back to article Ex-GCHQ chief: Bulk access to internet comms not same as mass surveillance

A specially convened, one-off chinwag about the so-called "tech issues" in the UK government's latest draft super-snoop bill failed to get to the nitty-gritty on Tuesday afternoon. Parliament's science and technology committee faced down industry bods, the former boss of GCHQ and a number of academics to try to better …

  1. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Stop

    And when the weblog access is finally saleable

    Next up will be a card to ID yourself before being able to browse.

    Obviously these people will never be happy untill they've got all the cattle tagged. Meanwhile we have to listen to nonsense like bulk access to internet comms is not the same as mass surveillance.

    1. Blank-Reg
      Big Brother

      Re: And when the weblog access is finally saleable

      Indeed as well as the large database with every user and every web address along with searchable visits by time and date. Weblogs to be added later.

      No wonder they don't want to use the word Database. Newspeak indeed...

      1. g e

        That Onan guy

        Clearly lives in an unaccountable data fetish bubble. And is possibly a bit of a lunatic.

        Did I spell his name right?

    2. Preston Munchensonton
      Coat

      Re: And when the weblog access is finally saleable

      Obviously these people will never be happy untill they've got all the cattle tagged.

      I wholeheartedly agree. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if I could guarantee that they'll name me THX-1138 in the end.

  2. Tony S

    Ummm...

    "When quizzed about technical improvements, he told MPs: "I would have gone slightly further than internet connection records. Having a full weblog would be far better."

    I suspect he actually means a "log of the web activities" rather than " a series of entries arranged in reverse chronological order, often updated on frequently with new information about particular topics.

    "He added that communications data was the "gold dust" information needed by spooks and cops to monitor crims and terrorists."

    Certainly this would be the case if it was targeted at those "crims and terrorists"; the problem is that actually, they want everything on everyone. This will not make it easier to catch those people, it will probably make it harder because they will end up with a lot of false positives, that then obscure the real criminal activity.

    The real value of that data is that it is a saleable product worth a LOT of money; but I would ask, who will be the beneficiaries because I'm pretty sure that it won't be us; and dare I suggest that it might well be the case that a great deal will find its way into the pockets of those who are supporting this bill.

  3. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    Id cards - no thanks! Gimme something worse!

    The people were up in arms about ID cards. But how does this superceed ID cards?

    Take the average punter. Through mass surveillance it can be easily established what their 'internet footprint' is and how their phone/tablet/pad/laptop is part of that. Every time the device requests a web page, an email is received or perhaps even a cell connection is established, it gets logged in a not-a-database and therefore by inference so does the physical carrier of that device.

    Where ID cards were simply a dumb system of 'show on demand', this is the 'smart meter' version of an id card. Walking, talking, browsing ... who, what, when, and where of every 'smart device' owning person in the country at the fingertips of the spooks as and when required.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Gimp

      Re: Id cards - no thanks! Gimme something worse!

      "Walking, talking, browsing ... who, what, when, and where of every 'smart device' owning person in the country at the fingertips of the spooks as and when required."

      Correct.

      It's the cradle-to-grave "National Identity Register" database beloved of Mr Blair.

  4. Christoph

    "Having a full weblog would be far better."

    The trouble is that such a strategy "is not thought to be saleable" at present."

    From some discussion I've seen, the Home Secretary will be able to simply demand this as well - and forbid anyone involved from saying anything about it. They can make any changes they like, and imprison anyone who breathes a word about it.

    1. Christoph

      And here's the link.

      I don't know how reliable that is, but Cory doesn't usually go off half-baked.

    2. Flywheel

      Presumably if "they" can pass legislation to get lots of small but useful bits of data they can end up with .. a database.

      Johnny Cash summed it up nicely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWHniL8MyMM

    3. Old Handle

      That sounds horrible. But being skeptical by nature, I'd like to see the specific text that opponents say creates that situation.

      1. Alan_Peery

        It is horrible

        And the text has been purposefully crafted to obscure its horrible nature, by avoiding terms that would be used in a standard discussion. Avoiding the term "database" when a database is clearly being created is one of the techniques.

        A second technique is failing to clearly point out that *everyone is monitored all the time* and not just the suspects.

  5. Graham Marsden
    Facepalm

    "The volumes of data are enormous on the internet"

    And yet their solution for finding a needle in a haystack is to make the haystack even bigger because then there's so much more chance of there being a needle in it...!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "The volumes of data are enormous on the internet"

      This is a great analogy. Thinking about it in terms of the US, let's say there are 100 "terrorists" in the country actively planning harm at any one time. Ranging from "lone guy planning to shoot up a school or movie theater" to "organized group planning another 9/11". If they go about finding them with normal police work, getting warrants to monitor communications when necessary, let's say they can find half of them if they get 50,000 wiretaps. If you had a 50,000 bushel haystack with 50 needles in it, it is reasonable to think you could build a machine that sorts through all that hay and finds all 50 needles.

      But if you want those other 50 needles, you might have to monitor everyone (how else to find the 'lone wolf' type guys who are acting alone) so suddenly instead of a 50,000 bushel haystack you have a 300 million bushel haystack. Maybe you can build a machine to dig through that, but assuming you have to find them within the year you probably search so little hay you end up with fewer than 50 needles found.

      That's what I think happens if you try to monitor everyone. The real terrorists are lost in the noise of all the false hits that cause you to investigate someone googling "how does an IED work" out of random curiosity (or posting that phrase at El Reg) and you end up missing some obvious targets that don't get looked at until it is too late.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: "The volumes of data are enormous on the internet"

        So only a cynic would believe that, instead of a heroic attempt to find terrorist needles, it is in fact an attempt to have some dirt on everyone.

        So if you are the family of a murdered black teenager, or a newspaper seller that accidentally died of natural causes in the middle of a group of riot police - the police will be able to do a quick lookup and find your "links to terrorism". ie you went to a website that discussed IEDs

        1. Mark 85

          Re: "The volumes of data are enormous on the internet"

          And why would only a cynic believe this? They don't process what they have now or much of it. Yet they collect as much as they can and still want more and not just in the UK or the US or... (fill in the blank). The usual response after an event is "we have data on him/her/them". So... cynic or realist?

      2. tom dial Silver badge

        Re: "The volumes of data are enormous on the internet"

        I do not think this is the correct model. Instead, let's say there are some not yet known terrorists in the country, say the US, who need to communicate occasionally with someone in a known terrorist group in another country, say Pakistan. And for discussion, we may suppose also that GCHQ picks up a call from one of the known numbers to a UK resident who, though not under suspicion, shortly afterward makes a call to a US number. GCHQ might find out about that in a number of ways, the least obtrusive being collection of telephone metadata from the carrier. Since the recipient made a call to the US, they might also pass the information to the NSA who, because the call was from the UK (not the US), can request metadata from the recipient's carrier, giving a list of potential second-level contacts of the known terrorist target group. This list would be passed for further investigation to the FBI, DHS, or both.

        Most, probably nearly all, of the people associated with numbers on the NSA list will be seen quickly to have nothing to do with a terrorist operation, but it could happen that a small number appear to, at which point the investigators might request additional metadata based on the new numbers, or if the number is small enough might seek one or more wiretap warrants, and they might pass information back to MI-5, who might possibly have been advised of the original call and started their own inquiry.

        I never have been less than extremely skeptical about the potential for automated searching of gigantic metadata databases to tease out plots based on construction of generalized contact graphs. While it might be possible, it almost certainly would, as DougS suggests, contain so much noise as to be unusable. Specific queries, based on specific selectors associated with known targets is far more likely to give useful results, and with much less effort. However, a middle approach might have some use: build and maintain contact graphs for only sets where one or more of the endpoints is a foreign number associated with a person or group strongly suspected of terrorist activities. It is possible, although I think it unlikely, that the resulting data set would be small enough to be manageable by DHS and FBI investigators.

        The case for browser metadata may be several orders of magnitude worse, as to both volume and fundamental utility, although if video content is ignored and the selectors are exact enough there might be some utility. A major problem, though, is that it is all to easy to use anonymized computers from public access points (and that is without even bothering with TOR); and another is that much of the suitable terrorist training material will be downloaded once, printed multiply as required, and passed on hand to hand or through the mail. This data probably is not very useful except for email, and as a good deal of it is likely to be encrypted, would be costly to use.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "The volumes of data are enormous on the internet"

          The GCHQ doesn't need metadata on all calls to do that. They just need to capture metadata involving certain numbers of interest. The argument is that they need to collect all the data so they can look back when they find a new number of interest to see who called it six months ago. The gain in that is outweighed IMHO by the ability for them to have everyone's call information at hand. If you don't think they will trawl through that DB to see who friends, neighbors and girls they have a crush on are talking you, you're not in the real world.

          Sure, ideally they should have to record some sort of active case number for each search to establish a legal reason for it, but when the public doesn't have any ability to find out about abuses, things like that get dropped - the people in charge like it because knowing that everyone does it leaves a convenient way for them to fire anyone who does something they don't like "Fred, I see you looked up who your wife was calling back in 2013, we're going to have to let you go." Maybe Fred was trying to blow the whistle on other abuses but he will lose his whistleblower protection if they can prove wrongdoing like that.

          1. DrBobMatthews

            Re: "The volumes of data are enormous on the internet"

            GCHQ are welcome to metadata on all calls, if they really want to bust a gut anyone with any interest in personal freedom and privacy can cause havoc by sending an email containing random telephone number encrypted metadata to all their contacts on social media the recipients can then forward the same message to all their contacts, rinse and repeat and GCHQ will be non too happy. I design encryption algorithms for secure data, just alteration to one block in the algorithm plus a cycling additional prime number would be sufficient. I would consider it to be legal research into encryption techniques if it causes them problems, they shouldn't be sniffing around in my personal data in the first place.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If the guy doesn't know what a weblog is, he shouldn't have any say whatsoever in how things are done. He can have weblogs for free; because those guys are the ones who want you to know what they had for breakfast and how many situps they did. I did briefly consider that he was maybe expecting a daily written report from all of us; but then came to the conclusion that he was talking out of his arse.

    I suspect that he means a comprehensive log of all networked services but -as with a daily written report- he can still fuck off.

    Still, it's an interesting glimpse at their future plans if they manage to shoehorn the current piss-take through. It'll do sod all to capture criminal activity; but will make their own considerably easier.

    Personally, I intend to throw a spanner in wherever I can.

    1. Squander Two

      It's always possible that he works in an environment and was speaking in a context in which the term "weblog" has a different meaning. It's also possible that he said "Web log" and it's been mistranscribed as "weblog".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        IPB A specially convened, one-off chinwag about the so-called "tech issues" in the UK government's latest draft super-snoop bill failed to get to the nitty-gritty on Tuesday afternoon.

        Parliament's science and technology committee faced down industry bods, the former boss of GCHQ and a number of academics to try to better understand some of the technical concerns that have been raised

        Possible, but it was a mixed audience; there to identify and define things. The use of a term that absolutely everybody else uses to mean one thing, to refer to another is either astounding ignorance or a deliberate attempt to confuse the issues at hand.

        1. Squander Two

          > The use of a term that absolutely everybody else uses to mean one thing

          I think you're living in an IT bubble. Half the public have no idea what "blog" means and would probably simply call a blog a "website". Of those who do know what blog means, very few know that it's an abbreviation of "weblog".

          I mean, seriously, "absolutely everybody else uses" the term "weblog"? When did you last hear it? I had a blog post go viral and make the news (and am still going on and on about it), and I don't think any of the coverage ever used the term "weblog".

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            It was a meeting of specialists consisting of Parliament's science and technology committee faced down industry bods, the former boss of GCHQ and a number of academics; all of whom should be able to cope with such a common technical term or they shouldn't be present.

            And I didn't say that absolutely everyone uses the term; I said absolutely everyone uses the term to mean one thing. That the term in common parlance is more commonly truncated to blog doesn't change the meaning. Go on...look it up. There's weblog aka blog; and there's whatever the fuck Omand was going on about. Two entirely different things.

            Now you are correct in that a lot of the public doesn't know precisely what a weblog is; but those are not the people who are trying for a large-scale infrastructure change. The majority, I would suspect know vaguely what it is and know it's something to do with websites.

            Like I say - either astounding ignorance or a deliberate attempt to confuse/distract. As the meeting apparently fizzled out, it looks like the latter.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Poker

    Do you need a good poker face to work at GCHQ? It has to be a job requirement!

  8. Jeff 11

    Headline: "Ex-GCHQ chief: Bulk access to internet comms not same as mass surveillance"

    "He also claimed that bulk access to internet communications was the same as mass surveillance."

    The article doesn't make clear who made the second statement, care to clarify?

    1. Ben Holmes

      I suspect...

      The article doesn't make clear who made the second statement, care to clarify?

      ...Mr. Typo McBlooper.

      This is based on extensive trawling I've carried out of El Reg articles over the years.

  9. Squander Two
    Flame

    What database?

    Last week, the Home Office confirmed to The Register that the system would be used by public authorities to make a "complex request for communications data". Which, put another way, is a database query.

    The Register appear to think that the small matter of who owns and maintains a database is apparently not even worth mentioning. But surely it's relevant.

    The National ID Card and Database thing that the Coalition stopped was to be a government database owned and maintained by the state, with all subjects' details kept in it compulsorily, available to state employees to peruse. There were also plans to add facial-recognition software and plug it into the CCTV network, so that the state could keep tabs on every one of us every minute of every day.

    The new filter things proposed in Theresa May's new plans mean that the state makes a request to (say) a telco for some phone records and the telco then applies the filters before providing the data to the state, so that the state don't end up holding extra data that they don't need. The example given by the Home Office in response to The Reg's last article was very clear:

    · The assertion that the request filter in the draft Investigatory Powers Bill is a “secret database of citizens’ personal lives and habits” is plain wrong. The Request Filter is a safeguard that means when public authorities make a complex request for communications data (i.e. police seeking to find out which mobile phone was at three crime scenes at the relevant times) they only get back data that is absolutely necessary.

    · Currently, public authorities might approach CSPs for location data to identify the mobile phones used in those three locations at the relevant times, in order to determine whether a particular phone (and a particular individual) is linked to the three offences. This means the public authority may acquire a significant amount of data relating to people who are not of interest.

    · The request filter will mean that when a police force makes such a request, they will only see the data they need to. Any irrelevant data will be deleted and not made available to the public authority.

    Well, I think it's clear, but apparently The Register can't understand it.

    Current system: Police ask telco for the details of every user of every mobile phone in range of three crime scenes at given times. The police receive a ton of data and start filtering it themselves. The police therefore incidentally receive details of your whereabouts and phone activity even though you're not even remotely a suspect, just because you happened to be near one crime scene at one time.

    New system: Police ask telco for the details of the users of any mobile phones in range of three crime scenes at given times. The telco filter the data accordingly and send the police the filtered data, containing only details of phone users who were at all three crime scenes at the given times. The police never receive your details just because you were near one crime scene at one time.

    There is no unified state database of everything here. This is quite explicitly a move to allow the authorities to access data they need while limiting their access to data they don't.

    There is a principled position to be taken against all these separate corporate databases, of course, and no doubt there's a lot of overap between people who object to a unified state database and people who object to separate corporate databases, but they're still two different things. And there are surely plenty of people like me, who object strongly to the unified state database but are content to accept corporate databases. I for one don't hanker for the days when you'd ring British Gas and they'd go away to look up your details in a filing cabinet. Telcos have to organise our billing somehow.

    But The Register's position appears to be simply that a database query is involved so OMG SECRET GOVERNMENT DATABASE! Even when the database in question isn't the government's. This is puerile stuff.

    But – if you obey Whitehall – no one is allowed to use the word "database". Indeed, it's not mentioned once in May's proposed law.

    Obviously, because May's law doesn't concern databases; it concerns requests by the government to corporations to give them data. While it is of course convenient for those corporations to keep their data in databases rather than filing cabinets for their own purposes, that is no concern of Whitehall's. When the police request some data, they don't care whether it was being kept in a database or an Excel file or a dog-eared cardboard folder; they just want the data. And surely any law that specifically mentioned databases and therefore allowed companies to dodge it by printing some data out and deleting a few rows from the DB would be a badly and downright stupidly drafted law.

    1. JassMan
      WTF?

      Re: What database?

      Yeah but!

      The only way a filter can work is if there is a central government database. To use your copy of the government example: to find the owners of phones near to where three crimes were committed, requires that the data is on a common database since there is no way that EE can know that person A carrying phone X is, or is not, person A carrying phone Y on the Vodaphone network. Very few crims (unless they sit in Westminster) are stupid enough to carry the same phone to different jobs. Ergo, the common database must be held by the government (or a government appointed authority) since it would be illegal for anyone else to do so.

      What they continually gloss over though is the fact that anyone can buy a cheap phone without any identity check and pop in a prepaid sim card, then throw it away once the job is one. Which gets us back to the real reason for this bill: to be able to retroactively go though the masses of data in order fit up any innocent person and so improve the crime statistics.

      As they say, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear (except abuse of due process).

      1. Alan_Peery

        Re: What database?

        > anyone can buy a cheap phone without any identity check and pop in

        > a prepaid sim card, then throw it away once the job is one.

        Yes, and anyone can put on gloves before they enter the crime scene. Yet the police still find a lot of fingerprints.

        Yes, you're right that people can use burner phones. But there will be mistakes where they don't get the burner phone bought, or run out of power an resort to the main phone, or when they accidentally leave the main phone turned on while the crime occurs.

      2. Squander Two

        Re: What database?

        > The only way a filter can work is if there is a central government database.

        Nonsense.

        "Hello, Transco? Government here. Could you give us the names and other sundry details of anyone who paid gas bills at both these addresses over the last ten years, please?"

        "Hi, Government. We'd love to, but sadly that information is on our own database. Obviously we could only provide it to you if you already held it on your own database. Sorry. Love, Transco."

        > there is no way that EE can know that person A carrying phone X is, or is not, person A carrying phone Y on the Vodaphone network.

        So?

        > Very few crims ... are stupid enough to carry the same phone to different jobs.

        According to Candice DeLong, the unofficial motto of the FBI is "Ain't you glad they're dumb?" Most criminals are thick.

        http://awesci.com/the-astonishingly-funny-story-of-mr-mcarthur-wheeler/

        Besides, it is obviously always true that we could make laws worse in order to make the police's job easier. That doesn't mean that, if you can think of a way in which a law isn't making the police's job as easy as it could, the law can't really exist.

        > What they continually gloss over though is the fact that anyone can buy a cheap phone without any identity check and pop in a prepaid sim card, then throw it away once the job is one.

        Who's glossing over that? I'm pretty sure both the Government and the police are well aware of that, and I've certainly never seen any of them try to imply otherwise. The phones-at-crime-scenes things was just an illustrative example of how the filters work, not some sort of claim of supercop prowess.

        > Which gets us back to the real reason for this bill: to be able to retroactively go though the masses of data

        They've drawn up a bill which prevents the police getting mass data slurps and attempts to limit the amount of irrelevant data they get in order to give the police more data?

  10. Sir Sham Cad

    Database Database Database Database

    Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database Database oh shit I'm probably going to jail now.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The title reminds me of an episode of Dilbert...

    Alice: "You lie to us every day."

    PHB: "Oh, that's not lying, that's managing. Studies have shown there's a big difference."

    Wally: "What studies?"

    PHB: "You know, studies. Various ones."

    Wally: "You're managing me right now aren't you!?"

    PHB: "See? Wally understands."

  12. Danny 2

    StartPage is increasingly offline

    Not just encrypted email providers, StartPage seems to be under attack, it's certainly failing more and more.

    Either GCHQ are complicit / responsible, or at the very least they are failing to protect decent internet sites. Has the much hyped CyberWar started and our PryMinister didn't announce it on the wireless?

    1. Danny 2

      From the moment that the French defenses...

      "We shall spy on to the end, we shall spy on France, we shall hack the C compilers, we shall surveille with growing confidence and growing strength in the cloud, we shall defend our offshore tax haven islands, whatever the cost may be to the tax-payer, we shall DDOS the bitches, we shall imprison on any dubious grounds, we shall have CCTV in the fields and in the streets, we shall shite on the proles; we shall never surrender power, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were implicated and starving, then our James Bond franchise beyond the seas, armed and guarded by British tweets, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World Order, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. "

  13. Yugguy

    Panopticon innit

    Although they'd never likely have the manpower to watch all of us, all the time, they want us to believe that we could possibly be being watched at any time, and we'd never know who or when.

    1. Danny 2

      Re: Panopticon innit

      The Panopticon has an inbuilt limit. It's a prison, innit? If a society becomes a Panopticon then there is no longer any disincentive for crime. UK prisons today are actually the 'safety net' that social security used to provide. I'll get fed on the inside for free, I'll get shelter, it'll be an increasingly popular option as the elastic-band of inequality reaches breaking point. And when an elastic band snaps, then the prison wardens flee.

      Have you ever ran at a line of policemen? It's not better than sex, but it's better than than the scariest fairground ride. The look of terror and confusion in their eyes, they just aren't used to it, they normally run at you. I was pushing a girl in a wheelchair at them which must have freaked them more. I highly recommend it, if you get padding and better wheels than we had. You run at them and others will join in.

      Yugguy, this is an order, do not back down and do not follow insane orders. Run at them. They are bluffing and you are serious. We outnumber them a hundred thousand to one.

      1. Yugguy

        Re: Panopticon innit

        yeah you see I don't actually want anarchy, and I don't think very many people do, if they're honest. I just want less government interference.

        1. Danny 2

          Re: Panopticon innit

          Nobody wants ANARCHY, it's a smear word just like democracy used to be. Replace it with 'Participative Democracy' and we'll probably be on common ground. I want a ground-sourced, science-based, grass-roots, joint-approach to stop me making the silly mistakes I keep on making. I don't want the current system of ticking a box for lesser-evils. The current system, not just the current state or one individual 'leader' is the problem. This system is irrational, and it's driving us all irrational to varying degrees.

          I'm a Scot, a pro-independence Scot, and I appreciated the recent independence referendum. My cause lost, but at least we had a vote, that was good. I have other issues I'd like to vote on too, and I don't really see why we don't - surely any repeated democratic vote would be better than the current system where we elect incompetent, corrupt lawyers to 'represent' us. If you are too scared to run at the cops then at least stand up to your MP.

  14. PsiAC
    Joke

    A recipe for lying, GCHQ style:

    1: Start by splitting your audience into a "for or against" mentality

    2: A quick "we could be doing much worse, but can't get away with it now" will anger and separate the "liberties" crowd, place into separate containers

    3: Claiming encryption continues to threaten the vast availability of surveillance will add flavor

    4: With your audience thus split, start with the blatant lies to appease the "security-minded" that legalizing this activity which has already been continuing regardless will somehow make it less invasive to the populous.

    5: Heat to 425 degrees with "it's no worse than what we're already doing" for 30 minutes. Avoid claims of abuse to ensure an even roast.

    6: Chill liberties sauce with "We didn't say you couldn't use encryption as long as it doesn't interfere with our job"

    7: Garnish with bulls***

    Serves the entire population of Britain. May cause indigestion in the elderly and infirm.

    1. Someone Else Silver badge
      Mushroom

      @ PsiAC

      5: Heat to 425 degrees with "it's no worse than what we're already doing" for 30 minutes.

      Actually, if you do that, the resulting stew will be underdone. I think the correct temperature is 451 degrees F.

  15. Tom 7

    But – if you obey Whitehall – no one is allowed to use the word "database"

    "Excel 95 files all randomly filed here there and everywhere" if the truth be told.

  16. wayne 8

    It shall come to pass

    Despite massive objections from the regular people, they will implement it in some form and do what they want anyway.

    It is about wealth passing to the privileged few from the national treasury and taxes on regular peoples activities.

    Us Yanks call it the Military Industrial Complex.

    Pre-WW2 Germans called it "National Socialism."

    1. HAL-9000
      Paris Hilton

      Re: It shall come to pass

      I fail to see what's this has got to do with upward redistribution, and racist neo-nationalist politics circa 1920-45.

      Sorry for quoting TWP, but Murdoch's press tends to pretend there's no such thing.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A white horse is not a horse

    according to Longzi (Chinese philosopher dude) at least. It seems that Sir Humphrey - it mean the other sir - would agree. Since free access to internet comms is more specific than mass surveillance, (just a a white horse does not extend to brown and black horses) therefore it is not mass surveillance.

    Who said that Classical Chinese Philosophy wasn't relevant to IT&T or the modern world?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is nothing to do with national security and everything to do with stopping the mass communication between the general public. It not the actually catching you they are going for its the "you know we're watching everything you do". This will very slowly kill off the internet for anything other than boring mundane stuff at which point no one will really care what happens to it. At that point it will be about as useful as TV, radio and the newspapers.

  19. DrBobMatthews

    Someone needs to educate this idiot forcefully if need be by slapping him every time he speaks.

    The really bad guys don't use registered 'phones they buy a disposable phone use it and dump it. While these 'phones are available without the need to register them to a checkable address, then they will continue to be used. When that happens, the bad guys being very clever will clone a 'phones user ID and then dump it once it has been used. All this nonsense regarding helping the police and the security services is flim flam, and the sheep are slowly and surely being brainwashed into accepting the lies emanating from both the Hole Office and GCHQ. Should the government think it acceptable to spy on its citizens, I consider it is legally acceptable to spy on our government which were elected to represent us.

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