UK Plans To Allow Warrantless Searches of Internet History (telegraph.co.uk) 136
whoever57 writes: The UK government plans to require ISPs and telcoms companies to maintain browsing and email history of UK residents for a period of 12 months and make the data available to police on request without a warrant. "The new powers would allow the police to seize details of the website and searches being made by people they wanted to investigate." Exactly how they expect the ISPs to provide search histories now that most Google searches use SSL isn't explained (and probably not even considered by those proposing the legislation). Similarly with Gmail and other email providers using SMTP TLS and IMAPS, much email is opaque to ISPs. Will this drive more use of VPNs and TOR?
This comes alongside news that UK police used powers granted to them by anti-terrorism laws to seize a journalist's laptop.
Brits love to complain (Score:5, Insightful)
about how the US is treating its citizens with privacy.. But you people are writing the book on the matter.
Re:Brits love to complain (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Brits love to complain (Score:5, Informative)
Errr .... that analogy is, I would say, not excellent.
Orwell primarily wrote about what was happening in other countries. Animal Farm was a wafer-thin allegory about the events happening inside Soviet Russia and what Stalin was doing in particular. Orwell found it hard to get published because at the time, Stalin wasn't understood as the monster he truly was: rather the USSR was still seen as the ally against the Nazi's that made huge sacrifices to win, the ally that rolled into Berlin.
1984 was Orwell's attempt to imagine what a Soviet-style totalitarian regime would look like if implemented in the UK. It's full of references to "Ingsoc" because it was another book about the evils of communism as practiced elsewhere.
Orwell wrote those books because, at the time, he felt very pessimistic about the future of his homeland. He felt sure that a communist/fascist takeover was going to happen. Towards the end of his life he admitted he had been entirely mistaken about that and England hadn't worked out the way he thought it would.
Ironically, Orwell was a committed socialist himself. He didn't write about the evils of communism because he was a capitalist. Rather, he saw communism as practiced abroad as a corruption of true democratic socialism, and he believed the right way to bring about a hard-left government was through the ballot box rather than through a fascist uprising.
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"Orwell primarily wrote about what was happening in other countries."
Although he was a critic of UK politics before he wrote "1984", see "Politics and the English Language".
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Stalin wasn't understood as the monster he truly was
So did Patton, which was part of the reason the OSS took him out...
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You have some of the most fanciful... umm... beliefs... Patton was pasted by a drunk driver, not the OSS. Hell, IIRC, Patton even set it up so that the driver wasn't prosecuted. How one goes from that to him being assassinated by the OSS is beyond me but I seem to recall that you think almost everything is some giant conspiracy. "Oh no! Someone died! It must be a conspiracy!"
*sighs*
Well, at least you're amusing. There's that. Deciding to take a look at what evidence there is to suggest your allegation is tr
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Jesus Christ you cocksucker. How the fuck does it take you a paragraph to describe a google search. Kill yourself.
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I've never had a stalker before. It kinda makes me ego swell. This is awesome! You should post more angry, ranty, messages. When I get time, later, I'll type out a novella just for you.
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To be fair, he drew most of his inspiration from his experiences policing the colonies, fighting in the Spanish civil war & the events in the USSR.
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Ya know at least the Russky's are straight forward about being communist, no one likes a closet case...
Re:Brits love to complain (Score:5, Interesting)
The USA has constitutional prohibitions against this kind of activity. So the NSA and friends have to make a show about complying with the law. British prohibitions against this are much weaker. So the government just comes clean about it.
I'm not certain which society is easier to live with. One that lies to you and the judiciary branch or one that just does as it pleases but admits it.
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The USA has constitutional prohibitions against this kind of activity. So the NSA and friends have to make a show about complying with the law. British prohibitions against this are much weaker. So the government just comes clean about it.
I'm not certain which society is easier to live with. One that lies to you and the judiciary branch or one that just does as it pleases but admits it.
Fair enough, but candidly, I just assume any searches I perform without cloaking are accessible to any number of interested parties.
Re:Brits love to complain (Score:4, Interesting)
Fair enough, but candidly, I just assume any searches I perform without cloaking are accessible to any number of interested parties.
And you might want to take extra care there, too. How effective is your "cloaking"? Are you randomizing your wireless MAC when you fire up Tor at the coffee shop that is 0.34 km from your house? Are you sure your machine isn't leaking all kinds of traceable info when it connects? Is the Tor session at the coffee shop usually accompanied by a connection attempt from an iPhone reporting its name as "rmdingler's iPhone"? Does the coffee shop have a camera?
There's paranoid, and not paranoid enough.
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Use of Tor in America is already practically proof of guilt, they just have to figure out whether to hang drug charges or child pr0n charges on your guilty ass. They have pre-determined the only people who really need the anonymity it provides live in officially recognized repressive regimes, either Myanmar, Iran, or Afghanistan.
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I assume any Google searches are delivered directly to the NSA, and routinely shared by them to allied intelligence agencies. After Snowden it would be irresponsible to assume anything less.
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More likely the NSA has many routing servers at strategic places in the Internet to scan traffic, and record specific content, source, or destination IP addresses.
That includes stuff sitting around, network-wise, places like Google, facebook, etc.
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The USA has constitutional prohibitions against this kind of activity. So the NSA and friends have to make a show about complying with the law. British prohibitions against this are much weaker. So the government just comes clean about it.
....
Fair enough, but candidly, I just assume any searches I perform without cloaking are accessible to any number of interested parties.
There is a plugin worth playing with.
To quote the description:
"Confuse surveillers by randomly browsing the internet.
"Advertisers and government agencies attempt to build a profile of you based on your browsing history. Paranoid Browsing confuses that effort by making a background tab which browses the internet at random.
"PB was inspired by fictional software described in Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother: "It even throws up a bunch of 'chaff' communications that are supposed to disguise the fact that you
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The fun began with the heuristics of judgement as suggested by your charity link...next thing you know I am researching dry-nose vs. wet-nose primates.
It's why I love the site.
Re:Brits love to complain (Score:5, Interesting)
The latter is better.
I don't believe GCHQ gives a shit about the rule of law, seeing as how they're basically a subsidiary of the NSA (to the extent that they seem to share internal networks no less).
But nonetheless, the fact that governments are passing or trying to pass such laws is STILL a big improvement over the previous state of affairs, where their intelligence agencies are/were building these databases covertly whilst lying about doing so. At least this way the regular democratic processes have a chance to work, regardless of how flawed they might be.
I think the British government is going to lose this one (practically, not legislatively). The issue they have is that the UK isn't China: it doesn't have a home grown internet industry. The UK contributes to the global tech industry in big ways: virtually all consumer electronics are using ARM chips, the UK built one of the first computers, and there are tons of Brit's doing great work in the computing field today.
But when it comes to the giant cloud services that store everyone's data there's only really two places in the world that matter, and that's Silicon Valley and Seattle. All that data is entering and leaving the UK in encrypted form: all they and the ISPs can see is which companies are being interacted with. That trend will continue and probably even accelerate now LetsEncrypt is here. So the govt can legislate whatever the hell they like, but the data that results is going to be of low quality.
I suspect they know this and they're going to try and introduce laws that force Facebook/Google/Apple/etc to act as extensions of GCHQ. To what extent these companies go along with it will be the most fascinating fight of the coming years.
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I suspect they know this and they're going to try and introduce laws that force Facebook/Google/Apple/etc to act as extensions of GCHQ. To what extent these companies go along with it will be the most fascinating fight of the coming years.
This is about the police, not GCHQ.
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I suspect they know this and they're going to try and introduce laws that force Facebook/Google/Apple/etc to act as extensions of GCHQ. To what extent these companies go along with it will be the most fascinating fight of the coming years.
K.O.
It's a fixed fight and it was over before it began.
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In the US, the executive branch gets a lot of leeway until legislators and courts catch up. It's not surprising that quickly after the widespread adoption of the Internet and the Web, executive branch agencies went overboard. It will take a few more decades of activism to sort this all out, but there is a good chance that we'll end up with pretty good protecti
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You mean that piece of paper that the US Supreme court has been shredding, unless it involves freedom of speech by wealthy people?
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Corporations are people.
All people are created equal.
It's just that some people (e.g. corporations, the wealthy) are more equal than others.
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They are, but European prohibitions are actually quite strict. As long as the UK remains a signatory to the ECHR and remains a member of the EU this proposal is open to challenge by courts that have shown themselves more protective of individual liberties than the US courts have of late.
Of course, at the same time, the present UK administration is also trying to find a way to remain a signatory to the ECHR without actually being bound by it and to renego
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Certainly seizure without trial and conviction is unconstitutional also, but every single day police forces pad their operating budgets with "civil forfeiture" absent trial or conviction.
Thank Scalia and the right for the mass surveillance of your phones, internet and bank accounts with NO oversight whatever.
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As a Brit I'd like to apologise for the current British government. They are a bunch of right-wing authoritarian fuck-wits.
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Left wing? The British Tory party? Don't talk shit. That says more about you than them.
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A totalitarian world government.
Maybe the Amish are on to something.
Neck Beards?
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And they know how to grow food, unlike most of us.
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The previous generations have built up tremendous capital in these western countries. Trouble is, with relatively weak legal constraints on governments, if they turned more totalitarian, they would not only be bad because of that, but because of its possible feasting on that saved-up capital. Don't rest comfortably just because you're comfortable.
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Democracy was long viewed as an effective deterrent to totalitarianism. Unfortunately, those of a fascist leaning have now found an effective way around it:
1. Establish it slowly
2. Keep the population in fear so they sign off on anything
3. Make sure voters have no real alternatives
We are heading towards a fascist world order. Slowly this time, but with no real opposition unlike last time.
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How do they plan to investigate just you by accessing the data from your Internet connection?
Man in the Middle attack
That may include data of other people.
Yes that is the plan.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
And means they will be spying on innocent people
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
--- Cardinal Richelieu
who are above suspicion.
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHA
Which can never be legal.
Oh you innocent summer child...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Pr0n (Score:2)
Don't worry, they won't care about your pr0n searches...well, maybe they'll just store them all up for 'later use' should you become a problem in the future.
As Cameron said "For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone"
Fuck them all. You heard it here first.
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Remember that the possession of BDSM pornography in the UK is now an illegal offence.
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Remember that the possession of BDSM pornography in the UK is now an illegal offence.
So how about the whole internet take it upon themselves to subscribe every politician in England to every BDSM site magazine and video service they can. Fill their mail and email boxes with it.
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From what I know of the guy it sounds like something he would do.
Re: Revolt (Score:3)
Brit to fellow Brit in bar: Have you heard? The tories are going to track all your e-mails.
Fellow Brit: Awesome. What time does the match start?
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Our gov't is 100% clueless (Score:2)
This is more from the UK Gov't's Department of Sound Bites for the Newspapers Agency. It will never happen because they don't understand the scale of the problem or the massive bucket of data they'd need the ISP to hold and we all know that GCHQ are doing this stuff already. They also d
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What you have to remember here is that Her Majesty's Gov't especially Theresa May and David (Knob in a Pig) Cameron can't even spell "internet" let alone being able to draft any coherent legislation to control the Internet.
But isn't that the scary part? Here in the US, are legislators aren't tech people either. When they write bills, the CIA, NSA, and others that have tech people get to say what they're doing is legal because the legislators didn't know enough to say it should not be.
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Unless the real purpose of this is to hide GCHQ's illegal activity? In other words, provide a plausible source for information that could not be legally gathered? To provide a parallel path for "parallel construction" of evidence?
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I have nothing to hide, and neither should you. Anything to make this dangerous world a bit safer.
To paraphrase the Late Sir Terry Pratchett
The innocent have everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'.
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I have nothing to hide, and neither should you. Anything to make this dangerous world a bit safer.
Either you're trolling, or the irony of you posting this as "Anonymous Coward" is completely lost on you. :-)
what could possibly go wrong? (Score:3)
According to the article, the proposal would pay the ISPs costs to retain the information. Given the value of the data (blackmail, harassment, etc.) there is strong incentive for many independent agents to try to get it and the track record on security for far less valuable information is not so great. I'm sure the ISPs costs are overstated and their incentive to do a great job securing the data properly is not so clear.
Re: what could possibly go wrong? (Score:1)
The really sad thing is that if ISPs are mandated to retain all this data all sorts of critters will show up with new ways to monetize it. This law will bootstrap all sorts of new nasty stuff, public and private.
Who's a terrorist? (Score:1)
Select the inconvenient; choose their crime. (Score:1)
SELECT user, url FROM visits WHERE url LIKE '%sex%' AND user IN (SELECT user FROM visits WHERE url LIKE '%politics%');
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Your query returns results that match both sex and politics. Also, it could be shortened as:
SELECT user, url FROM visits WHERE url LIKE '%sex%' and url like '%politics%'
Not exactly. Your shortened version returns users where the url has both "sex" and "politics" in it at the same time.
The original query returns users where the url has "sex" and the same user has OTHER urls that include "politics".
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Rats. Now my search for "How the invention of the sextant influenced politics" is going to get me in trouble!
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If you've done nothing, then you've got nothing to hide :)
Counter point If I have done nothing wrong you have no reason to spy on me.
European privacy (Score:3)
Just remember, European governments are really concerned about your privacy! That's why they want all the private and personal data of Europeans kept on European servers. You know, so that they can better protect you!
send congress the bill (Score:2)
Quickest way to kill it is to send them the bill for coding, power, location hosting, backups, etc. As soon as they fund the expense it happens. It'll die as an unfunded expense.
Time to start using HTTPS exclusively (Score:3)
Or just use a VPN service or TOR
Lots of trivial ways around this... no need to panic.
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It is when the DNS server is accessed through the VPN service.
No Problem.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Spy on them as they spy on us. Fair is fair.
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"With great power comes great responsibility." They will never reveal how much they know, as it would give them greater responsibility.
What if they actually knew, in great detail, when certain acts of terror were going to happen? That would make them complicit in these crimes.
HTTPS (Score:2)
Searches using Google run through HTTPS. So, how exactly is the ISP to record those searches?
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They will still be able to tell the IP you connect to, which will tell them the server you queried. That information could be useful to someone.
But they won't be able to see the content of the query.
Of course, this sounds like the legislation, as written, could be interpreted to mean that only layer 7 logging needs to happen (since that is where HTTP lives) in which case, even your destination IPs would be safe from logging under this law.
*sigh* (Score:1)
Cameron (the dead pig fucker) states himself that they leave "no place to hide", no encryption (that can't be broken) no VPN, etc.
All of this while holding the specter of the the 4 horsemen of the infopocalypse.
Dead Pig Romance
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a... [thedailybeast.com]
Cameron: No Encryption
http://www.theguardian.com/com... [theguardian.com]
4 horsemen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Couple all that with CCTV, and a garden variety of other assaults on the freedoms on the UK and you get Prison Island. (My name for the UK)
When are people going to realize that 1984 (Score:1)
was a cautionary tale -- not an instruction manual!
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CBC has a video on how to turn off FB history (Score:1)
Apparently, at year end, Facebook will be automatically sharing all of your old posts to anyone using a search engine, no matter how they were posted, unless you go into FB options for security and change Privacy for all old posts to Friends Only instead of Public. You might also want to look at what FB thinks your history is and delete things like pics you don't want shared.
Call the robots (Score:1)
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I would take as many migrants into my country as possible no matter where they come from. The only better thing is if scum like you would leave.