UK To Track All Browsing, Email, and Phone Calls 286
Sara Chan writes "The UK government plans to introduce legislation that will allow the police to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public. The information will include who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages. Every communications provider will be required to store the information for at least a year."
Senationalist headline (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't we decide we don't want this (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Encrypte Everything (Score:2, Informative)
Problem is that the Brits can hold someone they want indefinitely until they cough up an encryption key under the RIPA act. All they have to do is ask the person once a day for 20-30 days, and essentially that would be sentence to life in prison because each refusal is 2-5 years in the slammer.
Re:Encrypte Everything (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing new (Score:4, Informative)
Not so sensasonal headline (Score:2, Informative)
The Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review, which revealed: "We will introduce a programme to preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications within the appropriate legal framework.
Yes, it is _just_ a proposal, do you want it to come about? So... time to ramp up development of https-everywhere [eff.org], ensure that you use GNU Privacy guard [gnupg.org] for all EMail, bit locker on your drives, and dust off your NT box to run https-everywhere [pgpi.org]!
Re:Not so sensasonal headline (Score:2, Informative)
This is already a reality in the US (Score:1, Informative)
How old is this idea? (Score:3, Informative)
Been hearing about ideas for complete internet data retention for a good few years now. Here's how it usually goes:
1) An idiot cabinet politician comes up with a "simple good idea"
2) Lots of people speculate about how good an idea it is and how useful it's results would be
3) The media cotton on to the idea resulting in larges amounts of WTF??!!!111!!!1/?1
4) Someone finally tells the cabinet politician how expensive and dangerous the idea is
5) Cabinet politician blusters about how it's still a good idea for years without making any progress towards implementation
6) Cabinet gets reorg'd and the idea is quietly shelved as a higher priority "simple good idea" comes along
Yup, this kind of thing comes along fairly regularly and this old chestnut always gets shot down fairly quickly. Move along folks, this isn't just old news, it's not even news-worthy.
Re:Senationalist headline (Score:4, Informative)
How about: *Proposal* in UK To Track All Browsing, Email, and Phone Calls?
Just like a little while ago 'Australia to ban pedestrians from using ipods', which was in actuality an organisation - which comprised of a single person - that voiced an extremist opinion.
And it gets worse (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Senationalist headline (Score:5, Informative)
Further, the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 [wikipedia.org] in the UK facilitated the state's power to do just that.
So I'm just wondering what the difference being proposed is? If the proposal headling is sensational then surely the responce to it is to given the existance of legislation already? Is it the real-time tracking thats at issue? The Telegraph article only included
Re:Seems like Fiction (Score:3, Informative)
This really reads like something out of fiction.
That's because it is fiction.
European law (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Encrypte Everything (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, I change keys every two weeks and don't record the expired ones, and since it's 256 bit encryption, there's no bloody way I'm going to remember that sucker a year later.
If your in the UK, have fun in the slammer, Part III of the Act, which requires persons to supply decrypted information [wikipedia.org]
Deni ability, and lack of intent may get you off in other countries, but not likely in this case. You had best start encrypting files with something like truecrypt where you can have 2 passwords on the same file giving up different data. Perhaps if you give them some unencrypted data they won't know to expect another password.
Re:Encrypte Everything (Score:3, Informative)
Encryption is worthless when the government twists the arms of encryption providers to cough up a master encryption key.
The FBI now wants to require all encrypted communications systems to have back doors for surveillance, according to a New York Times report, and to the nation’s top crypto experts it sounds like a battle they’ve fought before.
FBI Drive for Encryption Backdoors Is Déjà Vu for Security Experts [wired.com]
Re:Encrypte Everything (Score:5, Informative)
No they can't.
As I pointed out last time RIPA came up, it's much more like a search warrant.
See my post here explaining it in more detail and my followup responses which explains, and provides links to the relevant legislation straight from the horses mouth:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1809504&cid=33806568 [slashdot.org]
RIPA is an awful piece of legislation and has no place in a modern democracy, however there are many myths about it like that which you have stated which are simply just fantasy. RIPA is bad, but it's not quite that bad. It needs to be withdrawn from the books either way, but let's not over-dramatise the issue, else legitimate calls for it's removal based on legitimate concerns will just get lost amongst the madness.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Senationalist headline (Score:3, Informative)
sans macrons, but has been used in latin poetry to mean "i'd rather be an apple tree than an evil man in adversity"
-5 offtopic