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BBC To Deploy Detection Vans To Snoop On Internet Users (telegraph.co.uk)
product_bucket writes: The BBC has been given permission to use a new technology to detect users of the iPlayer who do not hold a TV license. Researchers at University College London have apparently developed a method to identify specially crafted "packets" of data over an encrypted Wi-Fi link without needing to break the underlying encryption itself. TV Licensing (the fee-collecting arm of the BBC) has said the practice is under regular scrutiny by independent regulators, but declined to elaborate on how the technique works. Dr Miguel Rio, a computer network expert who helped to oversee the doctoral thesis, said: "They actually don't need to decrypt traffic, because they can already see the packets. They have control over the iPlayer, so they can ensure that it sends packets at a specific size, and match them up. They could also use directional antennae to ensure they are viewing the Wi-Fi operating within your property." The BBC has been given such authority through the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
I think it'll be quite obvious when I notice the cat5 snaking up from a parked van to my wired network. :)
Boo.
I think the UK has completely lost it's mind! Here's a novel idea that's so much simpler and how we approach it in Canada. Here we have the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) which is pretty much the same thing as the BBC - aka publicly funded TV, Radio, and Media. It is funded by the Federal taxes of all Canadian tax payers. Regardless of whether you use the CBC or not, you're paying for it. No special taxes that people must specifically pay, no special enforcement (except for maybe geo-ip), and no white vans running around snooping wifi traffic (which, here would be illegal) thanks to our Charter of Rights and Freedoms (something the UK DESPERATELY NEEDS). The UK people really get the shaft with their government and it's constant big brother mantra and it's excessive need to invade the lives of its people.
Can someone from the UK please explain to me the reason a 'TV' license still exists? It's not the 1950's!
The old TV detector vans were a hoax to scare people into getting a TV licence. Enforcement was actually done by visiting addresses with no record of a licence. This is another con.
Right, Viv - eat the WiFi!
Tory policy since Thatcher has been to squeeze and mis-manage public services deliberately until the public tips in favour of privatisation. If you don't think this fucking ridiculous claim is an extension of that, you're either young or have newly immigrated.
The BBC needs more Clarkson and less political correctness.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Honestly, while I'm not British, I do have to agree with the view that this is a half-assed way of having a public service--just tax everybody, if you're going to do it at all. Ignoring the fact that they are flat-out admitting to engaging to mass surveillance--and assuming their claims are the complete and accurate truth--it still raises some serious questions on if the BBC's programming needs to be changed if enough people can be caught by the vans to hit the break-even point.
If the vans can't hit the break-even point? It's an unjustifiable waste of public money, and the fig leaf of justification for invading the public's privacy ought to depend on it not being that.
Meanwhile, if the vans are doing anything other than exactly what they're claiming they're doing? It is an unjustifiable invasion of privacy, and we can know this precisely because they're not admitting to it.
Personally? I figure it's not even going to be passing the 'does only what they claim it does' test, and wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if monitoring for people streaming vid is at the bottom of the vans' priorities...