's a side effect. While you react to them they're winning. So don't react. As Ben Franklin said, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
The 77 bomings were marginally effective. They killed people, but not very many (sucks for those people and their relatives, bit it's small compared to almost anything else) and certainly less than the IRA could muster. It also killed off the few compentent ones.
The other attacks proved utterly worthless. At best, the terrorists managed to hurt themselves, or get beaten up by passengers (with some considerable relish, I might add).
Otherwise, they served to demonstrate that London has truly effective traffic wardens: you put as car bomb in a no parking zone, then it will get towed waway ASAP.
Oh yeah and they managed to kill a man by the name of Jean Charles De Menizes.
Oh no wait, that was the police. Then they lied about it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's hardly worth being a technical specialist in the British secret world. The real reason that Thatcher wanted Spycatcher banned was because it revealed just how badly technical experts were treated in comparison with the Old Etonians, and might have dampened recruitment. Here's a hint: If you are any good, you can easily earn more teaching maths in a UK secondary school than you can being a codebreaker for the Secret Services. No, I can't prove it, but I have good reason to believe it.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
What does this have to do with anything? Because you believe there are terrorists that means we should spy on everyone?
Same justification for the TSA. I'd say freedom is far more important than safety, and anyone who would give it up is extraordinarily credulous.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!