Internet Activity 'to be Monitored' Under New UK Laws

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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If proposed legislation is passed into law next month, the United Kingdom will have Internet companies install hardware that will enable the government to monitor all forms of communication sent using the internet. The legislation is designed to curb terrorism and make the public safe.
 
Yeah, make the public "safe."

George Orwell would love this.
 
Good to see that America doesn't have a monopoly on "Patriot Act" laws.
 
Pretttttty sure this is one of the news sites april fools day jokes.

Thought it was BBC, but I could be crazy.
 
Well it will be coming to the US and the rest of the West sure enough. So get ready.

In fact chances are they all do most of it already. This is just an official declaration of what they are doing.
 
0mega said:
Pretttttty sure this is one of the news sites april fools day jokes.

Thought it was BBC, but I could be crazy.
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I sure as **** hope so, and if not, I hope the British public voting on this is as educated and informed as they pretend to be whenever they mouth off about Americans.
 
"monitor the email exchanges"

Sure, like any *real* terrorist would not be using encrypted email and VPN. Better be a joke or they are very stupid to think doing that will stop illegal activities.
 
Thing is if certain folks are under surveillance already (and this is what it will largely be used for) then sending encrypted emails is almost an admission of guilt. Most would probably just hope that the messages just get hidden in the mass of traffic. Most wouldn't even think they are being monitored. Plus it's not all about getting the hard core central info. It's about being able to pick up snippets of info from top to bottom in any such organisations. A little innocuous message about someone's shopping habits can lead to greater things.

Not saying I agree with it and I still think it will be a nightmare to organise but you'd be naive to think that it's not happening in most developed countries including the US at some level already.
 
How is sending encrypted email admission of guilt? Maybe the person likes to make sure prying eyes can't read personal emails is all. There isn't a bogeyman around every corner.
 
When was the last terorist attack? Cant they come up with a new even weaker excuse? More people die each year from sewing accidents.
 
So, will it be like if someone says the word "Bomb" on a plane?

I'm guessing certain keywords would raise redflags within communications. What if someone writes a bit of fiction that could be confused as truth, "A la Orson Welles, 'War of the Worlds'"..

Gotta be an April Fool joke!
 
I can almost see gamers houses being raided by special forces for emailing each other their experiences in last nights "Counter Strike" session.

/facepalm
 
OR.. More likely scenario. Call it for what it is. A loophole for the SOPA and Protect IP initiatives to be enforced without official legislation.
 
Another good reason someone might encrypt their email is because email can be intercepted by hackers and not just the government. I have encrypted VPN client and am no criminal but here we see spineless people claiming I must be one just because I have a VPN client. Sad and pathetic.
 
mr_zen256 said:
I can almost see gamers houses being raided by special forces for emailing each other their experiences in last nights "Counter Strike" session.

/facepalm
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In the news last week there was a rather alarmist article (as per usual with the media) claiming that terrorist cells were using online gaming and the chat channels such as that on the Xbox/PS3 to hone skills and discuss strategies.

So yeah chances are that is up for investigation too. Crazy eh!:rolleyes:
 
Thing is guys if it's not an April fool and I doubt the BBC would make a joke about possible Govt policy I reckon this is how it's come about and probably destined to fail.

What happens is some minor minister somewhere is annoyed that his or her political career isn't going anywhere. So they target an idea that might get them noticed. So what they do is phone around some "data security specialists" and get themselves taken out for expensive dinners and then talks moves to possible mega lucrative contracts for doing a full monty data and telecoms monitoring system costing in the hundreds of millions maybe even billions.

The fact it is largely unworkable, too costly, infringes many laws and will just be a mega fail doesn't matter. It will get said MP or minor minister 15 minutes of attention that might, just might get their name on a re-shuffle to a higher post. Now that's fine if the scheme in question just gets forgotten with the promotion (they often do).

What is more worrying is when they get the green light, take 3 times as long to implement, costs 5 times as much as the original budget and just ends in total failure costing the tax payer a fortune. While the contractors walk away tarnished but all able to retire very nicely on the millions they conned from the Govt. Unfortunately, this does happen all to often also.
 
daglesj said:
What happens is some minor minister somewhere is annoyed that his or her political career isn't going anywhere. So they target an idea that might get them noticed.
...
Unfortunately, this does happen all to often also.
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So don't vote for them. Is that not an option?
 
sleepeeg3 said:
So don't vote for them. Is that not an option?
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Well no. Surely you've noticed that whoever you vote for they are all the same, they all want the power, they all want the glory and they are all in it for themselves and not the good of the country and the good people in it.

There is no choice. The higher powers that be have seen to that. We get to vote for whomever they approve.

Sounds a bit nuts I agree but you have to admit when a group are in opposition they say they will do the exact opposite of the current govt. But as soon as they get to power the same shit happens and nothing really changes.
 
We already have the RIP Act in the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000) so most of this is available already. (And look at that insane list of people who can request the communication data!!)

What the difference is with this version is they want to record everything in case so it can be searched through at any time. They want a database that is live and searchable and gawd only knows who is going to pay for that.

Annoying side of this is the previous Government (Labour) were going to do this a few years ago, but it got shouted down by the Opposition (Tory and LibDem).

It was then used as part of the next election campaign by the Tories and LibDems.

Of course, the Tories and LibDems now are in power... and like all good politicians forget all those promises in the manifestos and bring it in anyway.

Voting against it makes no difference.
 
BlueMeanie said:
Of course, the Tories and LibDems now are in power... and like all good politicians forget all those promises in the manifestos and bring it in anyway.

Voting against it makes no difference.
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I have always said a parties election manifesto should be a legally binding contract with the nation. The results and progress could be monitored by a independent authority to give a scorecard result every quarter.

You vote for what they say in the manifesto but that gets thrown in the bin the day they get into power and carry on the same status quo agenda that suits the folks at the top. The odd token change happens to give the illusion that it's different but it really isn't.
 
Stiler said:
Yeah, make the public "safe."

George Orwell would love this.
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Orwell was a "spook"......

Anyways as for the OP.

What makes you think M-I-5 wasnt monitoring you guys already?
Same thing goes for US. Agency with 3 letters and starts with N is and has been monitoring the US interweb for years......
 
lol...you think this is drastic....just wait till some terrorist actually manages to set off a nuke or dirty bomb in a major city.....lets hope measures like this prevent such a thing happening...because beside the obvious fatalities we would live in a very different world there after.
 
And to think my Grandparents won a war to stop this rubbish. Welcome to the land known as Fascists Britain.
 
I'm sure all govt officials will be exempt from the system just like in the USA all govt officials are exempt from the obama care system.

Isn't this like wiretapping a whole country?
 
technogiant said:
lol...you think this is drastic....just wait till some terrorist actually manages to set off a nuke or dirty bomb in a major city.....lets hope measures like this prevent such a thing happening...because beside the obvious fatalities we would live in a very different world there after.
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It wouldn't prevent it. The point is nothing like this ever would. I suppose it's just "security theater". :p
 
Well, if its good enough for Iran and China, certinately its good enough for us?? /sarcasim.

Seriously, China is constantly being potrayed by the Media as human-rights abusers, massive polluters, communists(which is not necessarily a bad thing but made to appear so), and an overly restrictive state with very restrictive Internet policies. Why would the UK want to copy this example?

Iran, is being made out to be the next Iraq, by the US Media. We better invade them to stop those Weapons of Mass Destruction!! The same way, we invaded Iraq and found all those Weapons of Mass Destruction.... you know... all 0.
 
0mega said:
Pretttttty sure this is one of the news sites april fools day jokes.

Thought it was BBC, but I could be crazy.
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Given the speed cameras, the streetcorner cameras, the draconian speech laws, etc.---it's either Poe's Law or true.
 
daglesj said:
Well it will be coming to the US and the rest of the West sure enough. So get ready.

In fact chances are they all do most of it already. This is just an official declaration of what they are doing.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, this is probably true. The UK is usually on the forefront of removing rights and mass spying on citizens. It just takes time for it to spread to other countries.
 
computer said:
Unfortunately, this is probably true. The UK is usually on the forefront of removing rights and mass spying on citizens. It just takes time for it to spread to other countries.
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My question is: what do you have to hide? I don't care if Agent Smith monitors me looking at Engadget or reading my work PDFs...
 
In Orwell's movie/book "1984" (you can watch on youtube for free) the idea of Big Brother was created to stop terrorism. The problem was that if you started thinking on your own you became a terrorist and Big Brother stopped you.
 
thecrafter said:
My question is: what do you have to hide? I don't care if Agent Smith monitors me looking at Engadget or reading my work PDFs...
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Ok, let's play everyone's favorite game -- wild extrapolation time

"My question is: what do you have to hide? I don't care if Agent Smith monitors me looking at Engadget or reading my work PDFs... or watches me while I have sex with my wife in my bedroom in my own home. That camera was installed in there because we could be having discussions/be planning terrorism when we retire to bed early. That's the exact same totally reasonable reason, I let Agent Smith install those cameras in my bathrooms. You never know where someone is going to plan terrorist activities."
 
WBurchnall said:
Ok, let's play everyone's favorite game -- wild extrapolation time

"My question is: what do you have to hide? I don't care if Agent Smith monitors me looking at Engadget or reading my work PDFs... or watches me while I have sex with my wife in my bedroom in my own home. That camera was installed in there because we could be having discussions/be planning terrorism when we retire to bed early. That's the exact same totally reasonable reason, I let Agent Smith install those cameras in my bathrooms. You never know where someone is going to plan terrorist activities."
Click to expand...

This. Is thecrafter serious or just that naive? I have an awful feeling 90% of the conservative, church-going (no matter the religion) voters in the US ask this same exact question without realizing the full consequences of their decision...

Because hey, it's okay to sacrifice the rights of many in order to weed out those few evil doers!
 
Well, at least there are some good things in living in a poor country I guess. The government can't afford to do something like this. lol
 
This be a good time to redo 1984 movie with current tech. Raise awareness.

Also terrorists don't need the internet to communicate, and if stuff like all internet starts getting watched they'll just use other means. Whats to stop them from having special apps that send encrypted messages to each other?
 
A quick search on "Data Loss" on the BBC site is enough to show that the UK government departments are not able to prevent their staff from coping 'sensitive' data onto removalable media and then losing it.

If you want to trust any of your data to these chimps (appologies to all ape kind!) you really are missing a screw.
 
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