Reading your email..

[anonymous-user]

That's a charitable reading of the information. The point is that the NSA can spy on anyone, bypassing legal safeguards such as requirements for warrants and surveillance orders granted by courts.

[RealSquirrels]

Breadvan72 said:

That's a charitable reading of the information. The point is that the NSA can spy on anyone, bypassing legal safeguards such as requirements for warrants and surveillance orders granted by courts.

i meant that the deal that most of the public thought we had was that, given good cause, and some evidence, and a warrant, people could be the subject of surveillance. the deal that we have is that we are apparently not entitled to know what agencies of the government can do, and they are also allowed to ignore the right to privacy of, well, anyone. (e.g. keeping records of internet access for millions of people).

[0000]

Doesn't seem any worse to me than keeping 2 years of ANPR data.

[RealSquirrels]

well that is wrong too , although at least we are allowed to know about it.

[anonymous-user]

Does access to your private correspondence and medical records really equate to a record that a car that you might or might not own was seen passing a particular point at a particular time?

[Halb]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/...

[Tonsko]

That's a great op-ed.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Breadvan72 said:

Does access to your private correspondence and medical records really equate to a record that a car that you might or might not own was seen passing a particular point at a particular time?

Yes, I think it does. For instance, how about the ANPR equipment was set up outside the local knocking shop or STD clinic?

"The innocent have nothing to fear". Yeah right.

NB also the rapid spread of high definition CCTV with facial recognition which tracks individuals, especially in London.

[XCP]

I drive past 2 knocking shops on the main A4 in Bristol regularly.
I don't lose any sleep over the fact that there are cameras on that road.

[Rovinghawk]

XCP said:

However, GCHQ and others snooping? I thought that was what they were there for.

In the past, they used the excuse that there was too much data to snoop on everyone & they would only be able to snoop on legitimate suspects.

They now have algorithms that can computerise the invasion of everyone's privacy. The innocent now have plenty to fear.

As with all these things, all we need is for the current 'benevolent' authorities to become a bit more malevolent & there'll be enough oppressive capacity that we could all have a share.

[XCP]

Rovinghawk said:

In the past, they used the excuse that there was too much data to snoop on everyone & they would only be able to snoop on legitimate suspects.

They now have algorithms that can computerise the invasion of everyone's privacy. The innocent now have plenty to fear.

As with all these things, all we need is for the current 'benevolent' authorities to become a bit more malevolent & there'll be enough oppressive capacity that we could all have a share.

I always thought there was a certain amount of fishing involved, and that as technology improved so the net becomes more efficient. I still can't see that my activities would interest anyone though. ( It may be that I am just rather boring)

[raftom]

XCP said:

I drive past 2 knocking shops on the main A4 in Bristol regularly.
I don't lose any sleep over the fact that there are cameras on that road.

I don't lose sleep myself either. But I do worry to know that the email of politicians, judges, police officers, CEOs, officials can be snooped and their contents can be used to bend them to a higher will.

[raftom]

Halb said:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/...

I've been following Schneier's writing since a long time and can sense the rage that he put in there. Never saw anything like that from him. And he has a lot of admirers in the NSA themselves. I guess any one clicking that link will be called to have a talk with his superior.

Edited by raftom on Friday 6th September 11:33

[Rovinghawk]

XCP said:

I always thought there was a certain amount of fishing involved, and that as technology improved so the net becomes more efficient. I still can't see that my activities would interest anyone though. ( It may be that I am just rather boring)

Using your analogy, my friend goes carp fishing but often finishes up giving a totally different type of fish a certain amount of unintentional pain & inconvenience.

I don't accept that this is in the best interests of the general fish population.

[The Don of Croy]

raftom said:

I've been following Schneier's writing since a long time and can sense the rage that he put in there. Never saw anything like that from him. And he has a lot of admirers in the NSA themselves. I guess any one clicking that link will be called to have a talk with his superior.

Edited by raftom on Friday 6th September 11:33

Was there ever an understanding that the internet was totally 'open' - without oversight or espionage?

Having created a system whereby billions of individuals can communicate, would you necessarily expect it to be secure?

[Tonsko]

The Don of Croy said:

Having created a system whereby billions of individuals can communicate, would you necessarily expect it to be secure?

No, as the designers never even dreamed of what it would become back in the 60s.

[mondeoman]

Tonsko said:

The Don of Croy said:

Having created a system whereby billions of individuals can communicate, would you necessarily expect it to be secure?

No, as the designers never even dreamed of what it would become back in the 60s.

Isn't it more to the point where the parts of it that have been developed to be secure eg financial dealings, are now open and traceable by third parties that have no fking right to the information?

[RealSquirrels]

The Don of Croy said:

raftom said:

I've been following Schneier's writing since a long time and can sense the rage that he put in there. Never saw anything like that from him. And he has a lot of admirers in the NSA themselves. I guess any one clicking that link will be called to have a talk with his superior.

Edited by raftom on Friday 6th September 11:33

Was there ever an understanding that the internet was totally 'open' - without oversight or espionage?

Having created a system whereby billions of individuals can communicate, would you necessarily expect it to be secure?

what about the postal service? What would the public reaction have been 20 years ago, if it became apparent that the state was opening, copying, and storing, everybody's personal correspondence?

[Tonsko]

mondeoman said:

Isn't it more to the point where the parts of it that have been developed to be secure eg financial dealings, are now open and traceable by third parties that have no fking right to the information?

Yes, true. The only thing I would say is that the system was never designed from the ground up to be secure - so any security that we have is a 'bolt-on' to an essentially insecure communication.

Take DNS for example - Dan Kaminsky in 2008 managed to exploit a flaw in the design of DNS to prove the ease of cache poisoning. So it is a bit better, but still vulnerable to the type of attack he highlighted. DNSSec is the solution to this, but it's not gaining traction very quickly.

Ok, so I'm rambling a bit, but you get the idea.

[The Don of Croy]

RealSquirrels said:

what about the postal service? What would the public reaction have been 20 years ago, if it became apparent that the state was opening, copying, and storing, everybody's personal correspondence?

But that's part of my point - with snail mail you have billions of individual documents to physically deal with, the logistics of which would defeat any large scale oversight whilst maintaining the service (with some notable exceptions - parcel bombs were intercepted, and many other suspicious deliveries).

Once you migrated to an electronic system - with no physical artefact - why would you necessarily expect it to be free from interference? It's exactly the kind of data crunching job computers were designed for, shirley?