Kitz Forum
Chat => Tech Chat => Topic started by: oldfogy on May 20, 2008, 01:31:57 AM
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Ministers are to consider plans for a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK, it has emerged.
The plans, reported in the Times, are at an early stage and may be included in the draft Communications Bill later this year, the Home Office confirmed.
A Home Office spokesman said the data is a "crucial tool" for protecting national security and prevent crime.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7409593.stm
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The Times is likening it to a *Big Brother scenario, and quite rightly too
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article3965033.ece
*no, not the TV program
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Thats pretty scary
"Given [ministers'] appalling record at maintaining the integrity of databases holding people's sensitive data, this could well be more of a threat to our security than a support."
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Jeez. Security of personal details with this government is like a sieve!
All the information that they hold 'in secure conditions' is more readily available than the 'Births, Deaths & Marriages' announcements in the local papers.
Not much point in buying a new shreader when they let every Tom, Dick and Abdul get hold of a few CDs with all our bank details.
dave (Walks away shaking head in disbelief) :no:
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It's quite frightening the way they use national security and the fight against terrorism to take away all sorts of civil liberties from us. I don't usually get political, but I have to say that the sooner this bunch of control freaks is kicked out the better for all of us.
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It's quite frightening the way they use national security and the fight against terrorism to take away all sorts of civil liberties from us.
Eric that is SO true,; from the outside looking in, the UK is beginning to resemble an Eastern block satellite ..............so very sad to see :(
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This isn't news unless I'm missing something. RIPA already gives them this power and when the govt activated the last section of RIPA (last year?) then all ISPs are now obliged to record every data request made by your computer/network. That's every webpage, email, IM etc etc.
In short this is already happening.
The only thing I can think of is that the muppets want all inbound (ie not initiated by you) traffic logged too.
You should always assume that everything you do online is logged somewhere because it is.
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... unless I'm missing something.
... then all ISPs are now obliged to record every data request made by your computer/network.
... In short this is already happening.
Well the way I read it is this. At the moment individual ISPs record the info.
What the government now propose is to bring this all under one roof "theirs" on one gigantic database.
That way any cross checking can be done from this one single database instead of through hundreds of ISP records.
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And just how many millions of taxpayer's money is this going to cost?
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And just how many millions of taxpayer's money is this going to cost?
In the initial instance i.e. setting the thing up?
Or in the inevitable government investigation for WHEN the thing gets compromised? :(
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And just how many millions of taxpayer's money is this going to cost?
What a good wheeze for the beancounters to evaluate how many e-mails we send, how long surfing etc. so that they can then calculate how much tax to levy on us for internet use.
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I hadn't thought of that aspect of it TD - what an old cynic you are.
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I hadn't thought of that aspect of it TD - what an old cynic you are.
I'm cynical too...and TD is probably correct in his assumption, after all this ruddy lot don't do owt for nowt and let's face it.... who's in the front line for coughing up (with arms held behind our backs) for everything in this country.... :'( Worra wunderfuel country this is.... hmmph
Chrissie
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Of course to make it completely an Orwellian 1984 world, the government would have all the ISP's installing keylogger's on everyone's PC system so they can keep tabs on us and feed us government propaganda..
Don't laugh, it could happen yet.
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Of course to make it completely an Orwellian 1984 world, the government would have all the ISP's installing keylogger's on everyone's PC system so they can keep tabs on us and feed us government propaganda..
Don't laugh, it could happen yet.
:-X :o :o :o
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This makes me so mad >:( .
1) Imagine the storage capacity that would need. There's a few £billion gone.
2) It will be a waste of money because they will just find new ways to transmit data. One way i have thought of is removing or changing the color of a pixel in a picture and then compare it to the original(binary). I wonder if that been TM'd :lol:
3) Its morally wrong
I can imagine Gordan been on the bbc saying: "erm, erm we misplaced the datacenter sorry"
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Cracks me up really. Like you say can you imagine the storage space - I dont think anyones thought that through.
Aside from the point that anything really juicy is going to be encrypted anyhow ???
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sorry officer i have forgot my encryption keys....
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2) It will be a waste of money because they will just find new ways to transmit data. One way i have thought of is removing or changing the color of a pixel in a picture and then compare it to the original(binary). I wonder if that been TM'd :lol:
Probably. Its called steganography and has been around for thousands of years.
http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1684 is a reasonable read and has an example of a jpeg with embedded text.
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sorry officer i have forgot my encryption keys....
Then you go to jail.
Two years if they decide you're not a terrorist, five years if they think you are. Do remember that when your sentence is up then they can start the procedure all over again and bang you up for another two/five years stretch. RIPA part 3......
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Cheers for that link rizla. Me and a friend were thinking about ways you could hide data the other night and i thought I would be a millionaire with that one :lol:
>>Then you go to jail.
Yeh I would probably just let them see my college work then. :lol:
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Cheers for that link rizla. Me and a friend were thinking about ways you could hide data the other night and i thought I would be a millionaire with that one :lol:
Sounds much like me in around 1994 or so :)
Steganography is a waste of time really as hiding large quantities of digital data isn't as simple as first meets the eye. Where are you going to hide 200MB of data (for example) ? Its going to have to be somewhere like an archive (rar/zip/pak/whatever) or a movie or a database. Not easy and even if you wrote a little program to utilise the file slack or alternate data streams and spread the data around it can be fairly trivial (pass the files though a hash function for example) to identify files of interest.
Steganography sounds like a great idea but it is pretty much useless for anything other than the smallest quantities of data.
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>>Sounds much like me in around 1994 or so
Lol
>>Steganography is a waste of time
Yeah been reading about it today and can see that its not that useful.
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Makes me think about all those free CD's you get through the letter box. I wonder if I actualy looked at any of them might I find a list of bank details or a listing of everyone who;s claming child credit :lol:
As this came up on the radio4 news quiz with "and all this infomation is to be stored on a disk at an unknown location, unknown to whom that is" :lol:
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And if that's not enough, how about this:-
Details of a £50m scheme to provide police forces with 10,000 hand-held computers have been unveiled.
Some 27 forces in England and Scotland will benefit from the devices, which Gordon Brown last year said would cut paperwork by 99 minutes per shift.
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Database access
Uses for the computers will include confirming identity, on-the-spot forms such as stop and search, and scanning fingerprints.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7419676.stm
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That's just great O F.....can't think of a reason why they shouldn't have them... they won't of course get stolen or fall into the wrong hands will they? They won't be lost by the users or used for things other than what they're meant for..... really good idea this isn't it, after all peeps in authority here are brill at keeping all our data secret and not losing stuff......
Jeez, whatever next...... beam me up Scotty.... is there anything they won't stoop to?
Chrissie
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Jeez, whatever next...... beam me up Scotty.... is there anything they won't stoop to?
Wasn't something like that said during the Jeremy Thorpe scandal case?
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beam me up Scotty...
did somebody call ? (https://forum.kitz.co.uk/avs/avatar_538.jpg) ;D
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Yeah,me
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi246.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fgg87%2FUncleUB%2FPhilSuesPhotos044-1.jpg&hash=dc9804b2a6e34a95de32be61796573b3b407d9d8)
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Can I come too?
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/avs/avatar_20.png)
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Roseway,.................I think they want to be alone :love: ;)
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Are you talking about the dogs or their owners? :D
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Ooooo la la ! I'm note sure Blue and Scotty should be seen kissing :-[ :lol:
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Ooooo la la ! I'm note sure Blue and Scotty should be seen kissing :-[ :lol:
It's better than what dogs usually do when they greet each other :-X :lol:
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Tufted :o
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Tufted :o
I'm sorry to be so forthright, unkyUb, but sometimes the brutal hard facts have to be said. :lol:
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I was thinking of locking this thread as it appears, at first glance to have been hijacked:
From Oldfogeys' original post:
Ministers are to consider plans for a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK.
A Home Office spokesman said the data is a "crucial tool"
Upon closer reading I now realise that the Government database of information has got you by the 'short and curlies' (or 'crucial tool' as they call it), and the way a dog collects information for it's own database of people is by having a good snort around the same area of ones anatomy that the government is grasping, so the posts are connected and no hijacking has taken place.
dave
:P
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Apart from the odd four legged fiends that crept in "briefly" I thought both topics were almost similar in relevance.
That being how ludicrously the big brother tactics are trying to be.
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You're up late, Phil.
Can't you sleep either? :no:
dave
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi188.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fz59%2Fmad1959%2FEmoticons%2Fbedtime.gif&hash=d2a43f62b768a68971277990ec412f9266abc296)
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This is not late for me, usually 04:00 before I go to bed.
Just watching reading about that is.....
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
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I was thinking of locking this thread as it appears, at first glance to have been hijacked
Hijacked !!!!! (https://forum.kitz.co.uk/avs/avatar_538.jpg) Moi !!!!!! >:D
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I see the Daily Mail are getting a bit shirty about it all (and quite rightly so):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1035361/Big-Brother-database-recording-calls-texts-e-mails-ruin-British-way-life.html
The privacy watchdog, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, warned that the public’s traditional freedoms were under grave threat from creeping state surveillance.
Apart from the Government’s inability to hold data securely, he said the proposals raised ‘grave questions’.
‘Do the risks we face provide justification for such a scheme in the first place? Do we want the state to have details of more and more aspects of our private lives?
‘Whatever the benefits, would such a scheme amount to excessive surveillance? Would this be a step too far for the British way of life?’
It is thought the scheme would allow the police or MI5 to access the exact time when a phone call was made, the number dialled, the length of the call and, in the case of mobile phones, the location of the handset to within an accuracy of a few hundred yards.
Similarly for e-mails, it would provide details of when they were sent and who the recipients were. Police recovering a suspect’s computer would then be able to trawl through hard-drive records and recover particular messages. The content of telephone calls could not be recovered unless they were being intercepted at the time.
Mr Thomas’s warnings were backed by privacy campaigners, who claimed such Big Brother powers would give Government agencies unprecedented abilities to trawl through intimate details of ordinary people’s private lives at will.
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I understand that it is not now just under consideration, the new Data Communications Bill is set to be put forward in November's Queen's Speech.; it's startling the measures the present administration appear to get away with purely with scare tactics ... IMO. :'(
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Only just seen this. I hope it's a non-starter because it is seriously flawed and like taking a sledge hammer to crack a walnut.