UK Email Retention Plan Technically Flawed

deltaromeo points out a BBC report calling the UK's law requiring ISPs to retain users' emails for at least a year an "attack on rights." The article also points out financial and technical flaws with the plan (which we first discussed in October). TechCrunch goes a step further, detailing how it conflicts with other governmental goals. Quoting: "...with one hand the government seeks to lock down the British Internet with an iron fist, while at the same time telling us it is boosting innovation and business online. It is quite clearly blind to the fact that one affects the other. Are we also expected to think that the consumers using online services are not going to be put off from engaging in the boom of 'sharing' that Web 2.0 created? How would you feel if every Twitter you sent, every video uploaded, was to be stored and held against you in perpetuity? That may not happen, but the mere suggestion that your email is no longer private would serve to kill the UK population's relish for new media stone dead, and with it large swathes of the developing online economy."

Saving emails

[TheRecklessWanderer]

Well if the government wants to save your email, then use a gmail account, or hotmail or something for all your clandestine operations.

Other than that it's business as usual.

Psstt. Buddy, contact me on the gmail account.

If I were subject to having all my email stored

[Zerth]

I'd add a new cron job to email a random 32 bit integer to a freshly created gmail account and have it run as frequently as possible.

I wonder how long it would take them to arrest me, assuming I wasn't just shot in the back during my morning commute.

Re:If I were subject to having all my email stored

[bootup]

Too late. I already do that sort of. I have a server that I maintain and do daily backups to a gmail account automatically. I use GPG to encrypt the data in 15MB segments. I have it sent to a gmail account daily. Gmail stores up to 8GB (I think/about) and that gives me about 30 days worth of backups at any given moment. When Gmail gets the email they are sent to trash. This way after about 30 days the old stuff gets deleted automatically. It's already working pretty well. I'm in the process of using it right now to restore my server.

Re:Saving emails

[commodore64_love]

Not really. The U.S. has a Constitution which protects the People's rights from stupid Legislators passing anti-liberty laws. The government is forbidden from seizing or archiving personal mail or email. The UK does not have such constitutional protection.

It's too bad the EU Constitution did not pass. Its listing of Rights would have provided a basis to overturn this anti-privacy law in the EU Supreme Court.