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 Da Boss wrote:

 sarpedons-right-hand wrote:
And yet if it had not been made public, no one would have been aware. What the government chooses to do with my internet traffic history is up to them. Fret not, unless you are planning on doing something illegal, you can still say and pretty much do what you like on the internet...

I'm going to continue to be blissfully unaware of what GCHQ is up to, because I have a job, a mortgage to pay and mouths to feed. Basically, I'm too damn busy to worry about a semi-shady Government department.

What your government chooses to do with your data is up to them, maybe. But they aren't my government, and I object to them spying on communications from within my country. I object more strongly to the Irish government collaborating with them, I should note.

Howard A. Treesong:
Go read up about abuses of state power in Northern Ireland if you want some examples.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-30296397
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_loyalism#Collusion_with_the_security_forces

Forgive me if I am suspicious of the British government.

Your forgiven. I'm british and I don't trust them either.

 LordofHats wrote:
Lets be real here.

Every government is doing this. Whether they say they're doing it or not, or whether they're supposed to do it or not, they are doing it. NSA got caught, not the UK has been caught, theres more than enough reason to think France and Germany are doing the same. Honestly the only country I've seen nothing about on this is Italy.

Indeed. If the British are doing it, the Chinese and North Koreans are prolling trolling messages for kicks.

It's just another example of why no true change will happen in our country. The existing structures are so well cemented as to be impossible to remove.

Some ISP's are complicit in all this though, without the need for secret courts.

There's nothing more unsettling than secret courts.

Virgin Media for example blocks some pirating/torrenting sites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Domestic_espionage_sharing_controversy


I'm going to leave this here.

The UK doesn't have a 'proper' constitution, which makes it awkward to defend certain freedoms on legal grounds. It's annoying that there was such a fuss over stuff like SOPA in the US, but when DNS blocking happened in the UK we didn't even get asked about it.

Sites such as the pirate bay, and kick ass torrents etc were DNS blocked -- for about five minutes -- until new proxies opened up, those were blocked too for a while, but eventually, I think the BPI and MPAA just gave up. And if they didn't, they should have, because it was futile.

As many people predicted for SOPA, DNS blocking doesn't work -- at all.

I think it's more that the poster has an axe to grind with the country doing the spying, as opposed to the spying itself. I think he'd probably find a way to be annoyed with more or less anything the UK government did. If the Irish government is, in your opinion, comparitively weak, toothless and in the UK's back pocket, maybe you should blame them, not us.

I'm not mad at the USA's level of influence over us, for example. It's not their responsibility to defend our national interests, it's ours. That's the nature of power. 'Twas ever thus.

 Medium of Death wrote:
It's just another example of why no true change will happen in our country. The existing structures are so well cemented as to be impossible to remove.

Some ISP's are complicit in all this though, without the need for secret courts.

There's nothing more unsettling than secret courts.

Virgin Media for example blocks some pirating/torrenting sites.

I'm not sure what change you require but it will not happen while the vast majority of Britain's are quite happy with their lot. The large and happy Middle Classes are one of the main reasons for our nations stability after all.

And guess what, the vast majority of that vast majority don't give two feths about this issue as;

a) they don't know or care what ever the hell the internet is or how it works
b) they will never care so long as facebook, youtube and BBC/ITV/4OD/Demand 5 iPlayer's are up and running and no one is cutting off the normal type of porn we all know and love
c) they rightly hate Pedophiles and Terrorists who's activities are propagated and enabled by an unregulated internet.

There is no uproar or attention for this subject because no one in that vast majority gives a gak about the subject, indeed are quite happy for it to continue if it avoids even one 7/7 or Lee Rigby killing or sees a nonce banged up

As one of them I kinda agree.

 Albatross wrote:
I think it's more that the poster has an axe to grind with the country doing the spying, as opposed to the spying itself. I think he'd probably find a way to be annoyed with more or less anything the UK government did. If the Irish government is, in your opinion, comparitively weak, toothless and in the UK's back pocket, maybe you should blame them, not us.

I'm not mad at the USA's level of influence over us, for example. It's not their responsibility to defend our national interests, it's ours. That's the nature of power. 'Twas ever thus.

You're free to feel that way, of course. Maybe I am tremendously biased. I do blame the Irish government, I am furious at them. However that doesn't get the UK off the hook.

I think I've shown over my time here that I am not a rabid Irish nationalist or anything of the sort, but you can choose to cast my anger as being nationalist bile, if you like. No skin off my nose.

"The news that they have nothing to fear is guaranteed to strike terror into the hearts of innocents" ~Terry Pratchett~

GCHQ to help tackle 'dark net' child abuse images

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30426164

Intelligence experts and organised crime specialists will join forces to tackle child abuse images on the "dark net", David Cameron has said.

The prime minister said a joint GCHQ and National Crime Agency unit would hunt online paedophiles with the same "effort" used to track terrorists.

Speaking at a London summit, he said online child exploitation existed on an "almost industrial scale" worldwide.

He also unveiled a law to stop adults sending children "sexual" messages.

Labour said it had suggested the same law six weeks ago and the government had said it was "not necessary".

Mr Cameron said the new unit was part of a drive to remove millions of "sickening and depraved" images from the internet.

The term "dark net" refers to parts of the internet that are hidden and can be hard to access without special software, and Downing Street said the new unit would be able to analyse huge volumes of images.
'Abused to order'

Mr Cameron said progress had been made on blocking online abuse images, but added: "The dark net is the next side of the problem, where paedophiles and perverts are sharing images, not using the normal parts of the internet that we all use.

"What we are doing there is setting GCHQ, our world class intelligence agency, together with the National Crime Agency and we are going to go after these people with every bit of effort that we go after terrorists and other international criminals."

I would be more convinced of this excuse, If they found the missing file related to child abuse by british politicians.

LordofHats wrote:Governments have spied on other governments and their people (and their own) since the dawn of governance. The world keeps on turning. Until they whip out the secret police *glares at FISA Courts suspiciously* I assign it to a lower rung of things that work me up.

EDIT: That and as I've said in other threads, it baffles me how people get upset only when governments do this. You're connected to EA's servers every time you play one of their games on your computer, through a system that openly states it's collecting information on you, and you only get upset when the government does it? They're late comers to this little game.

This, a hundred times this.

The thing is I dont understand all the anger and shock that the government does it because if you arent doing anything illegal then you have nothing to worrry about. In this online age there is no such thing as privacy anymore. So please tell me where this outrage comes from?

I am completely fine with stuff like this. As far as I am concerned, if this helps stop a massive drugs import, child porn, sex trafficking, organised crime, etc, its justified. And if it does nothing but be a deterent, that's fine too. And even if it does absolutely nothing of value, who cares? I don't understand why people are so obsessed with their privacy? Who cares if the government knows you are having an affair with the pretty bartender or something like that? They aren't going to call your wife or prosecute you for silly stuff like that. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear. Which is why Sinn Fein are making a stink about it, because they are all former terrorists and Gerry Adams is the brother of a convicted paedo and I wouldn't be surprised if he was one himself. He did protect his brother after all. They all have dirty shifty stuff to hide and hidden agendas and they damn well should be afraid.

 Deadshot wrote:
And even if it does absolutely nothing of value, who cares? I don't understand why people are so obsessed with their privacy? Who cares if the government knows you are having an affair with the pretty bartender or something like that?

- Because, at best, it's then unnecessary spending, on a significant scale.
- Because it has no oversight or accountability.
- Because there have already been personal conflicts of interest and abuses established (at least, in the US).
- Because they don't only target individuals, but companies.
- Because what exploits they create and use could also be used by "our enemies".
- Because they potentially compromise HIPAA (again, US).
- Because what may be illegal tomorrow isn't illegal today.
- Because they haven't been able to cite even one positive thing they've actually been able to do with the power.

Lastly, because experts in the field of computer security and computer networking are always the people who are most disturbed by it.

How about because, I don't expect to be treated like a criminal, until I behave like a criminal.
I use the deep web to check up on them, I don't want them checking up on me, checking up on them.

It's rare to lose your freedom overnight, most people lose it an inch at a time.

 loki old fart wrote:
How about because, I don't expect to be treated like a criminal, until I behave like a criminal.
I use the deep web to check up on them, I don't want them checking up on me, checking up on them.

It's rare to lose your freedom overnight, most people lose it an inch at a time.

Oh just feth off. Sorry, but this is the most nauseating kind of self-righteous hyperbole. The internet is not a totally 'free' public space, nor should it be. Nor should the roads, or any other quasi-public space in which private citizens can do harm to each other.

It honestly boils my piss, this nonsense. The words 'internet', 'privacy', 'government' and 'restriction' together in a sentence act as a dog-whistle to people whose political understanding hasn't evolved beyond the heated 'debates' that took place in Steve Biko lounge of their student union.

 loki old fart wrote:
How about because, I don't expect to be treated like a criminal, until I behave like a criminal.
I use the deep web to check up on them, I don't want them checking up on me, checking up on them.

It's rare to lose your freedom overnight, most people lose it an inch at a time.

Wow, my freedom just went down the drain? Didn't even notice! Well, I guess I can't use facebook anymore, or post on Dakka, or leave my house anymore. For feth's sake, what have you lost? Nothing whatsoever! You can still do all the same things. What the hell are you worried about them seeing?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 daedalus wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
And even if it does absolutely nothing of value, who cares? I don't understand why people are so obsessed with their privacy? Who cares if the government knows you are having an affair with the pretty bartender or something like that?

- Because, at best, it's then unnecessary spending, on a significant scale.
- Because it has no oversight or accountability.
- Because there have already been personal conflicts of interest and abuses established (at least, in the US).
- Because they don't only target individuals, but companies.
- Because what exploits they create and use could also be used by "our enemies".
- Because they potentially compromise HIPAA (again, US).
- Because what may be illegal tomorrow isn't illegal today.
- Because they haven't been able to cite even one positive thing they've actually been able to do with the power.

Lastly, because experts in the field of computer security and computer networking are always the people who are most disturbed by it.

Its not unnecessary spending; its money well spent to catch criminals, deter wannabe criminals and make the internet and the country safer.
Its accountable to the government and law. A government is elected to govern, make laws and rule. Follow the rules.
Get different people in if there is a conflict of interest. Just the same as with banking and stuff like that.
Good, catch tax evasion and other dodgy stuff in the 1%
Anything can be hacked. If the enemies have the know-how to access MI5 backdoors and access points, they have the ability to hack those things themselves.
I'm assuming that stands for Human Rights or something. Which irritate me because of the all the restrictions and PC crap. Not interested.
The same could be true in the real world. Tomorrow it may be illegal to drive blue cars.
Which means the people they are looking at arn't doing anything wrong (or are smart enough to hide) and that is a good thing.

 Deadshot wrote:

Its not unnecessary spending; its money well spent to catch criminals, deter wannabe criminals and make the internet and the country safer.
Its accountable to the government and law. A government is elected to govern, make laws and rule. Follow the rules.
Get different people in if there is a conflict of interest. Just the same as with banking and stuff like that.
Good, catch tax evasion and other dodgy stuff in the 1%
Anything can be hacked. If the enemies have the know-how to access MI5 backdoors and access points, they have the ability to hack those things themselves.
I'm assuming that stands for Human Rights or something. Which irritate me because of the all the restrictions and PC crap. Not interested.
The same could be true in the real world. Tomorrow it may be illegal to drive blue cars.
Which means the people they are looking at arn't doing anything wrong (or are smart enough to hide) and that is a good thing.

- The unnecessary spending thing was in response to you suggesting it that no one should care even if it does nothing of value.
- Again, at least in the US, the institution is NOT accountable to the government. The declawed oversight committee has gone on record stating that they're not forthcoming with information.
- That's why we have things like the SOX act. Banks are private sector though. This is public, and should be subject to differing levels of scrutiny. Apples and oranges.
- I do not think anything shady that the 1% does is contained anywhere on the company servers. Regardless, most tax evasion methods are well documented and legal.
- Anything can be hacked. We reduce the risk of that by lowering the number of vectors of attack. There's really no way to make the internet safe for people who don't care about how it works, and still allow stuff like this to happen. A lot of professionals are losing trust in American companies like Cisco because of the fear of embedded firmware backdoors and the like. It damages the public perception of the company. North korean hackers or whatever the boogy man du jure is do not have the leverage to force companies like Cisco to implement such things. They have to get lucky and find something that exists out of the box and use it until it gets noticed and patched. Computer security is a constant arms race of finding the exploits and the closing them before people do nasty things with them. Hacking isn't a matter of techo and 3d images scrolling across a screen until someone who's a "genius" does something like "hack the gibson" by hammering on a keyboard fast enough in real time. You need open doors, and having one left wide open per state mandate isn't a good thing for any of us.
- HIPAA is a law enacted in the Clinton era pertaining to medical records and regulation in the healh insurance industry. It does a lot of things, but one of the things it does is mandate the technical security of health information. It's one of the few forms regulation that actually sees the hammer brought down on violations rather (IMO) heavily. It is impossible to guarantee unintercepted health record related data now because of the NSA. This type of regulation can also hit individual employees, not just companies. Regardless of your interest or lack thereof, it's the law in the US, so it must be abided, at least by US citizens, right?
- Your example is trivial. Think about human nature harder. Consider McCarthyism. I don't want to be brought before a loyalty board in 5-10 years for something innocuous I sent in an encrypted email yesterday, or end up on a no fly list because of something that someone misconstrued in private communication. That could never happen though, right?
- I can't, in good conscience, say "That $52,000,000,000/year institution that watches everything we do and look at over a electronic medium appears to be ineffective at doing the thing it's supposed to and I'm glad it's there." I guess I'm happy for you that you can.
- Again, if all of these things are trivial, and if it's something that's good, why are the security and network experts nervous as feth about it?

 Albatross wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
How about because, I don't expect to be treated like a criminal, until I behave like a criminal.
I use the deep web to check up on them, I don't want them checking up on me, checking up on them.

It's rare to lose your freedom overnight, most people lose it an inch at a time.

Oh just feth off. Sorry, but this is the most nauseating kind of self-righteous hyperbole. The internet is not a totally 'free' public space, nor should it be. Nor should the roads, or any other quasi-public space in which private citizens can do harm to each other.

It honestly boils my piss, this nonsense. The words 'internet', 'privacy', 'government' and 'restriction' together in a sentence act as a dog-whistle to people whose political understanding hasn't evolved beyond the heated 'debates' that took place in Steve Biko lounge of their student union.

How about you feth off? Your denigration of the arguments against this are just an attempt to shut down discussion you don't like.

"The internet" is a big, complicated thing. Making a statement like "the internet should not be private" is nonsense. Parts of it obviously are not private, and shouldn't be. Other parts though, we have a reasonable right to expect that they be private.

And certainly, between nations, there should be a reasonable expectation of privacy. I mean, I guess if as a UK citizen you are happy to be spied upon, great for you. But if the UK spies on the citizens of other nations, that is crossing a line, and the people in those nations do have a right to be annoyed about it, no matter how much it boils your piss to hear it.

It'd actually be preferable if no one "fethed off" and even better if people stopped hurling that at each other.


Thank you.

 Smacks wrote:
The UK doesn't have a 'proper' constitution, which makes it awkward to defend certain freedoms on legal grounds. It's annoying that there was such a fuss over stuff like SOPA in the US, but when DNS blocking happened in the UK we didn't even get asked about it.

Sites such as the pirate bay, and kick ass torrents etc were DNS blocked -- for about five minutes -- until new proxies opened up, those were blocked too for a while, but eventually, I think the BPI and MPAA just gave up. And if they didn't, they should have, because it was futile.

As many people predicted for SOPA, DNS blocking doesn't work -- at all.

We've got the Human Rights Act. Ironically the Conservatives and UKIP want to get rid of that.

 Da Boss wrote:

 Albatross wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
How about because, I don't expect to be treated like a criminal, until I behave like a criminal.
I use the deep web to check up on them, I don't want them checking up on me, checking up on them.

It's rare to lose your freedom overnight, most people lose it an inch at a time.

Oh just feth off. Sorry, but this is the most nauseating kind of self-righteous hyperbole. The internet is not a totally 'free' public space, nor should it be. Nor should the roads, or any other quasi-public space in which private citizens can do harm to each other.

It honestly boils my piss, this nonsense. The words 'internet', 'privacy', 'government' and 'restriction' together in a sentence act as a dog-whistle to people whose political understanding hasn't evolved beyond the heated 'debates' that took place in Steve Biko lounge of their student union.

How about you feth off? Your denigration of the arguments against this are just an attempt to shut down discussion you don't like.

The discussion is one worth having. The rhetoric, however, reduces it to absurdity. Our freedom hasn't disappeared overnight simply because the British government can read my emails if they suspect I'm a terrorist. Which I AM NOT, if you're listening GCHQ.

"The internet" is a big, complicated thing. Making a statement like "the internet should not be private" is nonsense. Parts of it obviously are not private, and shouldn't be. Other parts though, we have a reasonable right to expect that they be private.

Everything you do online can be seen by somebody, be it private company or national government, be it the contents of your emails or the contents of your bank account. 'Privacy' means something different online. We really need to start making our peace with that.

And certainly, between nations, there should be a reasonable expectation of privacy. I mean, I guess if as a UK citizen you are happy to be spied upon, great for you. But if the UK spies on the citizens of other nations, that is crossing a line, and the people in those nations do have a right to be annoyed about it, no matter how much it boils your piss to hear it.

I'm glad the UK is spying on Ireland. It's in the top 5 of countries we probably should be spying on, given proximity and recent history. I'd be a little annoyed if my government wasn't spying on you! Can you really blame us?

I've attached my A-Level project which was based on this topic if anyone fancies a read. Before anyone starts mowing it down even I know there are plenty of flaws in it but there is some interesting information I found out in there as well.


Sorry, have had to remove this. Interested parties can contact the poster and hopefully he'll sort you out.
Reds8n

 Albatross wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

 Albatross wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
How about because, I don't expect to be treated like a criminal, until I behave like a criminal.
I use the deep web to check up on them, I don't want them checking up on me, checking up on them.

It's rare to lose your freedom overnight, most people lose it an inch at a time.

Oh just feth off. Sorry, but this is the most nauseating kind of self-righteous hyperbole. The internet is not a totally 'free' public space, nor should it be. Nor should the roads, or any other quasi-public space in which private citizens can do harm to each other.

It honestly boils my piss, this nonsense. The words 'internet', 'privacy', 'government' and 'restriction' together in a sentence act as a dog-whistle to people whose political understanding hasn't evolved beyond the heated 'debates' that took place in Steve Biko lounge of their student union.

How about you feth off? Your denigration of the arguments against this are just an attempt to shut down discussion you don't like.

The discussion is one worth having. The rhetoric, however, reduces it to absurdity. Our freedom hasn't disappeared overnight simply because the British government can read my emails if they suspect I'm a terrorist. Which I AM NOT, if you're listening GCHQ.

"The internet" is a big, complicated thing. Making a statement like "the internet should not be private" is nonsense. Parts of it obviously are not private, and shouldn't be. Other parts though, we have a reasonable right to expect that they be private.

Everything you do online can be seen by somebody, be it private company or national government, be it the contents of your emails or the contents of your bank account. 'Privacy' means something different online. We really need to start making our peace with that.

And certainly, between nations, there should be a reasonable expectation of privacy. I mean, I guess if as a UK citizen you are happy to be spied upon, great for you. But if the UK spies on the citizens of other nations, that is crossing a line, and the people in those nations do have a right to be annoyed about it, no matter how much it boils your piss to hear it.

I'm glad the UK is spying on Ireland. It's in the top 5 of countries we probably should be spying on, given proximity and recent history. I'd be a little annoyed if my government wasn't spying on you! Can you really blame us?

Being from Northern Ireland, I can agree with spying on the Republic as a principle, but from personal experience the RoI is not heavily involved in IRA stuff in the last 10 years. Generally speaking we are refering to dissident Republicans as the instigators of gak, and usually all they do is tell the papers/police there is a car bomb on Road X to hold up traffic. The most memorable action in 10 years is a failed car bomb last year than took out the glass of a shop's window.


Anyway, the top 5 we should be spying on?
1: America: they are too powerful and we are too comfortable with them to be wary, and so pose a massive potential threat.
2: China: As above, but with communism and control the line of Britain's favourite food, meaning we could be controlled by drugs in it (lol)
3: Ireland
4: Russia: As with China, but less bat-gak crazy, and doesn't supply us with fried and battered chicken balls with rice
5: The UK; Being from Northern Ireland has taught me that home-grown threats are massive threats. Not to mention (trying not to sound UKIP here), with the massive influx of immigrants and asylum seekers in the last 10 years, with little background checking done, the possibility of ISIS or other terrorist groups infiltrating the UK is disturbing. Not to mention welfare drain on benefits leeches, who refuse to go to work, but could, and just sit on the dole, claim disability or something and drink their 30s and 40s away.

 Albatross wrote:

I'm glad the UK is spying on Ireland. It's in the top 5 of countries we probably should be spying on, given proximity and recent history. I'd be a little annoyed if my government wasn't spying on you! Can you really blame us?

That...
That...
That is...


A pretty good point.

I can accept that due to dissident republican activity (which is mostly in the North, but there's quite a lot going on in the Border regions and other pockets quite far from the North too) the UK has to have some intelligence oversight in Ireland. And I expect that our authorities will communicate with yours in these matters, and I'm happy enough with that.

I am still not happy with a mass, indiscriminate collection of all data flowing through though. I feel they have no need to spy so indiscriminately, and are doing it simply because the technology allows it. It's very open to abuse and misuse in my opinion, and it is an example of government over-reach.