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GCHQ Tried To Track Web Visits of "Every Visible User On Internet"
An anonymous reader writes with Ars Technica's story on the relevations reported today by The Intercept that the UK's GCHQ has been tracking World Wide Web users since 2007, with an operation called "Karma Police" -- "a program that tracked Web browsing habits of people around the globe in what the agency itself billed as the 'world's biggest' Internet data-mining operation, intended to eventually track 'every visible user on the Internet.'"
Article suggests "does". The sequence will go as follows, or similar, looking at web site visits, search queries, benefitting from LE access to Facebook etc to see instant messages:
- genuine national security threats
- interest in Islamism
- anti-establishment politicians and their most powerful supporters
- all remaining politicians, to keep them in line
- high stakes economic criminals
- campaigners against government policy or government-friendly business
- the most dangerous suspects of crime, e.g. murderers
- people involved in distributing child pornography
- users of anonymising services
- people who view any pornography that doesn't pass regulations
- posters to prominent or troublesome political forums
- pirates, yarhh!
- posts to Grauniad CIF or BBC HYS
Eventually nearly everyone is either under suspicion of committing at least one crime or has said something which taken out of context looks dangerous enough to warrant further investigation should anyone want to make their lives miserable in the future. The rest have said or viewed something embarrassing enough that (you were depressed once and looked for help? Furry porno watched one curious weekend? A racist rant... oh, you were just trolling?), should they ever become relevant in any way, the media will somehow find out.
Do you know anything about IT and the internet? Your post suggests otherwise.
This datamines via cookies. You consent to these (or not) via your browser. This is about the same as you walking down the street and deciding whether or not you care to dodge the cctv cameras watching you.
Windows 10 is your operating system and you have no idea what it does. How do I know this? Because I have no idea what it does. And I'm willing to bet 99% of Microsoft has no idea what the new telemetry of Windows 10 collects. This is the same as hiring a butler that watches everything you do over your shoulder and every 10 minutes, he speaks quietly into an encrypted walkie talkie and you have no idea what he's telling his association of butlers. But you do know one thing, which is that the NSA/GCHQ has access and power over this association.
So laugh away? Ha ha ha?
You cannot accuse much less convict people for something they haven't done yet. Once you do that, we're at despotism and there's nothing stopping them from convicting you or me for whatever reason. The laws have already been pushed too far. Why do you think it's time to abandon them? How likely are you to die in a "terror" event?
The whole point of the law is to ensure that everyone is guilty of something. That way, whenever you want to get some particular individual there is always something to catch him on.
You don't have to convict people for something they haven't done yet; theres always something they've done.
Why do you think there are so many laws and no one can be sure they aren't breaking one?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Just think of the possibilities if they had used all those resources for something useful instead of poking their noses into things that were none of their business in the first place!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The UK thinking on "would be far less far reaching than they are now and intelligence gathering could be much more targeted and effective." has evolved from the Ireland issues of small groups of people meeting without cell or set locations in the 1970-80's.
The solution was to track small groups of people down the the cell level and then offer each member a personal option: work for the UK intelligence services or not.
Over the years people where successfully advance up the cell structure exposing all existing and new cells they had command and control over.
Thats why the UK likes to watch everything and connect everything as it cannot be sure of how, where and when people of interest will meet and if they can even be observed without sat or other very costly and advanced platforms per person.
The "without further authorization" shows not much has changed from the 1920's or the classic Home Office Warrant (HOW) days. The pipes are fast, wide, always expanded as domestic and international data grows and collecting it all over every generation of optical upgrade.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"