GCHQ Tapping UK Fiber-Optic Cables 157
An anonymous reader writes "According to The Guardian, the UK government is tapping fiber-optic cables that carry global communications and gathering vast amounts of data. The British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been sharing the data with its American counterpart, the NSA. 'The sheer scale of the agency's ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate. ... The documents reveal that by last year GCHQ was handling 600m "telephone events" each day, had tapped more than 200 fibre-optic cables and was able to process data from at least 46 of them at a time.'"
And so (Score:5, Insightful)
Ladies and gentlemen, history will title this period "1983".
Terrorists! (Score:4, Insightful)
Terrorists: Ooga booga booga!
People: Oh, no! The terrorists are going to get us! Let's give away some of our rights to catch them!
Government: Trust us. We definitely won't abuse the power you've given us.
People: Yeah, there's no way you could abuse unchecked power; it's unthinkable.
People: Hey, you're abusing your power!
Government: National security.
People: Oh, okay.
NSA, GCHQ, who's next? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the real question is this: Against such habits of secrecy, skirting any and all laws and regulations, avoiding public debate, and even not telling their own lords and masters what they're up to, fits only one remedy, that of immediate shutdown of the outfit and never ever letting such people near government anything again. How, as the world's internet population, are we going to manage that?
Re:but why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably a case of institutional panic. You know, like others are so deathly afraid of child porn on the internet that they're loudly clamouring for (and getting!) nation-wide filtering against "badness" on anyone's internet connection. Nevermind that most actual child abuse happens within families or other obvious relations of trust, like teachers or preachers. Similarly with terrorism on the internet and espionage on the internet and clamouring for "cyber-offensive capabilities" or whatever it's called this week. Or... ah you get the picture. The internet is quite a fsckton of traffic, collecting is easy once you have the infrastructure, and most of the analysis can be automated.
Also a case of "let's see how far we can take this". Because, hey, they can claim it's all for the good of the country (of course) and it means they can spend spend spend on shiny spendy toys! Isn't that fun?
They have to, of course, since it's a clear case of catching up to the industry with their big data and things, you know. And so on. I'm sure there's plenty of other perfectly reasonable (to bureaucrats and/or politicians) reasons to be thought of.
Because, simply put, signals intelligence is what these outfits do. And what bigger source of signals than the internet?
Re:Why does everyone think this is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is needed is a boundary on who that intelligence is passed on to and used, not how much is gathered.
When it is all collected in one easy to query database the only "boundary" that prevents misuse is the laws of man.
When it remains distributed across the internet in the possession of only those are concerned with the creation and use of the data the "boundary" that prevents misuse is the laws of physics.
I'll take the laws of physics over the laws of man any day of the week.
Re:Why does everyone think this is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does everyone think this is bad
Not "everyone" thinks this is bad, but everyone with even a little bit of knowledge about history knows that giving the government such powers so they can catch the scary bogeyman will inevitably result in the government abusing said powers. Everyone else... well, they're under the delusion that government workers are perfect beings, apparently.
Re:NSA, GCHQ, who's next? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:but why? (Score:5, Insightful)
this is what i dont understand...why is there a "need" for all of this. they arent stopping "terrorism" nor are they really using it in a way thats stopping any major crimes. dont get me wrong, i am weird and 100% opposed to all of this. but who are they protecting with all of this data mining?
They are using it to keep themselves in power. That is all. You know the saying Power Corrupts? Well, this is what they are talking about.
First Google was collecting info on me, but I was cool with it, i used their free services.
Now every company is collecting info on me, but I'm cool with it, after all, it's for business right?
Then the Government request access to the data from the companies, but it's okay, it's for terrorist prevention, right?
Then the Government just starting tapping the source and forgets to tell me about it, and I say, wtf? Who said that was okay?
Then the Government tells me its in the name of terrorism, and I ask them, why you are terrorizing your own citizens?
Then the Government locks me up for questioning them, but you don't know because they don't tell anyone anything.
Re:And so (Score:5, Insightful)
A pity I'm not longer "smart" enough to figure out what the current X should be.
Don't worry. Even if you figured it out, half of the population would be dead set against you.
Re:proud Briton (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting that they chose not to go after any LIBOR fixers or financial criminals don't you think?
It's almost like there's a double standard in which the people who work in the government use the powers they have been given for their own profit rather than the interests of the public, all the while trotting out a couple of extremely rare bogeymen to justify their actions.