in the UK you can buy an unlocked 64Gb iPhone 4 for £599. The equivalent iPod Touch is £329.
There are more differences between the iPod touch and the iPhone than just the phone components: GPS, compass, battery capacity. In the previous generation the touch was also missing the cameras and microphone.
OK, that's still less than £270 worth but the difference is closed somewhat.
The law concerned is national, but to qualify as child pornography it would have to be "posed" and in a sexual context. (or an image of, or apparently of, sexual interaction with a child). But good luck in trying to persuade a magistrate (not a jury!) that an image that the prosecutor claims to meet that description doesn't really.
Actually this has been quite widely publicised in the national press (OK, not the top story, but...) and broadcast news. I'd bet also that the local paper has had about a 3-page story starting on the front page.
Which is odd, as one of the design goals for DAB was that the receiver should be able to move freely throughout the broadcast area and always get a signal, automatically switching to the strongest available transmitter whenever it changes.
In fact it was designed so that multiple transmitters could broadcast the same signal on the same frequency without multipath problems. Which is great - except that the regulatory authorities require each transmitter to uniquely identify itself which means they cannot broadcast identical bit streams and thus that mechanism just doesn't work.
"Is government regulation anything to do with this? "
Not really, it is more that the bundle of "intellectual property" licenses you need to build a DAB radio is a significant cost.
At least until very recently it was about £10 a unit... it must have come down a bit or they couldn't make a £20 set (unless there is some sort of kick-back in operation)
When I started work as a computer programmer the Supercomputer of the time was the CDC6600 which had just taken the crown from the Ferranti Atlas.
When I took early retirement about 7 years ago, I often carried four devices which each needed about the power of the 6600 to function effectively:
A mobile phone
An MP3 player
A PDA (mainly used as an ebook reader)
A GPS (OK, I didn't carry this all that often)
A composer/researcher was using our University Mainframe (not quite that powerful) to produce music - his jobs typically ran for a whole 8 hour nightshift with an output of some 30 seconds of "music".
If that approach were to be applied to the "analogue switchoff" in UK radio then it would have to be delayed until Philips relinquished, or at least freed, their bundle of patents that puts about £10 on every DAB radio.
One other section of the Bill enables the "Analogue Radio" switch-off - all the main stations will have to broadcast on DAB only. So a well known multinational will get some £10 per new radio in patent and other IP licences.
It'll be annoying to lose access to the letters page (and make it even less likely that I'll ever get a letter published there), but I won't be paying 100 quid a year and I'll be "wasting" 5 minutes less each day reading that.
Nothing seems to change... 30 years ago it was a standard joke that most "fundamental particles" were bugs in the Fortran programs of the day.
I wouldn't be surprised to discover that some of the programs inestigated are just the result of 30 years of further modification of the ones we knew... and that nobody understands them now!
No, if the cops come visiting they will collect every item that could contain a key - they WILL obtain both the pseudokey and the real one (yes, there are lots of places you could hide a micro-SD card - but finding one well hidden will really set off the alarm bells). Having both they can decrypt the real to the real original. PC Plod may not be the brightest chap you've met, but he ain't an idiot either. If you have "protected" something with mechanisms disproportionately strong he will get sufficiently suspicious to get a real expert to examone. (Oh, and he is probably only going to have the budget to have your machines properly examined if he is already pretty sure what information is there... "fishing expeditions" do not make evidence inadmissible in this country - but they do consume scarce resources and thus are difficult for the police to justify to their (budget-holding) superiors). A cipher system not only needs a secure key, it needs secure methods of handling it.
This doesn't work for two reasons: 1) The definition of "key" in the law is essentially so general as to mean all the keys needed to translate the encrypted file into the readable original. 2) GCHQ are certainly competent-enough cryptanalysts to be able to break that - essentially the real key can be extracted by testig each file to which you have easy access... probably can be done in less than 1 day with modest hardware, much faster with the toys that they have at their disposal.
Unfortunately, succeeding in the very difficult task of proving that a program correctly meets its specification just pushes the whole problem back to proving that the specification itself is correct. In the "real world" the latter is rarely (never?) the case. I did put this point to Prof Dijkstra at one of his lectures but never got a satisfactory answer.
"The only reason (the script) can see that data is to target the biggest accounts first,' he said."
That depends on the objective and tactics of the attacker: Although the obvious assumption is that the attacker wishes to gain as much money as possible with a minimal chance of being caught, it may be that (s)he is less greedy and/or more cautious.
Suppose that your target is a total of, say, $200K rather than the assumed multi-millions. You are far less likely to be caught or to trigger money-laundering precautions. In a case like this your best strategy might well be to go for above-average but not top 10% balances.
Similarly, if you ARE going for the maximum while still hoping your chance of being caught is low, it may well be worth steering clear of the very highest balances as they could be more closely monitored (and some of them are probably "honeypots").
Similarly, the cost to store and archive this will be immense. Especially the physical space to contain all those disk drives. In turn that will require a substantial manpower to maintain the installation. Do the salesmen who are persuading the civil servants to advise the ministers to do such things actually realise the implications (other than commission beyond their dreams of avarice)
Only 5,25"? what about the original 8"? (actually, it is possible to get controllers that handle all sizes of floppy: 8" SD, DD, SS DS, soft or hard sectored (but the latter may need some fancy software to decode); 5.25" SD,DD,HD, SS, DS (the Apple ones will also need some special software as will BBC and SWTPC); 3.5" fewer variations, but still a lot; Two different (and incompatible) 3.25" drives; and I think at least one format of 2.5" got released before FLASH cards took over.... and that is only floppies - then we can go onto at least a dozen tape forms (not counting audio cassette formats): Reel-to-reel 0.5" 7 or 9 track, NRZI or PE; QIC in a huge number of different types; 8mm (Exabyte) in 3 versions; and DLT and its successors (about 8 forms).
PGP doesn't help - this is a traffic-analysis database - only(!) collecting address (and possibly size) data not content (even for SMSs). As it is it will be too big to try speculative "fishing trips" and probably too big for any searches to be affordable for any but the most serious cases (like putting the wrong items in a recycling bin - wish I WAS joking). It will also be too big to backup.
For a while when I was employed by the IT department of a relatively small University I had to spend some time analysing the logs we took of all web accesses (who fetched which web page) to discover who was accessing pron or other items in contravention of our conditions of usage. It was not a job I enjoyed or thought necessary*, but even for less than 4000 users it needed near-supercomputer processing power to handle one days traffic in reasonable time. To search all the corresponding data for (say) 20 million users of landline, mobile, and VOIP phones plus email plus SMS plus web access plus IM (bet they've forgotten that) is going to need ridiculous amounts of power - even by GCHQ standards.
* we did catch two nursing students accessing child-porn (but not via this method), and about two students a week going beyond reasonable limits in accessing "forbidden" material and it did have a useful side-effect of pointing me at anything that was new and interesting (because lots of people suddenly started accessing it). But it really was a waste of time and resources.
This looks like it is going to be exactly the same for the UK Security Services.
Slashdot Mirror
Or even Algol 68
in the UK you can buy an unlocked 64Gb iPhone 4 for £599. The equivalent iPod Touch is £329.
There are more differences between the iPod touch and the iPhone than just the phone components:
GPS, compass, battery capacity. In the previous generation the touch was also missing the cameras and microphone.
OK, that's still less than £270 worth but the difference is closed somewhat.
1) Create a set of objects representing the letters of the alphabet.
2) Produce as many of these as necessary
3) Use to form words bypassing the chat censorship
4) ????
5) Profit!!!
The law concerned is national, but to qualify as child pornography it would have to be "posed" and in a sexual context.
(or an image of, or apparently of, sexual interaction with a child).
But good luck in trying to persuade a magistrate (not a jury!) that an image that the prosecutor claims to meet that description doesn't really.
Actually this has been quite widely publicised in the national press (OK, not the top story, but ...) and broadcast news.
I'd bet also that the local paper has had about a 3-page story starting on the front page.
The Eken M001 - also an Android tablet can be easily obtained on eBay for just over $100.
But I don't recommend it, either. The hardware ought to be capable of reasonable response - but the software is so slow as to be ~unusable.
Which is odd, as one of the design goals for DAB was that the receiver should be able to move freely throughout the broadcast area and always get a signal, automatically switching to the strongest available transmitter whenever it changes.
In fact it was designed so that multiple transmitters could broadcast the same signal on the same frequency without multipath problems.
Which is great - except that the regulatory authorities require each transmitter to uniquely identify itself which means they cannot broadcast identical bit streams and thus that mechanism just doesn't work.
"Is government regulation anything to do with this? "
Not really, it is more that the bundle of "intellectual property" licenses you need to build a DAB radio is a significant cost.
At least until very recently it was about £10 a unit ... it must have come down a bit or they couldn't make a £20 set (unless there is some sort of kick-back in operation)
Just think of it as a Philips tax :-(
Is it wise to put the md5 hash of a mission statement that is likely to be subject to frequent change on a logo which should not?
When I started work as a computer programmer the Supercomputer of the time was the CDC6600 which had just taken the crown from the Ferranti Atlas.
When I took early retirement about 7 years ago, I often carried four devices which each needed about the power of the 6600 to function effectively:
A mobile phone
An MP3 player
A PDA (mainly used as an ebook reader)
A GPS (OK, I didn't carry this all that often)
A composer/researcher was using our University Mainframe (not quite that powerful) to produce music - his jobs typically ran for a whole 8 hour nightshift with an output of some 30 seconds of "music".
If that approach were to be applied to the "analogue switchoff" in UK radio then it would have to be delayed until Philips relinquished, or at least freed, their bundle of patents that puts about £10 on every DAB radio.
Hmmm, that's a good idea.
One other section of the Bill enables the "Analogue Radio" switch-off - all the main stations will have to broadcast on DAB only.
So a well known multinational will get some £10 per new radio in patent and other IP licences.
And note that is DAB, not DAB+
It'll be annoying to lose access to the letters page (and make it even less likely that I'll ever get a letter published there), but I won't be paying 100 quid a year and I'll be "wasting" 5 minutes less each day reading that.
Nothing seems to change ...
30 years ago it was a standard joke that most "fundamental particles" were bugs in the Fortran programs of the day.
I wouldn't be surprised to discover that some of the programs inestigated are just the result of 30 years of further modification of the ones we knew ... and that nobody understands them now!
I wonder what proportion use their telephone number?
Not easy to do a check on the data.
Compare that to the password "PIN" on your credit card. 4 digits, that's all
(perhaps 3 more for the validation code on the back)
Most of the web sites I access are likely to be of much lower value than my credit account.
Andy
Well a 1 in 14 million chance typically happens twice a week in the UK national lottery.
So - just maybe - the Roc may also have existed???
No, if the cops come visiting they will collect every item that could contain a key - they WILL obtain both the pseudokey and the real one (yes, there are lots of places you could hide a micro-SD card - but finding one well hidden will really set off the alarm bells). ... "fishing expeditions" do not make evidence inadmissible in this country - but they do consume scarce resources and thus are difficult for the police to justify to their (budget-holding) superiors).
Having both they can decrypt the real to the real original.
PC Plod may not be the brightest chap you've met, but he ain't an idiot either. If you have "protected" something with mechanisms disproportionately strong he will get sufficiently suspicious to get a real expert to examone. (Oh, and he is probably only going to have the budget to have your machines properly examined if he is already pretty sure what information is there
A cipher system not only needs a secure key, it needs secure methods of handling it.
Andy
This doesn't work for two reasons: ... probably can be done in less than 1 day with modest hardware, much faster with the toys that they have at their disposal.
1) The definition of "key" in the law is essentially so general as to mean all the keys needed to translate the encrypted file into the readable original.
2) GCHQ are certainly competent-enough cryptanalysts to be able to break that - essentially the real key can be extracted by testig each file to which you have easy access
Andy
Unfortunately, succeeding in the very difficult task of proving that a program correctly meets its specification just pushes the whole problem back to proving that the specification itself is correct.
In the "real world" the latter is rarely (never?) the case.
I did put this point to Prof Dijkstra at one of his lectures but never got a satisfactory answer.
"The only reason (the script) can see that data is to target the biggest accounts first,' he said."
That depends on the objective and tactics of the attacker:
Although the obvious assumption is that the attacker wishes to gain as much money as possible with a minimal chance of being caught, it may be that (s)he is less greedy and/or more cautious.
Suppose that your target is a total of, say, $200K rather than the assumed multi-millions. You are far less likely to be caught or to trigger money-laundering precautions. In a case like this your best strategy might well be to go for above-average but not top 10% balances.
Similarly, if you ARE going for the maximum while still hoping your chance of being caught is low, it may well be worth steering clear of the very highest balances as they could be more closely monitored (and some of them are probably "honeypots").
Similarly, the cost to store and archive this will be immense. Especially the physical space to contain all those disk drives.
In turn that will require a substantial manpower to maintain the installation. Do the salesmen who are persuading the civil servants to advise the ministers to do such things actually realise the implications (other than commission beyond their dreams of avarice)
down to the good old 5.25" floppies.
Only 5,25"? what about the original 8"? ,DD ,HD, SS, DS (the Apple ones will also need some special software as will BBC and SWTPC); ... and that is only floppies - then we can go onto at least a dozen tape forms (not counting audio cassette formats):
(actually, it is possible to get controllers that handle all sizes of floppy:
8" SD, DD, SS DS, soft or hard sectored (but the latter may need some fancy software to decode);
5.25" SD
3.5" fewer variations, but still a lot;
Two different (and incompatible) 3.25" drives;
and I think at least one format of 2.5" got released before FLASH cards took over.
Reel-to-reel 0.5" 7 or 9 track, NRZI or PE;
QIC in a huge number of different types;
8mm (Exabyte) in 3 versions;
and DLT and its successors (about 8 forms).
But yet hardware could still be the easy part.
PGP doesn't help - this is a traffic-analysis database - only(!) collecting address (and possibly size) data not content (even for SMSs).
As it is it will be too big to try speculative "fishing trips" and probably too big for any searches to be affordable for any but the most serious cases (like putting the wrong items in a recycling bin - wish I WAS joking).
It will also be too big to backup.
For a while when I was employed by the IT department of a relatively small University I had to spend some time analysing the logs we took of all web accesses (who fetched which web page) to discover who was accessing pron or other items in contravention of our conditions of usage. It was not a job I enjoyed or thought necessary*, but even for less than 4000 users it needed near-supercomputer processing power to handle one days traffic in reasonable time. To search all the corresponding data for (say) 20 million users of landline, mobile, and VOIP phones plus email plus SMS plus web access plus IM (bet they've forgotten that) is going to need ridiculous amounts of power - even by GCHQ standards.
* we did catch two nursing students accessing child-porn (but not via this method), and about two students a week going beyond reasonable limits in accessing "forbidden" material and it did have a useful side-effect of pointing me at anything that was new and interesting (because lots of people suddenly started accessing it). But it really was a waste of time and resources.
This looks like it is going to be exactly the same for the UK Security Services.
Andy