back to article GCHQ's Twitter move: Wants to be 'accessible', people to 'understand'

GCHQ has belatedly joined Twitter. The UK government spy agency’s first message to the global micro-blogging platform on Monday morning was the brief “Hello, world”, something that GCHQ probably hopes will resonate with computer programmers worldwide.1 Simple and in keeping with the banal first entries of many Twitter users …

  1. Chika
    Big Brother

    Hello World

    Hello clouds, hello sky!

    Hello scary creeping mist...

    1. Alister

      Re: Hello World

      Fotherington-Tomas is a gurl!

      1. Chika

        Re: Hello World

        yes, and peason hav a face lik a squished tomato...

  2. Vimes

    For fun and games lets see what it takes to get blocked by GCHQ on Twitter...

    (they've left the option to DM them open it seems, and even if messages are rarely replied to apparently they still get read)

    1. Alister
      Coat

      You could ask them about Gareth Williams?

      Coat, 'cos I forgot my bag...

      1. Vimes

        Wasn't he seconded to MI6 at the time of his death, even if he normally worked at GCHQ?

        That would be one reason I could never work for those sort of people - quite apart from the ethical considerations of mass surveillance there is also another thing to consider: lack of loyalty towards their own people, even in death.

        I can understand that those choosing to work in the more secretive areas of government are expected to keep quiet. Loyalty is expected of them. No problems there, but shouldn't they be able to expect some degree of loyalty in return from those same employers? Surely the agencies concerned could have done more to stop his private life from being dragged through the media after what had happened?

    2. scrubber
      Terminator

      According to the NSA via Google...

      "apparently they still get read"

      They're not read if they're just stored or automatically opened and scanned by a machine, it's only read if a person eyeballs it.

  3. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    Stockholm syndrome?

    First you rape us.

    Now you want us to love you?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stockholm syndrome?

      What are your feelings towards Big Brother?

      I hate him.

      You hate him. Good. The time has come for you to take the last step. You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him, you must love him

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Mastering the internet"

    "Collect it all"

    The innocent have everything to fear from the guilty.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Interesting Concept...

    To Follow GCHQ.

    (but real technical scrutiny of what we do? we don't want any of that!)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Meh

      Re: Interesting Concept...

      To Follow GCHQ.

      On the other hand you don't even have to use Twitter for them to be following you.

      1. VinceH
        Coat

        Re: Interesting Concept...

        On the other other hand, it'd be fun to have them following you on Twitter, so you can say to people - definitively, and in in all seriousness - that you're being followed by people at GCHQ.

    2. Mark 85
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Interesting Concept...

      I would guess that following them would mark you as a "person of interest" for further scrutiny. For if you have nothing to hide, there's no reason for them to take an interest in them....

      This probably falls under Mutually Paranoid Surveillance.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: Interesting Concept...

        It's nice that they're being a little more open. It's also nice they got welcomed by NSA & CIA.. but FSB?

  6. d3rrial
    WTF?

    The profoundness of Twitter

    > Simple and in keeping with the banal first entries of many Twitter users.

    There are non-banal entries on twitter? Where?!

  7. Brent Longborough
    Unhappy

    Who pays?

    Why the F are they wasting my money on this, as well as the large haystack?

    We need: (1) A decent framework of laws stringently restricting what they can and can't do (Including not building a bigger haystack) and (2) then they just quietly do their job as efficiently as possible, within those laws.

    1. Paul Woodhouse

      Re: Who pays?

      woah, woah, woah, woah...... less of this common sense nonsense...

    2. Angus Wood
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Who pays?

      > Why the F are they wasting my money on this

      Because it's good PR and therefore helps with recruitment.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Who pays?

        Recruitment? If you're really good at Security, only a fool would take their salaries...and not sure they will manage to employ anyone (going forward) with any moral high ground, given the way Snowden has been treated, but maybe that's the idea.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Syntax error on line 1

    Wont spying on Twitter now create an infinite loop for them since they will also be spying on themselves.

    Cant wait for them to flag themselves as a POI.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Though a scanner, darkly

      Maybe someone in GCHQ was monitoring themselves on twitter and suffered a dissociative identity crisis.

  9. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    That's a relief

    Now that Twitter is being guarded by those chaps at GCHQ there are no more terrorists on twitter so the Daily Mail can stop worrying about it.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Twits!

    wooda fort that Twitter boss's wood ave 'PUBLICALLY' shut daun the account considering GCHQ has bean illeaglely infiltrating there servers since day fackin 1!

  11. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Penultimate Ultimate Weapons Systems ........ Suffer Not the Folly of Fools with Blunted Tools

    “We want GCHQ to be more accessible and to help the public understand more about our work,” it said.

    To rule almost anonymously and practically autonomously and reign over everything remotely from fields afar via virtualised memes with media manipulation booting and rebooting a pathetic and apathetic trailing reaction in preference to any effective competition and/or crushing opposition with leading AI proaction, is easy enough to understand, but a mined mind field of explosive disasters to negotiate and claim as ones own with a master plan providing the future way forward out of the present without all of its past failures identifying the wannabe Caesar and Hitler types with systems responsible for current madnesses and mayhem and the realities created for projection/production/placement, tells you more about our work than you may be able to accept is possible.

    Your doubts with any shreds of lingering disbelief is that which grants access to hidden dark secrets and allows guaranteed unhindered passage to pastures both green and ancient, alien and better beta tested for that and/or those into the finest of arts and Greater IntelAIgent Games Play. ‽

    Is GCHQ leading and into IT in such a way? Or is that which they are face to face with and terrorising?

    And what price, other than priceless and whatever be asked of IT principals to be delivered, could the markets decide for whenever such is a stunningly successful private pirate venture and perfectly secure covert business model rather than public facing, clandestinely funded nationalised intelligence agency?

    In any system, where money in any and all of its forms rules and reigns, is there always an absolutely fabulous price to be paid to ensure that smarter lead remains and is maintained and retrained in safer secure hands, hearts and minds. And such is always whenever truly for real, one of those internetworking bargains of the century things.

    1. Omar Smith
      Joke

      Re: Penultimate Ultimate Weapons Systems ........ Suffer Not the Folly of Fools with Blunted Tools

      When did you first become aware that GCHQ was spying on you through the television?

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: Penultimate Ultimate Weapons Systems ........

        When did you first become aware that GCHQ was spying on you through the television? ... Omar Smith

        The television indeed surely is and/or definitely can and therefore will be a ubiquitous secretive weapons system for dirty deeds done dirt cheap, Omar Smith, with a certain command and crazy control of programmable perception its raison d'être since inception, but to obsess and get all paranoid and terrorised by it is not a sound path to follow or get all hung up on. IT is what IT is, and things are as they are because of that which is done and has been done. And what of the future whenever it is but figmental imaginanation virtualised and presented for mass presumptive consumer consumption.

        And we/you aint really seen nothing yet ...... of the former and careless carefree lovechild now turned rebellious teen and erudite rabble rouser.

        Have a nice day, y'all. 0days rule?:-)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    GCHQ more accessible

    Alright lose the guards at the front door and put a Costa in the lobby. Done.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: GCHQ more accessible

      The coffee thing is quite apt considering all those fuks work in a glass and steel doughnut!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: GCHQ more accessible

        I wouldnt use the free wifi though.

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Domestic Propaganda

    Domestic propaganda aside, why are you fookers spying on Brits? Why do you have bulk data sets on Brits suspected of nothing? What law defined these? Why was Parliament not informed? Did Hague know when he was busy covering for you? Who defined these 'reasons' screens you fill in and claim constitute due process? What law substitutes that screen for normal due process? How many people can query the data without filling in a reason, or being logged? Who are they? How did they get their 'God View'?

    Panama papers? Noticeably devoid of any interesting Americans. Care to explain how it contains Camerons dad but no notable American? What's the back story? You spy on Brits, yet a major leak that undermines your own PM, and you lot know nothing about it? Unlikely, so do tell.

    Oh right.... transparency is a PR man spouting 140 character sound bites not REAL transparency.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: Domestic Propaganda

      Yes, AC, we do realise Big Brother has had a nervous breakdown and is in dire need of a strait jacket and padded room accommodation ..... and lots of meds too, of course, although none of that will put him back together again and onto the right course of action and reaction and proaction and HyperRadioProActive IT.

      Basically are all BBSystems well and truly fcuked.

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