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Every Email In UK To Be Monitored
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:08 PM
from the what-are-you-writing dept.
from the what-are-you-writing dept.
ericcantona writes "The Communications Data Bill (2008) will lead to the creation of a single, centralized database containing records of all e-mails sent, websites visited and mobile phones used by UK citizens. In a carnivore-on-steroids programme, as all vestiges of communication privacy are stripped away, The BBC reports that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says this is a 'necessity.'"
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Mobile: Passport Required To Buy Mobile Phones In the UK 388 comments
David Gerard points out a Times Online story that says:
"Everyone [in the UK] who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance. Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society. A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say."
We've recently discussed other methods the UK government is using to keep track of people within its borders, such as ID cards for foreigners and comprehensive email surveillance.
[+]
UK Outlines Plan For Internet Black Boxes 419 comments
RobotsDinner writes "In what sounds like a dystopian sci-fi plot, the Home Office has made public plans to outfit the country's Internet with upstream data recorders to log pretty much everything that passes through. 'Under Government plans to monitor internet traffic, raw data would be collected and stored by the black boxes before being transferred to a giant central database. The vision was outlined at a meeting between officials from the Home Office and Internet Service Providers earlier this week.'"
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That's it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm out of here!
Fuck the UK!
Re:That's it (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:That's it (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck the US!
No, fuck the THEM!
Parent
In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Gotcha! (Score:5, Funny)
If you're using snail-mail you must have something to hide!
Parent
Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
It really disturbs me that the plots in various movies, video games, and books that would have been considered "out there" or "couldn't happen" are gradually becoming true.
Obvious ones (which I've mentioned in a related post a few weeks ago): V for Vendetta and 1984.
Disturbingly accurate: Mirror's Edge. From the Mirror's Edge Wikipedia Article: [wikipedia.org]
The game's name derives from the mirror-like aesthetic of the city of tall, gleaming skyscrapers and Faith's existence on the fringes of that city along with other dissidents, who have been pushed to the edge.
Though set in a seemingly utopian city environment with low crime, clean streets, and sterile architecture, it is ruled by a totalitarian government regime that conducts unbridled levels of surveillance on citizens. [emphasis added.] In this world of communications monitoring, the only way to deliver confidential information between parties is to employ couriers (called runners) to physically deliver the information.
Granted, it's more likely that drivers, bicycle messengers, etc. would be used in our current era, but I imagine even vehicles will eventually be surveilled and controlled. "We need to be able to watch people in their cars so we know they're driving safely." "We need to be able to remotely shut off cars in case it is stolen or if someone is driving drunk." etc.
I wonder how they'd handle couriers delivering information to circumvent this system.
tl;dr: cute Asian mailwomen will backflip off of walls to get your letter to grandma.
Parent
Unbelievable (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the cameras were bad enough, but this goes far, far beyond anything remotely reasonable. If they do this, they should have no problem listening to every phone call, opening up every piece of mail and package. In fact, they should just put microphones in every house, restaurant, bus and automobile.
Next year, they'll want to plant RFID into every person.
Is the UK government and authorities completely without morales? Or are they this > close to being destroyed by some threat? Or are they incompetent? Or all of the above?
Re:Unbelievable (Score:5, Insightful)
If they do this, they should have no problem listening to every phone call, opening up every piece of mail and package. In fact, they should just put microphones in every house, restaurant, bus and automobile.
Don't forget the telescreens, not just cameras. The UK is part of Oceania, ya know.
Parent
Morales no longer employed by UK (Score:5, Funny)
Q: Is the UK government and authorities completely without morales?
A: Lead Programmer Jose Morales left the program recently for a position at Yahoo China. Many pundits claim that without him the implementation of the Communications Data Bill will fail as no one can read his code and his commenting mostly consisted of rambling diatribes against the IMF.
Parent
Re:Unbelievable (Score:5, Funny)
Completely. And I won't hesitate to mention that if you think a Mexican could break into politics in the UK, you're raving mad.
Parent
PGP... (Score:5, Informative)
PGP.
Re:PGP... (Score:5, Interesting)
GPG plugins for Mail.app and Thunderbird are at the point now that it's basically set it and forget it, come on folks. (I don't so much like the GPG Outlook plugins, but maybe I haven't messed with it enough)
Parent
This article is misleading (Score:5, Informative)
This is quite misleading. According to the linked article, the program will only log traffic information, not message content. This may not be good, but it is a far cry from stripping away "all vestiges of communication privacy", and it means that it is not comparable to Carnivore, which actually would log message content.
It's a slippery slope... (Score:5, Insightful)
How long before somebody thinks it's "necessary" to see the content as well?
Parent
Forcible decryption (Score:5, Informative)
Made worse by UK statute giving the police the authority to order the disclosure of encryption keys or the decryption of encrypted data.
Yay fifth amendment and subsequent interpretations equating disclosing cipher keys with self-incrimination!
This makes me proud to be an American. (Score:5, Funny)
Joe the Plumber is laughing his ass off at you Brits.
Who can view this database? (Score:5, Insightful)
If this database were publicly accessible, and could be used by anyone to monitor the communications of anyone (like in David Brin's The Transparent Society [wikipedia.org]) then I might not object to this sort of system. It could just as easily be used by the people to find government corruption as it could be used by the government to prosecute individuals.
However, if the database could be used only by a few to monitor anyone, then this is clearly incompatible with the concept of a free country.
Movie quote. (Score:5, Insightful)
"People should not be afraid of their government, instead a government should be afraid of its people."
Look for the key words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Orwellian down to the doublespeak:
There are no plans for an enormous database which will contain the content of your emails, the texts that you send or the chats you have on the phone or online.
Translation: We might build one now, we might build one later. We might already be building one, just without a plan.
See? No lies, just no plans!
Nor are we going to give local authorities the power to trawl through such a database in the interest of investigating lower level criminality under the spurious cover of counter terrorist legislation.
In other words: There's going to be a database, but only available to those sufficiently high up in the government. Not to local authorities. What a relief!
If you think I'm being too harsh, read again. If there's not going to be such a database, why would she go on to talk about who should have or not have access to such a database?
Some of the commentary on the speech is at least as disturbing as the speech itself:
The raw idea of simply handing over all this information to any government, however benign, and sticking it in an electronic warehouse is an awful idea if there are not very strict controls about it.
How'd you fall this far, Britain?
So, to translate: It's actually a fine idea, so long as there are sufficiently strict controls. I wonder who gets to decide how strict those controls should be.
And who controls the controllers, so to speak?
More of the same:
The government must present convincing justification for such an exponential increase in the powers of the state.
Again: A giant database of every email ever sent, from now till forever, in Britain, is alright so long as there's sufficient justification.
At least someone has the balls to take a stand:
These proposals are incompatible with a free country and a free people.
Amen.
You have suggested... (Score:5, Funny)
Your post advocates a
(*) technical (*) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting terrorism. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from dictatorship to dictatorship before a bad federal law was passed.)
(*) Terrorists can easily encrypt their email
( ) Other legitimate email users would be affected
( ) It will stop terrorists for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
[...] anybody feeling ambitious? :)
There's a BBC show about this... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, apparently some people in the UK care enough to get the word out. These tools are being entrusted to people who don't get it.
It's like giving a nuclear-powered car filled with laser-armed sharks to your local branch of Neo-Nazis. (Sorry, had to get the triple analogy in there)
From the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith ... promised that the content of conversations would not be stored, just times and dates of messages and calls.
I don't trust her any farther than I could throw her, but even if I did, promises mean jack squat. Even if she happens to be the most honest, unabusive
person that exists, there will be someone that abuses this.
That's why the American Founding Fathers had it straight on. If men were angels, there would be no need for government. If angels governed men, there would be no issue.
But since men govern men, this fact must be acknowledged, and governments given as little power as possible over people.
Re:Police state bullshit. (Score:5, Informative)
yes they can. theyve locked up the liquid bombers for exactly that sort of thing. conspiring to commit murder.
Parent
Re:Police state bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's dumb as a box of hair. Better to say:
Hey, dude. You looked the BOMB when I saw you at the STATION. Hope you look the BOMB when I see you at 11:17am at King Cross. Don't forget to bring your BOMB the Bass CD. Then OSAMA will pick us up and GUN the engine of his car and take us through LONDON as we BOMB along the M25.
I'm more concerned about how large the scope of this will be. Once again the here and now is bad enough, but what about in the future?
Parent
Re:Time for a new protocol (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently they're only logging origin and recipient. So PGP isn't going to help you.
They claim that's all they're logging. Even if that were the case, it sets a dangerous precedent.
Parent