Govt to monitor everyone's browsing!

Myranda

Emp_Fab said:

How did I miss this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/35455343

Theresa May is pushing a bill to force ISPs to keep records of everyone's browsing for the govt to be able to monitor what we're all up to.

Orwell's vision is slowly coming true 32 years late.

So, lets imagine a world where they collect every packet of data that the UK sends and receives... what sort of computer do we envision can a) store it all and b) process a relevant portion of it?

This is the same country that spent £18 billion on a computer system to record and access your medical records anywhere in the NHS ... and failed to achieve that. Serious it only needed to be a database with a nice easy-to-use UI and we spent billions on failing to get that to work... and the government seriously thinks it can monitor ALL traffic?

That's why they're trying the pass-the-buck-method ... ISPs will store your day to day activities and when presented with a warrent will hand over relevant data - but that means they will be investing squillions in data storage for no real or tangible effect

Myranda

PC_Dave said:

I don't see how using a VPN helps - yes it encrypts the physical network traffic as it travels end to end, but whatever it is you look at is still on your hard disk once you see it, and no matter how clever you think you are there is always someone cleverer. They work for the Security Service or Police in the Digital Forensics department, and they will always find what you were looking at.

There is no hiding.

But they need a warrant to seize your computer, so need probable cause in advance... then they need to employ a team of computer forensics boffins at stupid salaries to come and confiscate your stuff... 

But you've missed a previous law - the police don't really need anyone smart to get at your computer, as failing to input your password will result in a two years imprisonment... so you're not allowed to hide your data (though perhaps if you're guilty of something particularly bad this might seem like a good idea - though then they'd have a valid reason for throwing enough computing power at the problem to decrypt you)

57Deluxe

So - is there going to be a Law that if you use words like BOMB BANG ISIS et al repeatedly in emails to people  - maybe as pseudo ATTACK PLANNING repartee between friends - that you will be raided and arrested even though you just using random TRIGGER words??

boogieman

57Deluxe;959823" said:

So - is there going to be a Law that if you use words like BOMB BANG ISIS et al repeatedly in emails to people  - maybe as pseudo ATTACK PLANNING repartee between friends - that you will be raided and arrested even though you just using random TRIGGER words??

One of my friends works for a press agency. A few years back he went in to North Korea as part of an invited team to cover one of the U.S. Orchestras that had been asked over there to play. The first thing the Koreans did was to confiscate his personal mobile phone and give him some massive prehistoric one of their own. He soon sussed that calls he made on it were being monitored if he said certain words, so he'd deliberately start calls to his g/f by saying Bush, Bomb, etc. Then he'd start talking about what sort of poo he'd that day: colour, odour, quantity. >:D<

Myranda

boogieman said:

57Deluxe;959823" said:

So - is there going to be a Law that if you use words like BOMB BANG ISIS et al repeatedly in emails to people  - maybe as pseudo ATTACK PLANNING repartee between friends - that you will be raided and arrested even though you just using random TRIGGER words??

One of my friends works for a press agency. A few years back he went in to North Korea as part of an invited team to cover one of the U.S. Orchestras that had been asked over there to play. The first thing the Koreans did was to confiscate his personal mobile phone and give him some massive prehistoric one of their own. He soon sussed that calls he made on it were being monitored if he said certain words, so he'd deliberately start calls to his g/f by saying Bush, Bomb, etc. Then he'd start talking about what sort of poo he'd that day: colour, odour, quantity. >:D<

Whenever I'm in a totalitarian state with a long history of human rights abuses and oppression of free speech and press the first thing I do is try to antagonise the lunatic security services.

...

However the Korean vs UK is a good description of why this wont really work.

In North Korea with it's population of around 25 million people there are only 1.2 million phone lines, and 2.8 million mobile phones, and as of a 2014 estimate 0 people using the internet at large. There are 2 secure servers for the internet... and only 11065 IP addresses. (for flavour there are only 1.2 million TV receivers)

The UK with it;s 64 million people (2015 census) there are 33.24 million telephone lines, 78.46 million mobile phones... 59.1 million people use the internet with 23.73 million broadband subscribers... 124.8 million IP Addresses on 83298 internet servers.

In DPRK monitoring phone calls is practical and easy... monitoring the handful of foreign visitors when they log into a hotel WiFi to surf what portions of the internet are allowed in is childs play - you could even do it with a human being watching a mirrored copy of the user's desktop so you can see in real time what they're browsing.

In the UK we send millions of texts an hour, make tens of thousands of phone calls an hour, and consume terabytes of data per second...   (Wolfram Alpha didn't have exact figures sorry) just storing the data on all of that will be a horrific undertaking (the cost of which will get passed onto us) but actively searching through it ... bleh. Searching through and sorting out false positives? Virtually impossible today... and by the time it is possible we'll be consuming even more data. I'm hoping though that the bill goes ahead - with all the red tape etc I'll be finishing my degree when this all starts - I'll be able to get a job for silly money, and I'll be able to sail through life producing virtually nothing. Then when it's declared a colossal failure I'll get a nice redundancy payment and get a proper job. Obviously the country will hate it, and whoever green lit it will be thought of as the worst waste of money in decades, but I'll have had a good wage out of it

goat

Myranda said:

In the UK we send millions of texts an hour, make tens of thousands of phone calls an hour, and consume terabytes of data per second...   (Wolfram Alpha didn't have exact figures sorry) just storing the data on all of that will be a horrific undertaking (the cost of which will get passed onto us) but actively searching through it ... bleh. Searching through and sorting out false positives? Virtually impossible today...

Im not a tinfoil hat type, honest! But they definitely do all of this already today and have done for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_(2013%E2%80%93present)  

Myranda

goat said:

Myranda said:

In the UK we send millions of texts an hour, make tens of thousands of phone calls an hour, and consume terabytes of data per second...   (Wolfram Alpha didn't have exact figures sorry) just storing the data on all of that will be a horrific undertaking (the cost of which will get passed onto us) but actively searching through it ... bleh. Searching through and sorting out false positives? Virtually impossible today...

Im not a tinfoil hat type, honest! But they definitely do all of this already today and have done for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_(2013%E2%80%93present)  

They collect "a lot" but not all... mostly they deal with meta-data collection, we're not talking in terms of "a lot" we're talking collecting AND storing for years ALL data ... actively processing it will happen at rates slower than it comes in - and we're talking about amounts of stored data that will necessitate new data centres being built (and maintained by ISPs who may have poor security like Talk Talk). 

If you think they already do this, then why would the government go to the trouble of bringing attention to it, and the cost of passing laws to make it happen... 

goat

Thats a good question. Presumably because the information they're gathering already is technically obtained illegally and they cant use it to prosecute. They need a parallel source. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora

"Tempora is said to include recordings of telephone calls, the content of email messages, Facebook entries and the personal Internet history of users."

£1 billion project. Gathering 21.6 petabytes of data per day and with over 500 analysts, and that was 4 years ago. They do say they only hold all data for 3 days and metadata for 30 days though...

Sambostar

The only thing we have left is fear of terrorism and selling off private data and hopefully swindling the public out of more cash to pay for the storage.  Interest rates will be in the minus figures soon enough.

Trude

PC_Dave;956432" said:

Nothing to worry about here.



Online Music Shops.

Amazon.

The Fretboard.

Porn.



There you are, Mr Govt, saved you the hassle.

A man after my own heart!

57Deluxe

I shred and pulp all my bin waste before I put it in the bin.... I don't want them knowing what brand fish fingers I buy...

TheCount

Trans Atlantic Partnership

Read up on this, the american government  wants to be able to monitor the internet in as many countries as possible, this would include the UK no doubt as cameron is as far up the banks arses that control the world as obama is.

Sambostar

Probably so Hilary can sell off half the UK to Russian Oligarchs for mineral rights no doubt.

TheCount

If she has time, too busy running the "clinton foundation" (arms deal back hander fund)

Anyone interested should google the Clinton's dealings in Arkansas, drug smuggling, murder of child witness's etc, pretty good read.There's loads more that google will show up.

I don't think the Russians are in on it all, thorn in the side of the powers that be. I like Putin for that, he's like an itchy arse to the yanks

Sambostar

The Russians no, but the ones that have evaded Putin's taxes certainly are.