PRESTON: The UK's "Big Brother" Comprehensive National Database System (theregister.co.uk) 57
gb7djk writes: The investigative journalist Duncan Campbell has written an article at The Register claiming that the UK Government has been secretly creating a database of all telephone calls, financial and travel records for the last 15 years. From the article: "Located inside the riverside headquarters of the Security Service, MI5, in Thames House, PRESTON works alongside and links to massive databases holding telephone call records, internet use records, travel, financial, and other personal records held by the National Technical Assistance Centre (NTAC), a little known intelligence support agency set up by Tony Blair's government in a 1999 plan to combat encryption and provide a national centre for internet surveillance and domestic codebreaking."
Re: (Score:2)
Poe's law coming out in full swing early today.
Re:Prosecute this irresponsible hack! (Score:5, Interesting)
You do realise that by and large the Guardian is seen as a joke these days and is turning into a Buzzfeed clone? Apart from anything else, Duncan Campbell has a long and very respectable reputation for digging where few dare to go and has uncovered a hell of a lot of otherwise secret goings on over many decades.
Re:Prosecute this irresponsible hack!I' (Score:1)
Re: Prosecute this irresponsible hack!I' (Score:2)
I started reading the Graun to counterbalance the Torygraph. However the guardian has gone so batshit insane that I often feel I should now be ready the Mail to counterbalance it. The Independent isn't much better either.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I can't disagree with a single word here.
I don't know if it was the moving on of Rusbridger, financial pressures or some sort of coup behind the scenes, but the Guardian has become a lot less Guardian in the last year or two.
I did see a pro-Corbyn artocle tere the other day. The funny thing was a comment Below The Line saying it was just some soft soap to make the next attack piece stand out less! When it gets to that level of distrust by your readers (it seemed plausible enough to me) then your readers hav
Re: (Score:2)
To be honest, it's never been the same since the legendary Peter Preston left... although Ian Mayes as the Readers' Editor kept it honest for a while. Once he left, to be replaced by some faceless lawyer type, the decline REALLY set in.
Any paper that purports to be "left wing" (as it then did) but then sacks first Mark Steel, then his replacement Jeremy Hardy, for "being too left-wing" on their op-ed pages, isn't a paper I want o read. The Max Gogarty affair (the paper's reaction to their readers' critici
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps because ever since MI5 paid the Guardian a visit and smashed up that laptop of theirs in the basement, they don't want to do any more of this stuff?
Especially now it's under a new editor; whatever I might think of Rusbridger's qualities in comparison to his predecessor, I *do* give him credit for publishing the Snowden stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
If it's this Duncan Campbell [wikipedia.org], you might want to pay some attention.
Re: (Score:2)
It would probably have been The Daily Mail if it weren't for the face The Daily Mail are a bunch of bootlickers and tend in the opposite direction on this topic.
So it would never have been the Daily Mail, ever, in a million years. Your mention of them is an irrelevant addition for effect, and just another globule of crap in your smear.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly, a Pardon for Alan Turing is just the UK government saying he was still wrong for being Gay, but he was a significant enough historical figure that they wanted a happier ending to his story.
But if you aren't a significant enough person to be recorded in the history books then tough, you are wrong for being gay. Full Stop
Is this a surprise? (Score:2)
I've been living under the impression that all phone and internet traffic is at least logged and probably monitored.
That some details of the operations come out from time to time doesn't alter the basic idea that this is what governments do.
Did anyone think differently in recent years?
Re: (Score:1)
Don't try to act like you knew this was going on all along. Yeah, we all knew phone records etc. have been logged since forever, but nobody -- nobody -- knew the extent of the surveillance programs in existence since 00's.
If this is "what governments do", and you accept that, I don't see how you could think of modern society as a free one. In a couple of years the West have lost *all* their moral high ground in human rights issues.
Anybody remember how Nokia was criticized by the US and EU for selling standa
Re: (Score:1)
Re: The Americans think they've restricted the NSA (Score:2)
>How long will it be before the NSA exports all it's 'interesting' databases to GCHQ, and vice versa.
"How long"? This was the purpose of ECHELON which we spoke about here at length in the 90's. Back then we thought they were merely skirting the law - today we know that they were ready to flip the "full-on illegal" switch after 9/11.
The NSA is even on public record at this point about paying the Israelis to spy on Americans, and that's beyond Five Eyes.
If even Slashdotters don't know the surveillance st
Orwellian (Score:5, Interesting)
It is amazing how George Orwell predicted all these half-a-century or so ago.
Even Yes Minister has one episode on a similar issue, that was three decades back.
Are we ignoring warnings from the past? or decided to be selective in terms of learning from the past?
Re: (Score:2)
It was easy to predict that many governments would do this once the enabling technologies were available. I am surprised when people do not expect it. Control of their populations is a high priority of most countries. That is much more easily accomplished if you know who the potential troublemakers are, and have suitable blackmail material to keep them in line.
Re: (Score:2)
We are using those warnings as blueprints. Our politicians are basically cowards, they won't stand up and day that we can never be totally safe and it's not worth the cost to go as far as we have.
Re: (Score:1)
1984 wasn't a prediction, or a warning. It was a prophecy.
Anangram of Robert Peston's name (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
More likely is that the name "Preston" is quite often associated with Big Brother in the UK (see here [wikipedia.org]), and MI5 has a sense of humour.
BT internet slow-down (Score:2)
" BT data centres are also directly linked to NTAC for the supply of subscriber information, telephone call records, and domestic internet interception."
i wondered why BT's internet service slowed down massively during peak hours (especially when children got home from school). now we know why. the system which farmed off the monitoring so that we could be spied on wasn't fast enough. hey fuckers: if you're going to spy on us, do it in a way that doesn't affect the profitability of the companies you're s
Named after the Wallace and Gromit character? (Score:3)
Named after the robot dog in "A Close Shave?"
Wendolene: "Daddy created him for good, but...he's turned out evil!"
http://wallaceandgromit.wikia.... [wikia.com]