Government data snooping - what are they actually proposing?

[ymu]

Ah classic debating tactic there! Pick out a minute and irrelevant point and make it into something big because you feel you can argue a point against that. I'm actually honoured that the only thing you identified in my last posts to argue against is whether or not this economic crisis has finished!

I was trying to be succinct. Your other points have no merit - they're just your usual complacent bluster from a position of abject ignorance.

Apart from the manufactured "evidence" taking us to war, we've had government initiatives asking us to inform on suspicious Muslim neighbours, and the government's much vaunted scheme for engaging moderate Muslims has been exposed as a means to collect information on wholly innocent people.

I find that very troubling.

 

[Pickman's model]

Do you think dictatorships just arrive fully formed out of nowhere? Are these things that just happen elsewhere? Spain, Italy and Germany have all had totalitarian dictatorships within living memory, all of them arising against a background of war, the economic havoc wreaked by the 1929 crash, and far right bully boys on the march.

What's changed in the last 70 years to stop it happening again, because I'm seeing some pretty frightening parallels?

I know you like to be all knowing and cynical, but you actually come across as very naive. How do you justify your complacency in the light of modern history?

perhaps if you knew a tad more history your analysis might be better received. for example, many continental countries, such as bulgaria and romania, had dictatorships between the wars. yet i've never seen anyone turn to the romanian experience to illustrate the sort of point you're attempting to frame here. you claim that that ALL the interwar dictatorships arose against a background of war. bollocks. the hitler regime took power in 1933. and the war ended in, er, 1918. you claim ALL the interwar dictatorships emerged against a background of the 1929 crash. except they didn't: mussolini took power in 1923, er, six years before the crash. and you utterly ignore the fact that in germany regimes before hitler's had governed by decree, easing the way for hitler to do the same.

your assumption of expertise in the field of modern history doesn't stand up to any sort of informed investigation. as you say, you actually come across as very naive. and ill-informed.

 

[Mooncat]

Facepalm yourself - especially in realtime it's a piece of piss to pluck out (say) anything outgoing from the IPs on list x, and every hit destined to the sites on list y and every contact from/to any particular users of services on list z - and even retrospective trawls through potentially vast activity logs are easy when you know precisely what you're looking for.

Sorry - the was at thinking that a computer could sort out real-time video as mentioned in CyberRose's post.

The issue still stands though - its all well and good running a cross-reference on all these IP address but how do you get them in the first place? How are you going to break the SSL on millions and millions of transmissions?

 

[moon23]

I know no-one will take the slightest fucking notice of this (except to deny that it is accurate and is me acting as a "shill" ) but if you really want to know what is being proposed and why / how it is useful ...

1. It is not the keeping of content (as has been noted)
2. It is keeping records of connection / activity (e.g. numbers called, internet sites connected, etc.). Most (but not all) of this is done already as part of service providers billing / admin / technical systems.
3. The stuff is currently only held for as long as needed for the service providers purposes. This is usually a matter of weeks or a couple of months at most (but it varies between data category and service provider).
4. The suggestion is that service providers be required to keep it for 12 months.
5. The original plan, that it would all be supplied to a central data storage dump, has been binned (too expensive, control passes to law enforcement entirely). It is now to be kept by service providers and they will be reimbursed for the cost (of storage and of processing applications for access).
6. There is no change to how it will be accessed / used.
7. It will NOT be routinely trawled or analysed.
8. Access will be by specific application under the relevant DPA, RIPA or other authorisation process. It will be targetted (i.e. the application will ask for specific data on a specific name, phone number, IP address or whatever).
9. That is the case now - the applications are made for, and granted to, access to data held for the service providers own purposes whilst it exists.
10. Effectively all that this proposed change does is extend the time that it is there to be accessed.
11. There is nothing new about the access of law enforcement to data held for other purposes to assist in criminal enquiries - it has always happened (e.g. access to bank account details in fraud cases) and is a core part of the evidence gathering process.
12. It is extremely valuable evidence (in terms of both it's evidential value and in terms of how it shortcuts other lengthy alternative investigative methods (such as weeks and weeks of convential and / or technical surveillance). It is useful in putting suspects in particular places at particular times and in revealing links with associates, etc.
13. In complex enquiries (and terrorist cases are a very high-profile example, but by no means the only one) it is frequently some weeks or months before a suspect is identified and so a targetted request for the data can be made - at present it is very common for the data to already have been destroyed by the time it's relevance is recognised.
14. There is no reason at all why it should not work - it works now (though there is a cost implication) and all that would be needed was additional storage capacity (thus more cost implication) - but no more complexity so no reason to think it wouldn't work.

There are basically three questions you should ask yourself:

a. Is it right that law enforcement should be able to access data held by other organisations in the investigation of specific crimes? (If you answer no to this then you should think carefully about how exactly you expect the police to be able to investigate anything!).
b. If so, is it right to ask that data holders keep the data they have for non-law enforcement purposes for longer than they otherwise would so that it is available to enquiries when it's relevance is identified later?
c. If so, for what period? Is 12 months right? Would 6 months be enough? Should it be 3 years? (As an investigator I would say that it would be a very exceptional case which needed stuff going back more than 3 years ... but I think there will still be some significant number of cases where the need is only identified more than 12 months later. I would say 12 months is a good start ... but some empirical evidence of the number of / nature of cases where it was not enough should be gathered to see if an extension is needed in future).

Once again you are wrong under Directive 2006/24/EC communictions data is already stored for a minimum of 6 mnths maximum of 2 years. The UK has a voluntary agreement with ISP's that stems from Part 11 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. With data typicaly being held from 6mth-1year. It's availble without a court order to hundreads of law enforcement agencies and quangos under RIPA, and there is evidence that some organizations do the paperwork for RIPA after the survlliance has taken place.

The IMP that has been postponed due to the election was proposing all the data to be collected and held on a mass database not by ISP's. That's a huge technological challange.

 

[CyberRose]

I don't know what government proposal you are referring to that involves people monitoring CCTV or whatever it is you're imagining, so why even try to talk about it? Unless it makes it easier for you, since no-one really knows what you are describing in your vague generalisation of "Big Brother initiatives".

I suggest you read the countless posts about CCTV, ID cards, etc, etc, in here. The CCTV example is a reference to the idea that CCTVs are a complete attack on our civil liberties because they intrude on our private lives, but that would suggest somebody is actually constantly monitoring them and watching us all the time (which is an argument people use). Same with these emails, people think somebody will actually be looking at who we send emails to, but that's impossible and not even desirable to the authorities.

And then trying to misrepresent anyone who argues against you as one of some group of 'paranoids' is doing you no favours either.

Who have I misrepresented?

And that thing about the farts is starting to look like a bit of a weird compulsion so please keep your projections to yourself.

You need to watch more South Park...

 

[CyberRose]

I was trying to be succinct. Your other points have no merit - they're just your usual complacent bluster from a position of abject ignorance.

Sorry but if that were true you wouldn't have mentioned the issue of whether or not the recession had finished. You thought you'd spotted a lifeline that would allow you to escape without having to argue against the main points I'd written by diverting attention away from them. You're still trying to avoid arguing against them and the only conclusion one can draw from that is that you can't argue against them (which is a poor showing because even I could argue against them if I felt that way inclined)

Apart from the manufactured "evidence" taking us to war, we've had government initiatives asking us to inform on suspicious Muslim neighbours, and the government's much vaunted scheme for engaging moderate Muslims has been exposed as a means to collect information on wholly innocent people.

I find that very troubling.

I've never been asked to spy on Muslim neighbours

 

[Pickman's model]

I suggest you read the countless posts about CCTV, ID cards, etc, etc, in here. The CCTV example is a reference to the idea that CCTVs are a complete attack on our civil liberties because they intrude on our private lives, but that would suggest somebody is actually constantly monitoring them and watching us all the time (which is an argument people use).

there are several sorts of cctv system:

* those which are monitored constantly;
* those which are occasionally monitored;
* those which just record;
* those which are fakes, just there for the illusion of cctv.

no one can tell from looking at the cameras whether the system is monitored or not, in the same way that it is difficult to tell a replica gun from a real one when looking down the barrel.

regardless of whether a cctv system is monitored, the rise of 'smart' cameras means that people can be tracked by a succession of cameras without constant human intervention. when other elements of surveillance are added to the mix, things such as oyster cards, mobile phones, debit/credit cards, a greater image of someone's activity may be picked up under certain conditions.

with emails, i expect that a similar automated system would be employed, so that results are filtered. even a cursory read of the literature on surveillance reveals the wide array of tools deployed by authorities to track people. so it's fucking naive to suggest that it's impossible to look at who we send emails to, when reports like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/17nsa.html are published

 

[ymu]

perhaps if you knew a tad more history your analysis might be better received. for example, many continental countries, such as bulgaria and romania, had dictatorships between the wars. yet i've never seen anyone turn to the romanian experience to illustrate the sort of point you're attempting to frame here. you claim that that ALL the interwar dictatorships arose against a background of war. bollocks. the hitler regime took power in 1933. and the war ended in, er, 1918. you claim ALL the interwar dictatorships emerged against a background of the 1929 crash. except they didn't: mussolini took power in 1923, er, six years before the crash. and you utterly ignore the fact that in germany regimes before hitler's had governed by decree, easing the way for hitler to do the same.

your assumption of expertise in the field of modern history doesn't stand up to any sort of informed investigation. as you say, you actually come across as very naive. and ill-informed.

I said nothing about all interwar dictatorships, I chose three recent examples of societies not dissimilar to our own which have fallen under totalitarian rule at a time of economic and social turmoil. It seems to me incredibly naive to view these things as happening in another time and another place and not likely to occur here. Yes, Mussolini was in place before the crash, but if you think WWII had nothing to do with WWI, you might want to do a little reading yourself.

I don't claim to be an expert in modern history, but it's hard to miss the parallels. How it will all pan out with a crippled working class in less urgent need of appeasement by the ruling class is anyone's guess. It's not the time for complacency about our civil liberties being eroded by an increasingly authoritarian and paranoid state.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yes, Mussolini was elected before the crash

I don't claim to be an expert in modern history

too fucking right

while mussolini was elected a deputy in 1921, most people would consider his assumption of power the result of a coup

as for the link between the first and second world war - yes, they were connected. but the second world war was by no means inevitable, as you seem to be suggesting. a different response to eg the remilitarization of the rhineland, or the anschluss, or the munich crisis, might have seen a different end. and that's before you get to hitler's rise to power.

 

[CyberRose]

there are several sorts of cctv system:

* those which are monitored constantly;
* those which are occasionally monitored;
* those which just record;
* those which are fakes, just there for the illusion of cctv.

no one can tell from looking at the cameras whether the system is monitored or not, in the same way that it is difficult to tell a replica gun from a real one when looking down the barrel.

regardless of whether a cctv system is monitored, the rise of 'smart' cameras means that people can be tracked by a succession of cameras without constant human intervention. when other elements of surveillance are added to the mix, things such as oyster cards, mobile phones, debit/credit cards, a greater image of someone's activity may be picked up under certain conditions.

But the same problems still exist! That information is only useful if the police know who they want info on! If they wanted to, they could already get permission (actually that's something over looked in all this - the court is the one that gives permission to access all this info) to see all the phone numbers I've rang, all the websites I've visited, everything I've spent my credit card on and much much more. That's if they have reason to do that (otherwise the court would tell them to fuck off). Making ISPs collect details of which email addresses have made contact with each other (not the actual content) is just another bit of info that may or may not prove useful to them.

But they can't use it to keep track of everybody, nor do they want to.

with emails, i expect that a similar automated system would be employed, so that results are filtered. even a cursory read of the literature on surveillance reveals the wide array of tools deployed by authorities to track people. so it's fucking naive to suggest that it's impossible to look at who we send emails to, when reports like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/17nsa.html are published

It's not impossible for them to look at emails, never suggested it was. I said it was impossible for them to look at everybody's emails (a very big difference)

There are no "Big Brother" initiatives that could ever be used against the population as a whole because that would involve exactly one half of the population monitoring them (they would each have one person to track each) no matter how advanced technology becomes

 

[Pickman's model]

It's not the time for complacency about our civil liberties being eroded by an increasingly authoritarian and paranoid state.

i think it's rather paranoid to see this as the same sort of trajectory which led to the second world war.

 

[ymu]

I've never been asked to spy on Muslim neighbours

That's because you don't pay attention.

http://www.met.police.uk/campaigns/campaign_ct_2008.htm

2008 Counter-Terrorism advertising campaign launched

The five-week campaign asks members of the public to report any suspicious behaviour in confidence to the Anti-Terrorist Hotline on 0800 789 321.

Press advertising will appear in London's major newspapers and on the City's main commercial radio stations.

The press ads seek to raise awareness of some of the items/activities which may be needed by, or be of use to, terrorists. It asks the public to consider whether they have seen any activity connected with them which may have made them suspicious.

Radio advertising has been devised to complement the press ads and features an individual thinking out loud about concerns she has around some suspicious behaviour. She is reassured that she should call the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline on 0800 789 321 and that any information will be considered by specialist officers.

Advertising will also run in the Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands.

 

[CyberRose]

I chose three recent examples of societies not dissimilar to our own which have fallen under totalitarian rule at a time of economic and social turmoil.

Recent?! How is nearly 100 years ago in anyway "recent"?!

 

[CyberRose]

That's because you don't pay attention.

http://www.met.police.uk/campaigns/campaign_ct_2008.htm

Please can you pick out the quote where it singles out Muslims?

 

[ymu]

i think it's rather paranoid to see this as the same sort of trajectory which led to the second world war.

Where did I say that? I think it's a similar trajectory to that which saw the rise of the far right across Europe.

 

[weltweit]

I have no objection to the police being able to have access to my PC and my ISPs records on my browsing habits in the case that they might consider I may be a paedo.

I have no objection to the security services being able to effectively tap my computer to trace all incoming and outgoing messages in the event that they consider I might be a terrorist.

I do object to the compilation of a massive database of all of our online habits, through which 200 public service bodies can trawl looking for data without so much as a court's permission. Apart from anything else it will be very hard to police and will be open to widespread abuse.

 

[ymu]

Please can you pick out the quote where it singles out Muslims?

Oh, you've destroyed my whole point. They don't explicitly say that it's about Muslims.

 

[Pickman's model]

But the same problems still exist! That information is only useful if the police know who they want info on! If they wanted to, they could already get permission (actually that's something over looked in all this - the court is the one that gives permission to access all this info) to see all the phone numbers I've rang, all the websites I've visited, everything I've spent my credit card on and much much more. That's if they have reason to do that (otherwise the court would tell them to fuck off). Making ISPs collect details of which email addresses have made contact with each other (not the actual content) is just another bit of info that may or may not prove useful to them.

But they can't use it to keep track of everybody, nor do they want to.


It's not impossible for them to look at emails, never suggested it was. I said it was impossible for them to look at everybody's emails (a very big difference)

There are no "Big Brother" initiatives that could ever be used against the population as a whole because that would involve exactly one half of the population monitoring them (they would each have one person to track each) no matter how advanced technology becomes

i used the phrase "certain conditions" to mean that time when courts provide warrants. but that's to ignore the nature of telephone tapping, when the entire membership of groups can be tapped under one warrant. the police habit of confiscating computers and mobiles when arresting people means that there's a knock-on effect, that while you may not yourself be being tapped, that you may (quite innocently) appear on someone else's mobile may make you 'of interest'. the police don't need a warrant to get people's travel history off tfl, they just ask nicely. and i wonder how many organisations would provide information to the police on their request, instead of demanding a warrant - no one wants to be seen to obstruct justice, after all. there are circumstances in which entirely innocent transactions now have to be reported to the police by eg banks, such as under the money laundering regulations. and if you honestly think it needs half the population to keep an eye on the other half, i don't think you've been really paying attention. everyone's emails are already captured under the echelon system, and while not every one is manually looked through, under datamining the interesting ones can be isolated. as for not wanting to keep track of everyone, that seems to me to be debatable - all the indications are that that's just what's desired. the total awareness research carried out for the pentagon some years ago suggests that there's interest in precisely that, that what's holding this back is technology. a look at some rand publications, such as byting back, shows at what the americans are certainly interested in, and the creation of the wide range of surveillance systems in this country have placed the uk on the cusp of a society in which we are all under constant surveillance. unless you can suggest other motives for what it says in the national cctv strategy, for example.

 

[Pickman's model]

Where did I say that? I think it's a similar trajectory to that which saw the rise of the far right across Europe.

which led to...

 

[Pickman's model]

I have no objection to the security services being able to effectively tap my computer to trace all incoming and outgoing messages in the event that they consider I might be a terrorist.

have you read the terrorism act 2000?

 

[CyberRose]

Oh, you've destroyed my whole point. They don't explicitly say that it's about Muslims.

According to you they do...

we've had government initiatives asking us to inform on suspicious Muslim neighbours

Were you just making that up or was it a spur of the moment comment?

 

[ymu]

which led to...

History repeats itself, but not exactly - that would be asking a little too much, I think.

The current superpower follows a very different model of colonialism than Europe did until the middle of the last century, so I don't see a repeat of WWII coming, although war will no doubt feature heavily. As I've already said, I'm making no predictions about how it will all pan out - the other major difference being that the ruling class have no need to make New Deal style concessions when the working class are so weak compared to the 1930s.

 

[ymu]

According to you they do...


Were you just making that up or was it a spur of the moment comment?

Well, it was based on the terrorism hotline, so no, I wasn't making it up, no. And if you think it's an initiative which has nothing to do with 9/11 and won't have a disproportionate effect on Muslims ... well, you don't think that. You're naive, but not that stupid.

But if you like, let's just say that they're encouraging us to inform on our neighbours. Make you feel any more comfortable about it?

 

[El Jugador]

Sorry - the was at thinking that a computer could sort out real-time video as mentioned in CyberRose's post.

The issue still stands though - its all well and good running a cross-reference on all these IP address but how do you get them in the first place? How are you going to break the SSL on millions and millions of transmissions?

I think this leads back to the OP "Government data snooping, what are they actually proposing?" - Pickman's, Weltweit and Moon seem to have some idea, but clearly CyberRose is trying to talk about something completely unrelated to (as usual) derail the matter into something confusing, bickersome and boring. Succeeding too Anyway...

If SSL posed any kind of threat then presumably that would have to be knobbled as well, but since the Internet Providers are involved in SSL anyway, so their records would presumably still be useful. And of course there is always room for further legislation beyond this.

But really it all just adds weight to the argument that since these measures will ultimately fail to control those who it is supposedly aimed at, then the government's persistance in trying to see them through belies the reality that they are really there to gather 'leverage' on the rest of us.

 

[CyberRose]

Well, it was based on the terrorism hotline, so no, I wasn't making it up, no.

Is http://www.met.police.uk/so/at_hotline.htm]this what you mean? Still doesn't mention Muslims anywhere. I'd also like to ask whether or not you think there is a threat from terrorism...

And if you think it's an initiative which has nothing to do with 9/11 and won't have a disproportionate effect on Muslims ... well, you don't think that. You're naive, but not that stupid.

These new terrorism initiatives did come in under the backdrop of 9/11. Also the main threat of terrorism is from Islamic extremism, so the effect will be disproportionate on Muslims as far as public suspicion goes (arguably more to do with the media). But none of that makes it true what you said earlier about the government "asking us to inform on suspicious Muslim neighbours". (There is also a very real threat from Irish nationalist and far right terrorism so these are also the targets of the campaigns you mention)

But if you like, let's just say that they're encouraging us to inform on our neighbours. Make you feel any more comfortable about it?

Well leaving aside the fact you deliberately forgot to add "suspicious" before "neighbours", yes it does make me feel comfortable that they are trying to protect the public. What makes me feel uncomfortable is (well meaning but with no grasp of reality) people like you who would rather protect criminals and terrorists before ordinary members of the public...

 

[CyberRose]

I think this leads back to the OP "Government data snooping, what are they actually proposing?" - Pickman's, Weltweit and Moon seem to have some idea, but clearly CyberRose is trying to talk about something completely unrelated to (as usual) derail the matter into something confusing, bickersome and boring. Succeeding too Anyway...

In what way have I tried to "derail" this thread?

 

[detective-boy]

Most (but not all) of this is done already as part of service providers billing / admin / technical systems... The stuff is currently only held for as long as needed for the service providers purposes. This is usually a matter of weeks or a couple of months at most (but it varies between data category and service provider)

and that was a party political broadcast on behalf of the snoop party

Detective Boy ....he obviously has more trust in our elected megalomaniacs than me

So you don't know the first thing about what they're proposing. Quelle surprise.

So when d-b breezes in and says it's no more difficult than what it already done now, you know there's no point listening to a word he says. He hasn't got a clue.

he comes out with a lot of pro establishment propaganda, be interesting to know what job he does ???

He's not a shill, not knowingly anyway. It's just a combination of extreme naivety and extreme arrogance, IMO. A "useful idiot".

And then ...

ISPs are not storing data for all users surfing habits. It's not in their interests to, they may save records for a period of time, 30 days say for example. They save info on who had an IP address certainly to comply with requests made retrospectively for example once a server hosting child abuse images is located and the access logs obtained. The forensic search would be made on the computer(s) of whoever is identified as having accessed the server.

... er ... exactly what I fucking posted in the first place.

And you wonder why I think this place is fucking infested by prejudiced fuckwit cunts ...

 

[ymu]

Could you try and find someone agreeing with the bits of your post that people have told you were wrong? It's been explained to you at least three times now, with added links. Why don't you try educating yourself instead of just claiming to be right all the time? You're not proving anything here except that you're stubborn, arrogant and insecure.

 

[Pickman's model]

weltweit

i'll take that as a 'no' then

 

[detective-boy]

Why don't you try educating yourself instead of just claiming to be right all the time? You're not proving anything here except that you're stubborn, arrogant and insecure.

LO fucking L!!!

You really are a smug, self-important cunt, aren't you?