That's all.

Lets not get all hysterical; instead lets take our example from Mark Steele and embrace the tracking and make it cost them more.

So we could just give them lots and lots of data to track instead; and if you are being awkward freedom of information act it back again with weird parameters just to make it fun for the ISP's. We need a small utility that google searches for top terrorist topics, middle eastern holiday tips and interesting virus research news each day and then visits all the websites during the night could be just the thing we all need.

According to ol' Jackboots, all they want to know is "who is talking to who, not what they're saying". And the solution to this is mandatory DPI in every ISP.

Apart from creating an operational and privacy nightmare for ISPs that we, The Governed, end up paying for, this appears to acheive sweet F.A.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but:

- the ISP still don't know who I'm emailing (I use Gmail over HTTPS);

- they still don't know who I talk to (Skype is P2P and encrypted).

Oh well. At least they can drive the economy out of recession through the Magic Power Of Targeted Advertising {sigh...}

I was under the suspicion that MI6 already had a £45M ISP tracking system in place that could capture and store all ISP related contact between the UK slave...sorry citizens?

Well done Jacqui, you will make us the envy of every tinpot little dictator the world over.

Briton's #1 for child asthma!

Briton's #1 for obesity!

Briton's #1 for surveillance society!

A day we can truly be proud to be British!

So the goverment want to pay ISP's to do it. Doesnt anyone find that strange?

What a waste of money, anyone with any technical knowledge know this is never going to work (for a start it's an IT related govt project!).

A message can be encrypted to the point of being unbreakable, or hidden encoded in an image.

The recepient can be hidden by simply uploading the image onto flickr, or some other image sharing service and letting them pick it up.

Browsing habits get hidden by TOR.

Want to go a step further? Well go and jump onto any open wifi point, there are still plenty about, especially in pubs and coffee houses where there are no cameras or other links back to your identity (you did buy that expresso with cash didn't you)...

Or are we going to need their wonderful ID cards before we are allowed to buy a coffee?

""I agree that what we're asking the industry to do is something that will put a burden on them," Smith said at today's IMP briefing for journalists. She said providers will be refunded the cost of collecting and processing the data by the government."

So that'll be us, then - paying someone to spy on us. In what way, I wonder, this being the case, will this NOT be a government-run system?

Isn't democracy great?

Why don't they borrow less money instead?

Why are they bothering when they will not be in power much longer anyway?

What is wrong with the idiots?

Burn them!

Given that New Labours has a little in joke of appointing increasinly insane Home Secrectaries, and that has led us to Jaqui, one wonders where they can go from here. You get the impression that in Jaqui's head she can always hear a constant whispering of terrorists making their plans right behind her, but when ever she turns around they are not there. Maybe only through the IMP can she finally stop the whispering voices.

27/04/09 - Download - "Idiots guide to a totalitarian society.pdf"

28/04/09 - Download - "How to win friends and influence people.doc"

30/06/09 - Purchased - "Stalin: A biography"

01/04/10 - Uploaded - "Gordon Browns Labour party, my part in it's downfall.pdf"

02/04/10 - Download - "Ocean's 11.avi"

The thing is, once they know you use GMail and Skype, a targeted attack against (just) you is a lot more likely to be successful. Witness Hushmail sending special non-encrypting Java applets when asked, Skype delivering an 'update' is just a similar thing...

Don't stand for this - help No2ID get it stopped and attend a local meeting now.

In the mean time, where can I find an application that connects randomly to a list of web sites and asks for a random page, that I can restrict to (say) 10% of my bandwidth and then leave idling on my laptop all the time ?

"Lets not get all hysterical

By Anonymous Coward Posted Monday 27th April 2009 12:07 GMT

Lets not get all hysterical; instead lets take our example from Mark Steele and embrace the tracking and make it cost them more.

So we could just give them lots and lots of data to track instead; and if you are being awkward freedom of information act it back again with weird parameters just to make it fun for the ISP's.

"

ONly one problem there AC, you forgot, these UK ISPs are private listed companies, the "Freedom Of Information Act" Does NOT currently cover them.

Only the DPA (Data Protection Act)covers that personal data aka all the Phorm DPI points already covered and restated time and agin...

dont see jackle and UK PLC looking to extend the "Freedom Of Information Act" to fully cover all aspects the the likes of Virgin Media and BT etc .

after all VM etc just want your money, so they can stash it outside the country without useing any % of your monthly charges to actually upgrade the networks you pay for as included inside the basic viable business plan.... But that OT for this subject.

dont be so certain skype can protect you, its encryption is a closed system and that usually means weak/bugged. also didn't skype open a backdoor for the chinese?

"A message can be encrypted to the point of being unbreakable, or hidden encoded in an image.

The recepient can be hidden by simply uploading the image onto flickr, or some other image sharing service and letting them pick it up.

Browsing habits get hidden by TOR.

"

sure thats true, BUT you forget , your everage end users in the UK still NEED a FREE end point outside the UK to then make and use these encrypted tunnels, thats Just NOT happening, even PB are charging a nominal fee for their new tunnels so thats out for most people.....

as for Tor, again ,sure thats an option BUT only if you can stand super slow anon end points, as again, theres NO mass of Co-Location 10Ggabit TOR end points around, they dont allow or encurage binary data through the TOR network as you never know if your going to hit a helpful consumers pitance of an Upload bandwidth......

its a problem for sure, but potential dialup speeds are not the way to encurrage Uk end users to take up the TOR banner and help out the whole network, ANY Co-Location high bandwidth server end points will help.

do you see any non UK 3rd party vendors setup up shop for Mas free TOR and tunneled Endpoints, i dont.... perhaps theres a business plan that can work, but noones spoken of it yet...

"They still don't know who I talk to (Skype is P2P and encrypted)."

I would guess that the encapsulating packet addresses contain enough information in Sype to

identify the endpoints, even if the encrypted tunnel scrambles the conversation. So I suspect that unless you use a VPN through an offshore gateway, the UK Gov can obtain information about who is talking to whom and when and for how long, if not being able to tap into the relevant conversation. Also I don't know what kind of encryption is used in Skype or anything about the security of Skype key management.

In general I would agree that being subject to this monitoring is voluntary in exchange for cheapness. But to opt out of deep packet inspection and traffic analysis of encrypted content you will need to proxy all applications to an offshore gateway VPN server and insert some plausible chaff on the connection, as well as using a secure VPN technology and being careful with key and host management.

A while since I've used so some of the options may not be correct

wget -r -l 5 -O /dev/null -q -H http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=the&btnG=Search&meta=

Only about 263,000,000 pages.... at the top level

The beauty of encrypting a message and hiding it in a picture is that firstly you have to know that there is an embedded message in the picture. Secondly, if you use the recipient's public key to do the encrypting, you can't decrypt the message anyhow thus nullifying RIPA. They will, however, probably get you for something else (wasn't it amazing how, a couple of years ago, every terrorist suspect that couldn't be charged was found to have kiddie porn on the hard disks of their computers) but that's a different matter.

Old face ache jacki just brought a large slice of a paper company as i still think its against the law to open good old fashion mail. Amazing the most private way to send data soon will be to write it on a piece of paper (until its legal (like this would stop this goevrment) to open your letters looking for 1 of the millions of terorist we see every day, oh wait its just Proper gander that theres a terrorist in every community, just ask the 12 blokes arrest the other week, well done Jacki on that one as well),

This is sounding worse and worse.

"Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said today she had "ruled out" the idea of a central government-run store of communications data on privacy grounds."

"Privacy grounds"?!?!? And yet the alternative is something that's no less a violation of privacy anyway.

What's more, as AC @ 12:57 GMT pointed out, ISPs are nicely beyond the reach of Freedom of Information. Isn't that like ACPO? And the IWF? This is moving State "surveillance" of the general population beyond democratic accountability (not that we have much of a democracy, but even so...).

Jacqui Smith's contempt for us seems endless.

Here's some "e-petitions":-

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/privacy-matters/

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/erosionofrights/

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/GCHQinvasion/

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/stopdatabase/

The retrenchment from the uber database is to be welcomed, but it should be noted that Smith's claim that it is because of 'privacy concerns' is just another bare-faced lie from the lying liars who have governed us for the past twelve years.

The real reason for the abandonment of this POS is that the country has been bankrupted by a group of economic terrorists while those we elect to have oversight of the executive sit in the Westminster parliament and are happy to be bribed with unaudited expenses, bullied and blackmailed by government whips who herd them through the voting lobby like the pathetic sheep they are. All parties.

There is probably a clause buried deep in the RIPA legislation that refers to 'economic sabotage' but don't hold your breath waiting for the prime suspects, Blair, Brown, and Mandelson (and by default, Cameron and Osborne) to be hauled up before the beaks.

Obviously there is no IT angle, just go back to sleep.

So they overcooked the original IMP uberdatabase proposal, instantly making whatever crock they dreamed up as its replacement easier to swallow. I f*cking hate politicians.

Oh yeah and while I'm on it, I saw some nonsense reality TV program about the "UK Border Agency", in which its agents were battering on some poor pleb's door shouting "open up it's the Home Office". The producers must've cut the "if you've got nothing to hide" rider off the back of it (HHOS). And anyway, since when did the Home Office become an executive agency?

My response to the consultation is short and simple:

"JACQUI YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND"

(And you're not the first Jacqui I've known who is a complete lunatic)

of faking the Internet traffic... Hmmm!..

Clearly these guys are utterly clueless. Just remember boys and girls, garbage in - garbage out...

'Under the proposals, mobile and fixed line operators will be required to process and link the data together to build complete profiles of every UK internet user's online activity.'

So when all this takes off what do you think it will mean......

User ID 164328623414709.

Regularly publishes to a website critical of Government Policy. (El Reg)

Regularly reads information critical to current UK Government Policy/Law Making. (Out-law.com)

Regularly purchases items from outside UK/Europe (eBay)

Likes to visit adult content sites hosted in Non EEC Countries (www.BBWrUS.us)

Spoke to unidentified associate on Mobile Telephone number 0123145-012365651 Location London

Went out in car - Withdrew £30 cash from HSBC - Spent 3 hours in pub, Purchased 1 pint. Spent £10. Conversation held covertly.

Drove home. Vehicle Tracked by Police.

I for one bow down to over Information Overlords. Because if you don't you will be arrested on your way to University, school , work, Gordon Brown will go on the news and tell everyone you are murdering terrorist and as guilty as sin before they deport you for being too clean.

Nobody is that clean Governor we can't hold them long enough to find the dirt' Pity we didn't get the 42 Days in.

Next time my young apprentice, they can run but they can never hide.

Can we have a new 'Being Watched Icon?'

Something like the Eye of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings.

or

the Red Eye, the Evil Eye, the Lidless Eye

*** >> "A message can be encrypted to the point of being unbreakable, or hidden encoded in an image." That's where the RIP Act comes in. Hand over the decryption keys to the authorities when requested, or go straight to prison. ***

Never mind that they do not actually plan to keep any message in the databases ("just" the sender / receiver addresses etc). Never mind the nonsense about encryption being unbreakable etc. Then the RIP act nonsense - all terrorists are just rolling their thumbs and waiting in the UK are they? Furthermore what about temporary ad hoc decryption keys which are session specific and cannot be recreated?

The only people really spied on effectively with this nonsensical proposal are those who really have nothing to hide. Any educated criminal and terrorist will easily get around this stupidity. The sad thing is that this obvious aspect should by now be rather obvious to our government.

So what is the real issue here?

1. Are they really that stupid that they believe what they are proposing will work as envisaged?

2. Are they so corrupt that they do not care for the consequences.

3. Is this idea promoted as a sick way of getting / keeping some selected businesses on the gravy train?

4. Are they so arrogant that they are not aware of the threat that their proposal creates to the population at large?

5. Are they so self important that they think the population is too stupid to understand the risks involved?

etc...

This benighted government has an abysmal record with IT. WTF do they think they're going to get from this that they could possibly use? After all, if they're running surveillance on any individual or group, they can do it without waking up the UK's fab band of ISPs to do anything other than put an ever tighter lid on our usage levels.

Perhaps we should introduce a law that says any numbnut potential candidate for Parliament must have at least a working knowledge of computing or - oh, I don't know - be put to death, say.

Just a thought. After all, if these dicks want to investigate every aspect our feckn lives they should at least know what they're talking about. Perhaps we should show them absolutely everything we do; send Jacqui our stool samples, for example.

How stupid are these damned people?

Paris, cos I'd rather be in Paris in the Spring.

I wonder how access to these records is going to be controlled, and whether there will be leaks to the press about various officials "surfing" to "immoral" sites...

There was some talk about bots on some Gov't computers somewhere, right?..

More terrible FUD propaganda from a gov who lost touch with reality through the smokescreen of their lies...

badguy@ukhost:~/$ ssh my-no-log-proxy.cn

badguy@my-no-log-proxy:~/$ wget guyfawkeshandbook.txt

Yes, yes all this noise about DPI and how it's now the ISP who will have to pay, yadda, yadda, yadda. For what it's worth here's my opinion......

1) The recession will save us; How many private companies are going to be falling over themselves to implement a system which may or may not be deemed illegal by the EU at some point? They will form a cartel and plead poverty - so either HMG pays up and funds this insane project or it will die a slow and unlamented commerical death.

2) It's an IT project that has come from HMG. Come this time next year you can bet your arse that this will have been pushed into what those who play the game call the "long grass".

3) That mad old harpie and all of her cronies don't have the time left to implement such a scheme, less so to construct her uber-database, before the general Election next year - though in a worrying development IBM - a company well known for it's database-building-and-cataloging-of people-skills has won a number of contracts with the HO to do just that.

So there you have it. Companies won't pay for this, Government can't afford to and either way they haven't got the time to even if they had the money to do so.

That said they are still a bunch of c@@@s and will be undoubtedly shitting themselves when they can no longer rely on Parliamentary priviledge to protect their amoral asses.

Criminals will just use ever more complex encryption, or simply not use the Internet to talk, so won't be affected.

Meanwhile millions of innocent but non-technical general public will be profiled more than any police state in the world has ever achieved before.

So much for freedom and democracy.

As for ruling out a central database on “privacy grounds” ... thats an utter lie and direct evidence of government use of manipulative wording. They know it undermines privacy.

At least now the government has finally shown why they haven't stopped Phorm. They want Phorm. But Phorm is more than DPI. Everyone technical keeps getting caught up in discussions about DPI. This isn't about DPI, its about Phorm style technology building automated profiles on everyone. Phorm like technology uses standard data mining techniques to extract profiles of everyone, in effect creating automatic summaries of people. Thats literally Big Brother and its what the government gains by using Phorm like techniques.

The next step is leaving laws wide open to allow for ever more feature creeps, so ever more people can dream up reasons to monitor everything people do and say online. Then they can slowly over time start to add more hidden punishments like restricting government jobs and government contract jobs to only the politically loyal people. Hold back opponents. I'm sorry your company cannot have this government contract as you employ 3 people who have openly protested online against the current government. This shows your company and employees are not behind the current government and so your company will not get this contract or grant. This will force any company wishing to win government contracts, to weed out anyone politically motivated. That will also help them rid themselves of anyone potentially willing to back the formation of unions to force more fairness out of employers. We have seen that so many times throughout history. Now the police state will be able to gain this kind of information like never before. Government employees are profiled now, this technology will simply allow deeper profiling.

I wonder who are the governments real targets? ... Most criminals will not be affected by this police state. Whereas millions of the general public can oppose the MPs and even throw the MPs out of their job. Looking at it from the government point of view, it looks like the general public is a bigger threat to MPs than criminals. Which would explain why the MPs want a police state to monitor everyone who can stand up and oppose them.

We have a right bunch of self serving, truly arrogant, utterly self righteous people at the top.

If the Gov are allowing ISP's to use DPI, and if Phorm gets the official approval, then surely it will only lead to a DPI free for all where unsavoury attackers will seek to grab the very same packets with the same tech know how or tech know how that is better than that of ISP's.

The exact opposite should be taking place, meaning that it should be made illegal for anyone to intercept the packets sent from a persons internet connection, unless of course the proper lawful authorities are granted a court order to intercept a suspect in an ongoing investigation.

At this rate, I have no Privacy, especially as the Gov, want access to who I communicate with, and where and when. So what is the point in all those other Government Acts and laws that are supposed to protect my privacy?

New Labour = New Stasi

Posted as AC cos I don't want to make it too easy for them!

The following excludes business traffic.

There are 22m households in the UK as at 2001 according to the Environment Agency

In 2008 16 million households have access to the internet

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=8

say 20% have more than 1 machine

= 19 200 000 machines connected (say 20 million to make the maths easy)

Say each user makes 100 website visits a day = 2000 million sites a day = 2000*365 = 730 Billion pages a year (US billion)

Add social networking site visits (U.K. Social Networking Site Usage Highest in Europe) Heavy users of social networking sites in the U.K. … consumed an extremely high volume of content from the social networking category, viewing over 3,000 pages per month.

http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1801

Plus chatrooms

Plus skype

Plus wireless hotspots

How many unsecured wireless networks are there down your street ?

Stuff being added to youtube and flickr etc faster that they can monitor it

All this will be across a number of sites and networks.

Because they have to store both ends then double the number you first thought of.

Now include all the spam received by all uk households

Now index alll this data to tie it all up uniquely to you and me.

It’s only £2Bn over 10 years, but if they want DPI and storage all the investment has come in year zero

Content not included, so index trillions of data sets assign it to one of 16million households and store it

Great software requirements spec from the ISPs:

Get data from we don’t know who

Get data about where they’re visiting

We don’t know how big it’ll be

Collection of all this has to be done at Warp speed

It’s all completely random

Store it

Index it

Assign it to we don’t know who

It has to be done for fixed price cos we’ve only got a portion of £2Bn

[don’t know how big a share yet] plus can we pay you over 10 years

Oh and no mistakes either.

This is internet only, not telephony or mobile similar calculations apply!

Are they serious or are they having a laugh ?

You mean they _are_ serious !!!

IDIOTS

Any criminal, spy or terrorist worth their salt knows that when communicating with co-conspiritors avoidance of the 'normal' means of mass communication - internet or telephone - is more secure and less likely to result in being found out.

What this bill, these measures, do instead is cover the entire populace of the UK in surveillance. This will allow the state, from ministers to councillors to know your:

- political affiliations: which newspapers you read; which party websites you visit; which protest sites you visit; which political causes you sponsor or are interested in.

- religious affiliations: spiritual beliefs; interest in converting to Islam?; support or opposition of contentious (or sometimes contentious) issues such as abortion; stem-cell research; homosexuality; same-sex marriage; membership of a non-mainstream religion

- sexuality; your sexual interests or pecadillos; how much porn you use; secret sexual inclinations that even your partner knows nothing about.

And so much more!

The government has no business knowing any of these things, and yet this information will become available to all sorts of agents of the state on the flimsiest of pretexts. Suspected (or wrongly accused) of fly-tipping? Say goodbye to ALL of your privacy and have the state trawling through your business.

This law should be repugnant to anyone who believes in a liberal democracy and is indeed the final nail in the coffin of an open, free and democratic state.