BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance

Subject: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 04 Nov 15 - 02:28 PM

As many British people will know, the Government has proposed introducing a 'Investigatory Powers Bill'

Whilst there's much I don't agree with, I find the responses to The Guardian Article somewhat astonishing.

"The end of civilization", "Totalitarianism", "Police State" are the kind of comments that many are making.

It's very bizarre. There are many simple ways to circumvert it. Not even bothering VPN or TOR. Much easier ones are available, if you bother to think for a bit...

Any thoughts?

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: DMcG
Date: 04 Nov 15 - 03:07 PM

I haven't read the article but the ease with which it could be avoided is actually the biggest problem. It means we keep tabs on everyone except the ones we really need to (though I accept we will also track the bit players who are not organised enough)

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 04 Nov 15 - 03:32 PM

Do any of us really think the various governments of the world haven't already been doing this for years?

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: DMcG
Date: 04 Nov 15 - 04:18 PM

Just ploughed through the draft and it could be much worse. I agree, Raggy, that most governments do this. The biggest thing wrong with earlier versions was just how many people were able to make use of the information, but this version seems to be for a much more restricted set of people, which makes it less problematic. Of course, once the system is in place, extending it to other parties will always be a temptation.

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 04 Nov 15 - 08:07 PM

This is GOOD.

Bravo for the UK ! ! !

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

And just to think...it all began with free musicians...performing free...songs that should be free.

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Nov 15 - 02:12 AM

It has probably been carried out for years. It is all about controlling the masses

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 Nov 15 - 02:31 AM

They're just legalising something they've done for years anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: GUEST,😇
Date: 05 Nov 15 - 08:17 AM

I suppose by monitoring everybody else's internet browsing
it saves them the effort of tirelessly searching on their own initiative for the best p@rn sites...

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Nov 15 - 08:31 AM

I won't comment on this thread because they might be watching....

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Nov 15 - 08:38 AM

that most governments do this.

So does Microsoft with Windows 10.

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: Mr Red
Date: 06 Nov 15 - 04:06 AM

All this amazement and no-one 7 years or more ago raised an eyebrow. I read a small article at the time in the Torygraph (I never buy it) to the effect that this was mandated for all internet providers and all phone networks to keep records of all source and destination numbers/URLs and more sinister - locations. I don't remember the time limit, possibly 6 months, perhaps in the guise of increasing that to 1 year they have slipped in a clause about "tapping".

If you want drug and people traffickers to be dealt with, dangerous drivers brought to justice - well? How ya gonna do it? Police breathalise you after an accident, ask for your mobile phone, well how many people do you know who still risk it on both counts? As an old colleague many years ago said "Honest people have nothing to fear from harsh laws". If that discomforts you - try the alternatives, the Mafia have ways you know!

Here are a few TED.com speakers on how they dealt with it, yer gotta admire their chutzpa:
FBI hassle, the sequel!
German phone company data requested
If you worry about US/UK snooping try the Stassi for size
When they watch you they HAVE to listen - so....

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 06 Nov 15 - 11:36 AM

Greg F.: "that most governments do this.
So does Microsoft with Windows 10."

Think they may be working in conjunction with each other?
...or, who's working for who?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: Stanron
Date: 07 Nov 15 - 05:41 AM

I sometimes wonder if you are all just having a laugh. Can't any of you do numbers? They don't want to look at everybody's internet history all the time. To do that they would need a staff as large as the number of people using the internet just to keep in present time , never mind history.

What they want to do is examine the records of selected people. The number of records that will be examined will be a small fraction of 1% of all records available. They are not going to be checking on whether you looked at some porn three weeks ago. I don't know how many staff they have in these days of cutbacks but the amount of records that can be examined is limited. Chill out.

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: DMcG
Date: 07 Nov 15 - 06:33 AM

That's not quite so, Stanron. If by 'looking' you restrict yourself to a person examining them then I'd go along with you. But every record will be looked at through various analyses and automated processes without a person being actively involved, just as every credit card transaction is now subject to checks for 'abnormal activity' to try and eliminate as much fraud as possible. There are not masses of people in some benighted part of the world looking at each transaction and assessing it.

I think most people that credit card checking is A Good Thing, even though it can spot that a person placed a subscription to a porn site. But it does become problematical because the algorithms are subject to both false negatives and false positives. In the case of credit cards, the false positive is usually just your card being blocked and the inconvenience as it becomes unblocked. False positives in the Internet trails do two kinds of damage: it can trigger a full investigation into someone even who is completely innocent which is probably little more than an inconvenience. More seriously they distract resources from more worthwhile investigations.

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 07 Nov 15 - 11:44 AM

Mr. Red....great TED links.

Here is my summary of the four you listed:

# 1 Hasan Elahi - University Professor mistakenly placed on FBI watch list.

Questioned for six months he then decided to flood the FBI with information ; every minute detail of his life. Tens of thousands of photos, meals eaten, airports and beds and toilets and receipts were emailed. Multiple blogs were created and he opened his phone for GPS tracking. One of his blogs shows where he is at every moment with photos.... TrackingTransience.net ... He says: "By putting everything about me out there, I am simultaneously telling everything and nothing about my life."






#2 Malte Spitz -German Green Party politician

Persisted until the phone company gave him the records they had about him. He received 34,000 lines of code. His message: He concludes with an exhortation to the audience: "When you go home, tell your friends that privacy is a value of the 21st century and it is not outdated," he urges. "When you go home, tell your representative that just because state agencies and companies have the possibility to store information, they don't have to do it. And if you don't believe me, ask your phone company what information they store about you.


#3. Hubertus Knabe - Historian -STASI East German Police between 1945 and 1989

He was investigated because he smuggled forbidden books from West to East Germany
Why did the Stasi collect all this information in its archives? The main purpose was to control the society. The goal was to destroy secretly the self-confidence of people, for example by damaging their reputation, by organizing failures in their work, and by destroying their personal relationships. The Stasi didn't try to arrest every dissident. It preferred to paralyze them.... these instruments can be abused, and that is something where we really have to be aware to stop that, and that also the intelligence services are respecting the rules we have.



#4. Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter - Artists in Berlin

NSA and GCHQ mounted antennas to the roofs of the American and British embassies to spy on the German governmental district in Berlin. If people are spying on us," Jud says, "it stands to reason that they have to listen to what we are saying." Wachter and Jud started the "Can you hear me?" project, mounting antennas on the roofs of the Swiss Embassy and the Academy of the Arts in Berlin that established an open network that allowed people to send anonymous text messages, emails and voice chats to those listening on the intercepted frequencies. They informed Chancellor Merkel about it. We named the project "Can You Hear Me?"   

The antennas created an open and free Wi-Fi communication network. It overwhelmed the listening system.   Some of the messages included:

04:12
"Hello world, hello Berlin, hello NSA, hello GCHQ.

04:23
"This is the NSA. In God we trust. All others we track!!!!!"

04:38
"This is the NSA's Achilles heel. Open Networks."

04:47
"@NSA My neighbors are noisy. Please send a drone strike."


.....................................................
Jud and Wachner also began "Hotel Galem" an opportunity to live, work, sleep and eat with the Roma people. "Gelem, Gelem" is the title of the official Romani hymn , and it means "I went a long way."

THANK YOU FOR POSTING THE TED LINKS...fascinating stuff I would have never found on my own.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Nov 15 - 04:48 PM

Was paranoid GUEST of 5 Nov 8.31 the same paranoid GUEST as the one on 5 Nov at 2.12?

I think we should be told!

≈M≈ is watching you!

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 Nov 15 - 06:13 PM

If you knew how the Internet and the WWW worked you would know that what you send can be intercepted at any node on the route. Do a tracert and see how many nodes your transmission goes through--and not all need be on earth. Do you seriously think that you have privacy here? Il est a rire!

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 01:23 AM

I am surveying you all, like I said above:

so "à rire", SVP, M Rapparee!!

≈M≈aka Medium-sized Brother

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 07:00 PM

gargoyle - TED.com is full of fascinating stuff. Do a search and you will be amazed. Personal stories, heart-rending some of them, to scientific opinion from luminaries, scary some of em, to just plain entertaining like Natalie McMaster doing her Cape Breton fiddling. Professional and more worthwhile than a night of 100 free to air channels pushing mental wallpaper.

Just a thought but when the UK logging of emails (etc) source & destination addresses started I sent an e-mail that took longer than all the others which also slowed down (days we are talking). Until I realised there were a few trigger words in there like encoding and cypher and maybe a terrorist or two. It made me think! And test it again. Can't say I came to any real conclusion, but ................

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 11:32 PM

Mr Red

There is a "philosophy" of "verbal judo."

The force of the assault is diverted or accelerated.

Your links are four brillant examples.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

It is hard to imagine what question to search. A friend and I gained an exclusiver tour of the "Ted Kohler House" before it opened ...based on a WSJ story and air-line ticket stubs

Subject: RE: BS: Proposed UK Internet surveillance
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 09 Nov 15 - 07:47 PM

In the USA we are celebrating "vetran's day" this week.


Sometime in the future, perhaps there will be a celabration for Snowden and Kevin Mitnick.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

> Both experienced pain/trouble/grief/loss while vanards in the world of global transparency