Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

whatsapp to be banned 'within weeks'

frogwoman said:
Yeah i know. But so much data gets transmitted in the UK every second. How will they manage to look through it all? I dont see how its workable
Click to expand...

I should imagine searches will be restricted to those who have popped up on the radar for another reason. As you say, with the volume of data, the likelihood of your texts being read is beyond minuscule.

It's not so much the actuality that is the problem, it is the concept. In a way it is changing common law to 'guilty until proven innocent'.
 
frogwoman said:
Yeah i know. But so much data gets transmitted in the UK every second. How will they manage to look through it all? I dont see how its workable
Click to expand...
People really underestimate the capabilities that the security services have these days. Of course they can't store everything passing through the internet, but there's no human input in this kind of technology. Imagine it as a kind of sieve.

James Bond writes a program to look for ISIS propaganda and uses a backdoor into Virgin's routers to install his program. It sits there looking at each message that passes through, looking for keywords that indicate ISIS sympathies. If the message looks safe, it just gets ignored (lol?) and it goes where it is meant to go. If there's anything of interest, the program makes a copy and stores it at GCHQ for further analysis.

Once a message has been intercepted, they will widen the filtering criteria to include all messages that pass to or from the author of the initial message, and well as the recipient. And according to the Snowden leaks, they go one step further and look at any messages to or from anyone one step removed from the initial recipient. All of this will be stored. Some will be encrypted. Some of the encryption will be easy to crack and if it's worth doing they will do it. Other messages will be heavily encrypted and they'll attempt a simple crack but if they can't do it they'll just keep it stored until a flaw in the algorithm is discovered, or their processing power/techniques get sufficiently advanced enough that it's feasible to crack.

The NSA are building a huge data centre in America for this task. The scale is unimaginable. I imagine there will be reciprocal agreements with the British intelligence services to share information/data/processing.
 
Fez909 said:
People really underestimate the capabilities that the security services have these days. Of course they can't store everything passing through the internet, but there's no human input in this kind of technology. Imagine it as a kind of sieve.

James Bond writes a program to look for ISIS propaganda and uses a backdoor into Virgin's routers to install his program. It sits there looking at each message that passes through, looking for keywords that indicate ISIS sympathies. If the message looks safe, it just gets ignored (lol?) and it goes where it is meant to go. If there's anything of interest, the program makes a copy and stores it at GCHQ for further analysis.

Once a message has been intercepted, they will widen the filtering criteria to include all messages that pass to or from the author of the initial message, and well as the recipient. And according to the Snowden leaks, they go one step further and look at any messages to or from anyone one step removed from the initial recipient. All of this will be stored. Some will be encrypted. Some of the encryption will be easy to crack and if it's worth doing they will do it. Other messages will be heavily encrypted and they'll attempt a simple crack but if they can't do it they'll just keep it stored until a flaw in the algorithm is discovered, or their processing power/techniques get sufficiently advanced enough that it's feasible to crack.

The NSA are building a huge data centre in America for this task. The scale is unimaginable. I imagine there will be reciprocal agreements with the British intelligence services to share information/data/processing.
Click to expand...


There already is, it's called ECHELON.
 
Fez909 said:
People really underestimate the capabilities that the security services have these days. Of course they can't store everything passing through the internet, but there's no human input in this kind of technology. Imagine it as a kind of sieve.

James Bond writes a program to look for ISIS propaganda and uses a backdoor into Virgin's routers to install his program. It sits there looking at each message that passes through, looking for keywords that indicate ISIS sympathies. If the message looks safe, it just gets ignored (lol?) and it goes where it is meant to go. If there's anything of interest, the program makes a copy and stores it at GCHQ for further analysis.

Once a message has been intercepted, they will widen the filtering criteria to include all messages that pass to or from the author of the initial message, and well as the recipient. And according to the Snowden leaks, they go one step further and look at any messages to or from anyone one step removed from the initial recipient. All of this will be stored. Some will be encrypted. Some of the encryption will be easy to crack and if it's worth doing they will do it. Other messages will be heavily encrypted and they'll attempt a simple crack but if they can't do it they'll just keep it stored until a flaw in the algorithm is discovered, or their processing power/techniques get sufficiently advanced enough that it's feasible to crack.

The NSA are building a huge data centre in America for this task. The scale is unimaginable. I imagine there will be reciprocal agreements with the British intelligence services to share information/data/processing.
Click to expand...

I assumed that if say isis was mentioned in a conversation they look through the whole thing?
 
frogwoman said:
I assumed that if say isis was mentioned in a conversation they look through the whole thing?
Click to expand...
Depends if you're already on their radar, or what else was said by you/your friends.

We've just mentioned ISIS here, but we're not contacting jihadis and we're not in the circle of radical clerics, so our messages won't be of interest. They might still be catalogued for future use though.

However, if you were bezzies with a ISIS fighter, and you'd previously visited bomb-making tutorials, and had been checking out flights to Syria or Pakistan, then this conversation might trigger an alert and then, yes, you might get a human having a look at it.

Those decisions to review, though, will mostly be made by computer programs. Written by people like Snowden.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

editor
Cyber-flasher first to be jailed for new offence after WhatsApp pic
Replies
11
Views
557
Shippou-Sensei
Shippou-Sensei
Wilf
Things you'd like to see over the next 6 weeks
Replies
24
Views
723
Pickman's model
Pickman's model
scifisam
What MIGHT be better under Labour this time round? (Try to be positive)
Replies
27
Views
563
Epona
Epona
L
“Be Lazy. Just Vote”
Replies
3
Views
2K
Monkeygrinder's Organ
M
PTK
British Army Death Squad Soldiers to be Prosecuted
Replies
4
Views
347
PTK
PTK
Back
Top Bottom