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Secret Irish Data Repository Uncovered 258

Posted by timothy from the pot-of-data dept.
topgold writes "During an initial public meeting yesterday, the Irish Justice Ministry revealed that for nearly a year, the Irish government has mandated all telecommunications operators store traffic information from every landline, fax and mobile phone call for at least three years. Irish Times journalist Karlin Lillington offers insights regarding this secret data retention regime in several national newspaper columns. A considerable citizen reaction is at the boiling point, stoked by a civil liberties discussion board and the rejuvenation of the Electronic Freedom Ireland citizen group. By law, the Irish government can deep-six any Cabinet discussions related to the 'deliberative process' and since this decision to retain phone records happened at Cabinet level, it could have remained hidden for more than five years."
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Secret Irish Data Repository Uncovered More

Secret Irish Data Repository Uncovered

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  • What were the techies doing? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jericho4.0 ( 565125 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:26AM (#5377600)
    I'm suprised that the ISP's did this for so long and the news didn't leak out.

    • probably madly swapping tapes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The Tyro ( 247333 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:42AM (#5377635)
      That's a truckload of data, even if it was just "traffic information."

      I wonder just what that means... "traffic information." Surely time, date, duration, initiating and receiving parties. I can't see them having too much beyond that... It should be a logistical impossibility to have any information about the content of all those messages... way too much data to sift through and catalog.

      Interesting that this was reportedly done by fiat.

    • Re:What were the techies doing? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The techies were probably just "obeying orders." Hey, they were getting paid. And is it such a big deal since it only effected the "bad people"?

      Hell during the crusades it was fashionable for people to walk around with blood past the elbows.

      They were just making the world a better place!
      • Hell during the crusades it was fashionable for people to walk around with blood past the elbows.

        The crusades were a war; valor in war was widely respected by those taking place in the war, be it Europeans trying to carve out kingdoms in the holy land or Native North Americans feuding amongst their own tribes.

        They were just making the world a better place!

        Odd that you pick the Crusades as an example of "a bad war," when they were started because of pilgrims being killed in the Holy Land--and the miliary strucutre was only there because Muslims tried to conquer Europe first.

    • You're suprised? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      then you must be a total moron!
      this stuff has been going on for years.. the only 'shock' here is that they actually admitted it. stupid idiots.

    • Re:Not ISPs, telcos (Score:5, Informative)

      by anticypher ( 48312 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <rehpycitna>> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @07:00AM (#5377837) Homepage
      Blogs pointing to blogs pointing to blogs. Not one scrap of technical detail, very little political detail, and only innuendo about gardai (police) involvement. Perfect /. fodder.

      Irish telcos, thats my old domain. What they are probably talking about is Call Detail Records from telephone switching equipment, SS7 data from SPs and STPs, lookups of SCP features, billing and customer data. The total amount of data is not that large, a few hundred megabytes per day for all landlines in a small market like Ireland. Mobile system switches can generate much more data, such as cell site handoffs, signal strength, power cycle events and SMS content. GSM/GPRS/UMTS data could total 4-6 Gbytes/day in a market with 2 million handsets.

      CDR data was normally kept for a legal minimum of 90 days past each billing cycle, to allow for customer service to deal with complaints. Any disputed data would be copied out of the dataset and kept with the customer record in case the problem took a long time to resolve.

      Typically, hard disk based CDR and customer records were kept for nine months before being moved to the recovery pool, and the disk/tape space would be recovered within a year. Billing and customer records are kept permanently, or at least ten years until they are unreadable by modern equipment (9 track, Wang magneto-microfiche, and other horrors)

      Immediately after the Omagh bombing, a copy of the complete datasets of all systems in the Republic and NI going back at least 10 months was made and turned over to the police and intelligence services. Combing through that data, the investigators were able to track the exact trips made by the usual suspects in the weeks before the bombing, the exact routes they took, and calls made from vehicle to vehicle in the convoy carrying the bomb south to Omagh. The BBC aired a report on all this about two years ago, much to the chagrin of the powers that be.

      This does not seem to concern ISPs, at least for the moment. The meeting seems to have been about who pays for longer data retention, and who pays for investigator access to the data. With a dozen requests per week to a telco for detailed records relating to various cases, it could take several experienced and expensive engineers most of their time. The Irish telcos, as well as ones in the U.S., have been trying to make Law Enforcement Access into a revenue centre. If a detective wants the complete calling history of a certain GSM phone, that could be a billable item. If a prosecutor wants additional data for a conviction, they'll have to dig into their budget and pay the telco for the data. The government wants to compel the telcos to provide this service in return for tax incentives, regulatory breaks, and some other backroom deals.

      the AC

      • Re:Not ISPs, telcos (Score:4, Informative)

        by Tisha_AH ( 600987 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @09:06AM (#5378286) Journal
        This is right up my alley. We retain three months for traffic engineering purposes but I could go back two years of archival data. This is the only way we can do traffic engineering to determine if trunk groups are properly sized and if overflows among groups is working correctly. It's amazing how an innocious change in one trunk group can save tens of thousands of dollars a year. Telcos have been keeping this data for years. Why all of a sudden does everyone get surprised? We don't record your conversations. All of the data is for use on our internal networks to track where call volumes come from and go to. Your single phone call is the same to us as a grain of sand is to a beach.
      • Immediately after the Omagh bombing, a copy of the complete datasets of all systems in the Republic and NI going back at least 10 months was made and turned over to the police

        Ah. It involved terrorists. I guess that means our civil liberties are irrelevant then.

        I remember when it used to be "communists".

    • Im guilty of not reading stories too, but this time it was even in the overview that it was PHONE lines.. and not 'traffic', only the actual connections that were being monitored..

      Still a hell of a lot of data.. and yes suprising it didnt leak...

  • Ooh (Score:2, Insightful)

    by snack-a-lot ( 443111 )
    Glad it's Ireland and not the UK. Unless they meant Northern Ireland .. which they didn't, I think.

    Still, this kind of thing is probably going on in loads of countries, it just happens that they found this one out.

    • Re:Ooh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by alanp ( 179536 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:59AM (#5377686) Homepage
      And what do you think the RIP act does ??

      It's being going for 2 years in the UK !

      And no it's not Northern Ireland but what difference does it make ? Do you think terrorist organisations colude via the internet or phone ?
      Don't think so, down the local apache-land bar for that...

      • Re:Ooh (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ngtni ( 470389 )
        The poster was pointing out that if they were monitoring Northern Irish traffic, then they would actually be monitoring UK traffic. This is a very real possibility since many Irish ISPs are also available within Northern Ireland. He wasn't talking about terrorism.

  • Oooooh! (Score:1, Funny)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 )
    You found me lucky charms!

  • Signals in Australia (Score:3, Informative)

    by bigchris ( 54369 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:27AM (#5377604)
    Sounds remarkably related to the Tampa spying">Tampa spying [theage.com.au] debacle Australia had last year.

  • deep six (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:27AM (#5377605)
    The explanation given for deep sixing cabinit records for five years is that many of them relate to the peace process.
    Yesterday the government proposed to be allowed increase this time to 15 years, given this on the same day we find out the've been snooping us is very disturbing

    • Re:deep six (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ryano ( 2112 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @07:58AM (#5377969) Homepage

      "The explanation given for deep sixing cabinit records for five years is that many of them relate to the peace process.

      "Yesterday the government proposed to be allowed increase this time to 15 years, given this on the same day we find out the've been snooping us is very disturbing"

      Up to now, cabinet records have remained confidential for thirty years. However, under the 1997 Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, individuals are now entitled to seek discovery of records relating to cabinet decisions that are over 5 years old. As the act only came into operation 5 years ago, cabinet records from that time are only now coming under the provisions of the act. As far as I'm aware pre-1997 cabinet records cannot be subject to FOI requests.

      So the "deep sixing" of cabinet records for five years is not a new measure brought in to protect sensitive documents relating to the peace process, rather it represents a considerable liberalising of the old system. This is why the government is proposing rolling back on these provisions: they're only now being faced with the practical implications. Whereas previously cabinet members could rely on their deliberations being kept secret until after they retired, now they are faced with the prospect of controversial documents being released while they're still very much in power.

      I don't think the peace process is a factor at all: these sort of documents could probably be kept secret under the heading of 'national security' or some such thing.

      • However, under the 1997 Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, individuals are now entitled to seek discovery of records relating to cabinet decisions that are over 5 years old

        So now you know why Bertie and his pals want to scrap the FOI act. So far, it's been used to dig up a lot of dirt on the cabinet & FF in particular. Unfortunately, it's also used by relatives of people who were incarcerated by the state in religious-run orphanages to obtain information on their families. Not any longer if the government gets their way .... :-(

  • Every line? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Exiler ( 589908 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:28AM (#5377606)
    If every bit going into the country had to be stored for 3 years, wouldn't they eventually run out of space for hard drives? I mean, the way storage density is right now, they can't possibly store EVERYTHING.
    • To me "traffic information" means who called who, when, how long it lasted. They keep that for billing purposes anyway.

      • Re:Every line? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by spacefight ( 577141 )
        For billing purposes three year long? Why that? Six months seems long enough for most countries...

        • Re:Every line? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by upside ( 574799 )
          Obviously the government isn't interested in the billing. :) I'm just saying storage isn't such an issue if they don't have to keep the actual data, and that already they have the systems in place for storing this information.

    • Re:Every line? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by JimDabell ( 42870 )

      By "traffic information", I believe they mean data such as who you called/emailed/etc and when, rather than what you actually talked about.

      • It would be very interesting to know if they are actually tracking who e-mails who and personally I doubt it! Why? Well I know of at least one small hosting company here in Ireland who do not keep (beyond standard log files they don't touch let alone preserve) these sorts of records for themselves let alone anyone else, and certainly have received no requests not to use encrypted channels for email communications, or not to offer webmail or ..... If an Irish person is using webmail, then some carnivore type system would be required to snoop the communications and parse the requests to give them a record of who emailed who! If the webmail is under ssl then they are stuffed n'est pas? All they could really track is that you are using a https server!

        • Re:Every line? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by JimDabell ( 42870 )

          Well I know of at least one small hosting company here in Ireland who do not keep (beyond standard log files they don't touch let alone preserve) these sorts of records for themselves let alone anyone else

          SMTP offers no real protection against traffic analysis. Even if you encrypt every email you send, the headers are still sent as plaintext, so you can still monitor who emails who. Even if you use webmail over SSL, the emails still come in through SMTP.

          Yes, you can set up your SMTP server to allow access over TLS, however since virtually no ISPs support this, unless the sending party sets up their own SMTP server as well, everything will still be unencrypted. Even if you set up your own servers, connections between the two servers can be tracked.

          • I should have thought a little longer but:
            • Any mail sent between two users of the same webmail system may never hit network smtp (i.e. local delivery).
            • A webmail user connecting by https cannot be connected to outgoing mails from the webmail server so just because 1.2.3.4 connected to the webmail system and a mail was sent from 1234@webmail.tld to saddam@terror.tld does not mean that they can state that 1.2.3.4 is 1234! This assumes of course that the webmail system has a significant volume of traffic which prevents simple analysis correlating the two events.
            Do you think they would have a clue who has mailing who if hotmail used https?
    • I mean, the way storage density is right now, they can't possibly store EVERYTHING
      Never underestimate density in government matters!

  • No mention of network traffic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by upside ( 574799 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:30AM (#5377607) Journal
    And it's only traffic information, not the actual data that gets passed. I would have thought they'd keep that kind of information anyway. If *access* to the gathered information is regulated properly, I don't see a problem.

    • Re:No mention of network traffic (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cobyrne ( 118270 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @07:14AM (#5377865) Homepage

      If *access* to the gathered information is regulated properly, I don't see a problem.

      The Data Protection Commissioner [dataprivacy.ie] has outlined some of the problems [dataprivacy.ie] that exist with such a data retention scheme, even if access is "properly regulated".

      Of course, one thing that no-one has mentioned yet is that if privacy is outlawed, then only outlaws will have privacy. I have a mobile phone - now that I know that all calls I make on that phone will be recorded and potentially used by law enforcement, I feel like going across the street to a public phone and making all my calls from there. I don't have anything to hide from the law, but if I happen to get caught up in some difficulties with the law, I don't particularly want the law to have unhindered access to all the details of what I use my phone for, as I use my phone for some very very personal things indeed. And that is the huge problem with this system - it is extremely easy for outlaws to defeat it - all that they have to do is to go "across the street" to a public payphone.

      • Well, you'd better have your mobile switched off beforehand, and never called the person before. Payphone records are tracked too.

        If they're trying to track you down urgently, they'll check your mobile records. They'll check who you've called, who've they've called.. If you have a few regulars that you call (or call you), they'll start watching their accounts for calls.

        You make a call on a nearby payphone - the number is recorded and flagged. Whoops, they got you. They now know where you are, even if you were smart enough to ditch the mobile phone you were carrying so that they couldn't track you that way.

        Hell, lets go a step further.. you then jump into a car and drive away. Nearby CCTV catches you and they find your number plate. Ken's new security ( sorry - congestion ) cameras pick you up a few days later and flag your record up on a computer.

        Alright, it's a bit extreme, but it's possible. I'm sure they wouldn't go to those lengths if say, you'd stolen a car, but if you were a suspect in a recent bombing I wouldn't be too surprised for them to go to these lengths to track and find you.

        It's not quite as easy as you make it sound.
    • If a Govt has to keep something like this so secret,
      it tends to indicate even they know they are doing
      something wrong.

  • Creeping fascism (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:34AM (#5377615)
    That small place at the top of society where all the power lies, is like a magnet for dirtbags. The more concentrated power is, the faster the dirtbags take over.

    Notice how fast things began to slip right here in the United States after power was concentrated through the rash of recent laws. One day you look up and wonder, "Who are these people running my country?"

    • Re:Creeping fascism (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ratamacue ( 593855 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @07:42AM (#5377932)
      Power is corrupt by definition, because power requires the initiation of force (power is defined by coercion, rather than voluntary association). Logically, the individuals most interested in gaining power are those with a desire to control others. Peaceful individuals -- those who respect the concept of personal liberty and personal responsibility -- tend to be the ones who don't want anything to do with political power.

      • ALL people want power to some extent. It's part of evolution. There is a natural and inevitable dominance hierarchy that cannot be erased by utopian idealism. There is ALWAYS a person in any group who takes a leading role, regardless of the purpose of the group. There are always those who will chaffe against this to some extent, seeking themselves to be that person or obtain a favorable position in the overall hierarchy.


        It is all part of acquiring mates and resources. EVERYTHING ultimately stems from these most basic drives. Power is not automatically "corrupt". It just is. What one does with power is what is corrupt or not. It is a value judgement you place on it, not something intrinsic to itself.


      • True, except for those who try to grab power, solely for the purpose of keeping others with power in line.

        People like that, who are successful, are few and far between. The others are a dime a dozen... sadly.

        We need to elect a president like that. Unfortuneately, there's no one that has a chance any time soon.

      • Power is corrupt by definition, because power requires the initiation of force

        Some people can only influence others' behavior through force,or the threat of force. Other people can influence others' behavior without threat of force. Who is more powerful?

    • You're wrong, it's ALWAYS been corrupt. Well, at least for well over 100 years. If you doubt this, read a bit of "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt". He basically started in politics because he was angry with the corruption, and that was in 1882. You think corporate corruption is bad today(it is), well, it was just as bad back then, but it was done more blatantly. It's too easy to record things these days for them to do it so openly, so they just do it at Jack Valenti et al`s parties...

      • Right, and thanks to Roosevelt it was reduced. Every few generations corporate corruption becomes rampant, and someone needs to smack the corps down. Unfortunately we tried electing someone who might have stopped them last election, but the supreme court overturned our decision.

  • US Double Standard (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Bloodmoon1 ( 604793 )
    Ok, now let's see how many people bitch about this as usually do about the US government *possibly* doing things like this that no one ever seems to be able to offer up hard evidence on. Either we don't do it, or we're that damn good at it.

  • it would contain... (Score:5, Funny)

    by grep_a_life ( 234527 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:39AM (#5377627)
    if internet use is any indicator on how the telecom systems are used, the list would be:

    50% about sex
    30% spam (or telemarketing)
    29% adolescent mush
    1% calls to a data recovery shrink

    hmm... may be not that accurate... anybody care to modify? (ooh, I'm beginning to see several "in soviet russia posts)
    • dang, there goes my math... overstated the dang percents... ack... next time, I'm not posting with a hangover... unless it's about Irish beer...
    • so we have

      50% about sex... okay..

      30% spam... about enlarging penises or porn or sex

      29% adolescent mush... about sex....

      and 1% calls to a data recovery shrink... about sex...

      Yeah, the internet seems to be a bustling house of activity... about sex...

  • Details of the Policy (Score:5, Informative)

    by bluelan ( 534976 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:45AM (#5377647)
    I think this article [weblogs.com] gives a better description of what the data retention policy is. It's more concise anyhow.

  • Not even news here yet. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ColmanReilly ( 632586 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:47AM (#5377653)
    Slashdot is the first I've heard of it, and I pay reasonable attention to the main news services here in Dublin. It's a little premature to talk about considerable citizen reactions.

    As background, the Minister in question is a PD, which makes him pretty close to holding views familiar to those in the US: I'm sure he'd be pretty comfortable in the right of the Democratic party or the left of the Republican, which makes him far right by European standards.
  • I have mixed feelings about this type of thing. Is it better for governments to do this type of thing in secret, and for we the general public to remain happy and unaware, or for it to be done in the open, and for us to realise that it happening and to be unhappy about it?

    Ireland is an interesting case because a few years ago it became public knowledge that the Brits had been covertly monitoring all calls between Ireland and the UK for years.* And personally I don't think you are paranoid if you believe your government (especially if you live in the UK or USA) is electronically monitoring hundreds of thousands of telephone calls, SMS messages, emails etc. right at this very minute. My question is, being that governments already do this, and if it done only in the name of combatting crime and terrorism and not abused, is it not perhaps better if Joe and Janette Public remain blissfully unaware of it?

    *I can't recall the exact details, but as I recall people became aware of this because a telecom tower in the east of Ireland was put out of service and up for sale, and it was discovered that its purpose was to monitor calls between Ireland and the UK.

    • Re:Better to be open about it, or not? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @06:07AM (#5377703)
      Ireland is an interesting case because a few years ago it became public knowledge that the Brits had been covertly monitoring all calls between Ireland and the UK for years.

      With good reason. Terrorism wasn't newly invented in 2001; Irish nationalist groups had been causing trouble in Britain for decades. Eavesdropping on transmissions from Ireland to the UK probably allowed a great many plots to be foiled.

      I'd keep it secret, of course, but not out of fear of worrying the public; I'd want the IRA to think their phone communications were secure, the better to exploit this intelligence source. If word gets out that phone calls are routinely tapped, then the bad guys will switch to some other communication; encrypted snailmail, perhaps, which cannot be so easily compromised.

    • Re:Better to be open about it, or not? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by matt_wilts ( 249194 ) <matt_wilts@@@hotmail...com> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @06:12AM (#5377713)
      I think it was in the UK rather than Ireland (I believe this is from Channel 4 but Google has lost the full attribution):


      HOW BRITAIN EAVESDROPPED ON DUBLIN

      THE MINISTRY of Defence "Electronic Test facility", a rather mysterious 150-ft high tower stands isolated in a British Nuclear Fuels Limited site at Capenhurst, Cheshire. Locals
      knew that the tower housed a dark secret but did not know what it was. That secret is now out.

      The tower was craftily erected between two BT microwave radio towers carrying telephone traffic. The ETF was the ideal place to discreetly intercept international telephone calls of the Irish government, businessmen and those of suspected of involvement with IRA terrorism.

      Channel 4 filmed extensive BT equipment inside the building, including optical fibre cables linking the tower to the MoD's communication system.

      The hi-tech white ETF tower included eight floors of advanced electronic equipment and three floors of aerial galleries.

      These were used to extract and sort the thousands of communications passing through every hour. Fax messages, e-mails, telexes and data communications were automatically sorted by computers scanning their contents for key words and subjects of interest. Telephone calls could
      be targeted according to the numbers dialled or by identifying the voice of the speaker.

      At the time the tower first came into operation the IRA campaigns were raging.

      Relations between the British and Irish government's were not always smooth, with the British suspecting their Irish counterparts of being sympathetic to the IRA.

      Since the early 1990s, the British electronic spy agency GCHQ and its American counterpart NSA have developed sophisticated libraries of voice profiles to use in scanning international telephone messages.

      The ETF tower was operated by personnel from an RAF unit based in Malvern, Worcestershire. The "special signals" section of the RAF "Radio Introduction Unit" install and run projects for GCHQ.

      According to local residents, the site was manned 24 hours a day by a team of two to three people, until the start of 1998.

      Besides the Capenhurst tower, communications to and from the Irish Republic were also intercepted at a similar but smaller GCHQ station in County Armagh. This intercepts microwave radio and other links between Dublin and Belfast.

      A third GCHQ station at Bude, Cornwall, intercepts western satellite communications, including to and from Ireland.

      From 1990 until 1998 the Capenhurst ETF tower intercepted the international communications of the Irish Republic crossing from Dublin to Anglesey on a newly installed optical fibre submarine cable, called UK-Ireland 1.

      From Anglesey, the signals were carried across Britain on British Telecom's network of microwave radio relay towers, centred on the BT Tower in London.

      The key link, from Holyhead in Anglesey to Manchester, passes directly over the Wirral peninsula to the south of Birkenhead. The ETF tower was built to pop up into this beam.

      When the new cable was planned in the mid 1980s,
      intelligence specialists at the Defence Ministry and GCHQ Cheltenham, the electronic spying headquarters, realised that the radio beams passed directly over the nuclear processing plant at Capenhurst.

      During 1988, a temporary interception system was built on the roof of the BNFL factory. When tests of the Irish interception system proved successful, intelligence chiefs decided to go ahead with a full-scale system.

      Within the Defence Ministry, the project was classified "Top Secret Umbra". The codeword Umbra is used to designate sensitive signals intelligence operations.

      Not even BNFL, on whose land the ETF tower was built, was let into the secret.

      The Ministry of Defence held a meeting with residents early in 1989 and urged them not to talk about the site. In return, they were given free fencing and double glazing.

      The architects were told that the tower had to contain three floors of aerial galleries, each with four special "dielectric" windows. These are opaque to visible light, but allow radio beams to enter.

      By building the tower in this way, no-one could see what aerials were inside, or where they were pointing.

      But the architects' plans, lodged at the local authority offices, revealed the true purpose of the tower.

      The plans revealed that the radio transparent windows had to be aligned on an extremely precise compass bearing of 201.12 degrees to magnetic north.

      Aerials pointing through these windows would point precisely at the British Telecom towers at Gwaenysgor, Clwyd, and Pale Heights, near Chester. These are the towers carrying the Ireland's international communications links through Britain.

      During installation in 1989 and 1990, defence officials were concerned to conceal what was going into the tower. To disguise it, contractors vans were repainted in the livery of BT and other public utilities. BT refused to say whether this had been done with their knowledge and consent.

      Since the Irish telecommunication moved onto a different system over a year the Capenhurst tower has been made redundant. The Ministry of Defence are trying sell it off.

      It would not make a very comfortable home and it is hard to see what legitimate business might now be interested.

      The Defence Estate organisation said this week that it had extended the time for offers to be made. It would accepts bids for the tower up to midday today.

      The Home Office said: "In accordance with standard practice, the Government does not comment on alleged interception activity." BT said it did not wish to comment.

      The Irish government said it would comment later.

      History of the Eavesdropping Agency

      THE BRITISH Government's eavesdropping agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), is based in Cheltenham.

      It was set up 1946 after the success of the Government Code and Cipher School in Bletchley of cracking the German Enigma codes during the Second World War.

      It is responsible for monitoring telecommunications and telephone calls in Britain and around the world and employs some 4,000 people. It works closely with MI6.

      GCHQ uses state-of-the-art equipment for a wide range of operations to decrypt diplomatic traffic and to identify the voices of individuals who are of interest to the West's intelligence services.

      GCHQ officers have been closely involved in the British efforts to tackle the IRA. GCHQ also works closely with the US eavesdropping operation, the National Security Agency. The agencies work together on a system called "Echelon", an integrated global surveillance network intercepting international satellite and communications links. It is said to have benefited the US and UK with information about arms and trade deals.

      Until 1975 few people outside the intelligence community knew about the existence of GCHQ.

      In the Eighties, Margaret Thatcher took union rights away from GCHQ staff on the basis that trade unionists were a potential threat to national security. Those rights have now been restored. After the Cold War, GCHQ cut back on staff numbers. The Cheltenham headquarters is being rebuilt at a cost of pounds 300m.
      • The ETF tower was operated by personnel from an RAF unit based in Malvern, Worcestershire.

        That was probably at the Malvern DRA. I know some of the guys there read Slashdot, but I guess they can't comment on this stuff!

        They do some amazing stuff there [ic.ac.uk].
      • If you want to really scare yourself about this stuff, read the European Parliment report online here [eu.int].
        It covers in great detail the state of international communications intelligence, with a focus on Echelon (i.e. the UK/USA alliance secret communications interception system), and the related threats to freedom and economic competitiveness.

        It's a big report, but its extremely comprehensive and honest. The kind of thing "M" gets to read in James Bond flicks.
        It puts estimated numbers on how many phone calls, emails, web accesses, SMS messages, Faxes etc. are intercepted from different countries; and also describes how they acheive this.

        I was very surprised how little attention it got from the media when it was published.
      • I was going to say something obvious about us being in the same situation regarding internet traffic routing...

        But no, instead I'm reminded of the above remark, supposedly uttered by Her Majesty on being appraised of the content of Charles Haughey's phone calls by Mrs T.

        And how reassuring to know that the Capenhurst locals could be bought off with double glazing. UPVC - the patriot's choice.

  • In Other News... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jesse.k ( 102314 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:52AM (#5377663) Homepage
    Google announced that they had purchased the database, refused to say why.

  • Now- (Score:5, Insightful)

    by katalyst ( 618126 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:52AM (#5377664) Homepage
    The Irish have something in common with the Americans. BUT, America takes the cake. For a country, where one doesn't know whether their president was killed by a fellow countryman or a foreign traitor, where they don't know wether Area51 is a top secret UFO something or a big joke, where national secrets are too big to tell to the president himself, it has done remarkably well. Probably, 99% of USA's problems would be solved if the government is frank, honest and open to its citizens ;)
    • Now that's a damn fine idea.

      GNU/Democracy!

      Ok, I'm going to bed now.

  • I just knew it! (Score:5, Funny)

    by YeeHaW_Jelte ( 451855 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @05:56AM (#5377678) Homepage
    The Irish are out to get us!

  • We wanted a large = 1TB file server... (Score:3, Informative)

    by tom.allender ( 217176 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @06:01AM (#5377688) Homepage
    So that's why Linux.ie [linux.ie] built a teraserver.

    We wanted a large >= 1TB file server mostly to store backups.
    http://www.linux.ie/articles/teraserver/background .php [linux.ie].

    Conspiracy!

  • Is this new? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sabri ( 584428 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @06:03AM (#5377690)
    As far as I know, European legislators are working on the same for years now. In The Netherlands the government is working on legislation which also enforces a policy on ISP's to keep their traffic-data for years (currently the to-be-kept counters remains on 3 years). Fortunately, they are listening (or at least pretending to listen) to the ISP's as well; we have been asked what kind of impact that would have on the ISP and what kind of technical measures would be necessary.

    An odd thing is that in some countries it currently is illegal to keep traffic-data for such a long time; the data is only to be kept for billing purposes and when that is done, the data must be deleted for privacy reasons.

    • Re:Is this new? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blanch ( 653293 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @07:07AM (#5377851) Homepage
      Its very worrying to see such things happening. The EU Directive on privacy in telecommunications in 1997 specified that personal data could only be retained by telcos, ISPs etc. for billing purposes and must destroyed after its usefulness has passed.

      This was clearly a decision made on the side of personal freedom and civil liberties. It's worrying that the Council of Europe (a parallel organisation that is comprised of heads of state from around the continent) proceeded to adopt a stance opposite to that of the above directive, and began to mandate all ISP's and telecommunications companies to retain data. The stark contrast between the positions of these two organisations -- one democratic, the other a cabalistic gathering of prime ministers and presidents -- makes the difference in their motivations quite apparent.

      The retention of data that has been uncovered here in Ireland is related to the Council of Europe's decision, and we can be certain that something similar is occurring in all the other states.

  • What's different (Score:2, Interesting)

    by cymbaliner ( 653049 )
    What will this law change? Prior to this law, how long were records like this kept? I get the feeling this law won't change much. My question is why does the Irish government feel the need to ensure three years of record keeping? Why three years? Why at all?
    • What will this law change? Prior to this law, how long were records like this kept? I get the feeling this law won't change much. My question is why does the Irish government feel the need to ensure three years of record keeping? Why three years? Why at all?

      Terrorism. It's not just Arabs, you know. If you have reason to suspect someone of involvement with some IRA splinter faction, you can have a look at the phone logs. If he's recorded as having made frequent calls to and from known activists, then you might well have enough material to get a proper wiretap authorised. Then he'll either incriminate himself and get arrested, or he'll spill some solid-gold intelligence, or he'll turn out to be innocent.

  • It's been done for several years in Denmark (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @06:25AM (#5377748)
    It's been done for several years in Denmark where all cellular phone calls are stored for 5 years before being destroyed, the police can then retrieve the contents using a search warrant.

  • so? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    lets put the argument this way.

    there is a high probability that your itemised invoice is store a backup tape at the print vendor for a number of months, maybe even years.

    there is a 100% probability that the billing system at the telco you use has ALL of the call records you ever made, on ANY network you may have made them (roaming or otherwise)

    there is a very high probability that your call records generated by the switching platform the telco uses are stored and backed up accordingly.

    most people who read slashdot know that backups are important for both data retention, financial auditing, and customer dispute purposes.

    the real question i have, that none of the articles make clear is WHO stores this. if the goverment is intending on marshalling this information then there is a problem. asking the telcos is far more privacy friendly, but only just. chances are, they have this information anyway. is it really all the mess its blown up to be?

  • Views on the issue (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MoThugz ( 560556 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @06:54AM (#5377823) Homepage
    OK, from the article itself, it can be concluded that the author finds the Irish govt actions to be reducing the individual's right to communication privacy.

    It can also be summarized that the Irish government is merely trying to protect the rights (and lives) of the general public considering the turbulent past of the Irish republic.

    The question is, where do we draw the line in respecting individual privacy as well as safeguarding the interests of the public at large? Is there a "right way" to do this? I think that this issue is subjective in its essence. No one can tell you what info is private and what should be made known publicly. I bet almost nobody cares if you're having an affair with your neighbour's wife, unless of course the husband... or you/the neighbour is someone famous.

    In these times of post-911... every western government is becoming paranoid especially when there's Middle Eastern/Arabic/Islamic people are involved. Deny it as much as you want, but deep down inside you know that this bigotry is true. How else can you explain an airport terminal shutdown just because an Arab sprayed perfume on himself as well as two immigration officers?

    Just an example of how screwed the world has become... Now the internet (one of the biggest global hope as an instrument of international unity), as well as other forms of communications are being threatened by "perceived threats".

    I'm all for the effort of combatting terrorism... but not at the extent of paranoid delusions that "the al-Qaeda has 0wned the Internet".

  • Advantages to this type of data retention (Score:5, Insightful)

    by popoutman ( 189497 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @07:02AM (#5377839) Journal
    I knew about this retention for a long time anyway, I thought it was public knowledge.

    This type of retention can be used to trace stolen mobile phones and can also greatly assist in the process of criminal investigation - some crime investigations have gone on past the 6 month retention time prevalent in other countries. See the Guerin investigation, or the Omagh bombing for examples.

    I have no problem with this retention as long as it requires a court order or equivalent for the release of the information to the relevant authorites, and never to a non-govermental agency.

    • Retaining Call Detail Records is fairly common knowledge, but I wouldn't say public knowledge. The public are, in general, too stupid to understand anything more complicated than the weather and the price of food.

      used to trace stolen mobile phones

      That is what the IMEI number is supposed to help with, but the cost of building and maintaining an industry wide database of stolen phones has made it almost non-existant. When the press reported in Britain last year the most common crime was cell phone theft, there was some political movement to start cutting off stolen phones, but the project has not even started yet. The phone companies are resisting having to run such a system, because it would require cooperation between all the providers, and need a small but expensive full time staff to run.

      On the plus side, when I want a new cell phone, I just go to the flea market on a saturday morning. Buy a recently stolen phone for about 10, wander into a dodgy phone card centre and pay them another 10 to unblock/recode the phone, and buy a rechargable phone card from them. 45 for the latest Nokia phone with no long term service contract, not too bad if you can ignore the associated bad karma.

      as long as it requires a court order

      You're new here, aren't you?

      In order for retention to be usable, there will be a nice simple point-n-drool interface for investigators to get the data, along with a way to preserve the raw data to be used in prosecutions. When the system becomes simple to exploit, then requirements like court orders will completely disappear. Today, most of the data is handed over with no questions asked, its only when it is time to go to court that the DPP get formal and file proper court reveiwed requests so the defence can not trash the data in court.

      never to a non-govermental agency

      Once the tools are in place to easily extract this data, then Eir-con (and Orange and all others) will set up a group to market the service to private companies. They already have a working group asking around about how valuable cooked CDR data would be, if combined with customer data. They want 3rd party companies to purchase access to this data and combine it with other data and services to resell to end users. Think services to companies to track their employees both during work hours and after hours, services to worried parents who want to track their children's phone movements and usage 24/24, and private investigators who want to track down skips or deadbeats.

      the AC

  • No, they record the entire conversation, but.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @07:47AM (#5377941)
    ...its Ireland, so 99% of the calls are:

    "So, are ya goin to da pub?"
    "I'll see ya there around 10"
    "cheers"
  • And why did I read that as "during an initial pub meeting"?

    Mark

  • Thats NOTHING! In LA,CA the store all payphones! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Thats NOTHING! In LA,CA the store all payphones!

    Its a fact, its little known, but was one time announced in a front page story in LA Times, that "for security and the Drug War" every single call made from a pay phone in los angeles is permanently recorded and stored.

    Their reasoning for this fascism, much like "echelon" is that they are not listening to these "public conversations" they are just storing them. Ha!

    No on complains.

    And you think thats sick, in San Francisco city (and extended city area of SF Airport), you cannot call vertain 800 numbers from any public payphone if the numbers belong to pagers.

    Pagers are considerred "bomb detonators" and "drug mule contact tools" I guess. I have to BEG private citizens to let me use their restaurant phones.

    America is much more evil than UK.

    Also front page news in NYT newspaper one august yeasr ago revealed that its a fdederal law that 1% (yes one full percent) of all simultaneous calls made in San Francisco have the ability to be simultaneously stored digitally. ONE PERCENT!

    At least its not 100% such as in pay phones. Are you one of the 1% this week?

  • So let me get this straight.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JohnnyCannuk ( 19863 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @08:38AM (#5378144)
    ...our American cousins are complaining about this "afront to civil liberties" while thousands of their own citizens are being detained, without trial or charge, in undisclosed locations across the US?

    One would think that with Ireland's experience with terrorism, the Yanks would be applauding this!

    I think some other posters have made the point quite well. Just because a government collects the information, doesn't mean they can do anything with it without a court order. I can tell you with some confidence that virutally all governments collect this information,it just that getting at it is hard (as is sifting through it - how many phone , cell, fax transmissions are there in your city or town in one day? Try picking out specific information out of that!).

    Collecting information is morally neutral. Use that information to catch the Omagh bombers, and collecting it is good. Use it to track citizens arbitrarily and to detain them without trial or charge and it is evil. I'd be less worried about the collecting and more about how it is used.

    • Once the information is collected, there will be an abuse of that information. This doesn't necessarily have to be on the order of the great Big Brother conspiracy theory, but simply someone in a government agency saying "You know, if we cross-indexed this with this, we could find out this." Then that database gets linked with another one, etc., and eventually you have a huge database of personal information being misused, visible by people who have no business seeing that information.

      It's kind of like in the movie Cube, it's wasn't built for a horrid purpose, it was just built.

      I know this tendency because I work in government. When doing an IT project, most people forget to ask "Is this legal?"

      And, please, cite the source for those thousands of detained U.S. citizens. The few cases I know of have been highly publicized.
    • Could you provide some proof US citizens are being retained without trial or charge?

  • Setting the record straight. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I live & work in Dublin. Quite frankly, no one gives a damm about it. Don't believe everything you read.

    Slightly related, these records helped secure a prosecution against a persistant abusive caller. The Guards were a great help. If it had been the UK, I would have had to change my telephone number.

    Don't loose any sleep over it, unless you like making crank calls.
  • As long as they are storing everything on Maxtor hard drives, you have NOTHING to worry about.

  • Damn. (Score:2)

    by sulli ( 195030 )
    I was hoping for a secret Irish whiskey repository.

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