back to article Details of all internet traffic should be logged – MEP

A member of the European Parliament wants users' "traffic data", rather than the specific content of online communications, to be logged under expanded EU laws on data storage. This is according to a statement from the European People's Party (EPP) at the European Parliament. Tiziano Motti, an Italian MEP, wants to extend the …

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  1. dogged
    Stop

    Clueless award of the day goes to

    what was this attention-seeker's name again?

  2. HP Cynic

    As soon as I saw the headline I knew this idiot would be using societies' current biggest bogeyman - the microscopic number of paedophiles in humanity - to drum up fear and thus credibility for his plan to pry on EVERYONE else.

    Personally I've got nothing at all to hide but I still care not one bit from some overpaid, unelected MEP plonker wanting to have my data logged.

    1. Ru
      Big Brother

      The odd thing is,

      most of this sort of tracking is already done. A bit of good, old fashioned police work garnished with a few court orders should get enough information to link person A with activity B if B was done on or via the internet without the aid of something like TOR.

      Times, IP addresses, DHCP leases, MAC addresses, security camera footage of net cafes and the like... presumably mobile networking logs DHCP sessions, base station IDs, and IMEI numbers or whatever the nG equivalent of MAC addresses is and so on. What does this guy expect to gain? A magical 'whodunnit' service which prints out the name and address of whoever posted or downloaded some image on the interwebs at the press of a button?

      I wonder how well it'll work on non-european systems.

      1. ph0b0s

        @RU

        "The odd thing is, most of this sort of tracking is already done. A bit of good, old fashioned police work garnished with a few court orders should get enough information to link person A with activity B if B was done on or via the internet without the aid of something like TOR."

        That's the point though. At the moment the authorities have to work to get the stuff, which means they only go to the effort if they think it is worth it. I want them to have to work and get court orders to do this. Then there is less chance of abuse than there is if you can just type someone's name into your screen and get all that persons on-line activity with the click of a mouse.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Agree with all but..

      "unelected" - just because *you* didn't vote for him, doesn't mean he's unelected.

      At least in Italy the majority of people bothered to vote (65%). Here in the UK, we barely got 35% turnout and you'd be embarrassed to see which countries got lower (Czech Rep, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia)

      1. Shakje

        Why is it that people get so wound up about 'unelected' MEPs?

        When:

        1. They're elected

        2. We have the House of Lords

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          MEPs are UNelected

          What we get in the UK was an opportunity to express a preference for a PARTY, not an MEP. When one of the MEPs allegedly representing me decided that they wanted out, the relevant party manager APPOINTED their replacement. No need for the tedious nuisance of an election. The MEP's primary accountability is therefore to their party managers, NOT to the electorate.

          Compare and contrast with the situation that formerly prevailed in the USSR (15 marks).

        2. PassingStrange

          Pardon me, but your prejudices are showing...

          What on earth is people's problem with the House of Lords not being elected? The House of Lords has been for the last century, a revising chamber rather than a legislative one. Its role is to look at the politically-motivated, knee-jerk stuff that comes out of the Commons, trim off the worst excesses and try to turn it into something akin to decent, acceptable law. When the two houses strongly disagree, the Commons always prevails. It's not elected, the members who do the work do so because they're genuinely interested in doing it, and it's (mostly) not appointed by whatever shower is currently in power, either. Blair and crowd did their damndest to stack it with enough of their cronies to let them push anything that they wanted, but not withstanding that, it's still a check on the worst excesses of the Commons. As such, it's the LAST body that ought to be looking over its shoulders at what the electors will say in two years time.

      2. CD001

        MEP

        We don't get to vote on MEPs ... just MPs.

        1. Paw Bokenfohr
          WTF?

          @ CD001

          You're kidding / trolling right?

          Because if not, what did you think the European Elections were for?

          1. Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face

            @Paw

            European Elections are there to provide the facade of democracy - to elect the people who will rubber stamp the decisions made by the unelected European Commission.

    3. b0llchit Silver badge
      FAIL

      Nothing to hide?

      @HP Cynic: "Personally I've got nothing at all to hide but..."

      Well then, please start by detailing your sex-life her on this comment thread. I'd like you to post pictures and movies of you in action too, since you have nothing to hide. I want to know every and all detail, no exceptions. And, please, attach a log of your activities and communication in minute detail too.

      Lets see how much you have "nothing to hide".

      1. Sirius Lee
        FAIL

        @b0llchit

        What a ludicrous position. Comments on such articles always deteriorate quickly and this is no exception. I also have nothing to hide. That is, nothing I'd hide from a court of law should I ever be in such an unfortunate position. However there's a world of difference between having nothing to hide from the law and posting details of every activity here. I bought my wife a christmas present this morning but if I post details of it hear then she, as a fellow reader, might see the comment which would make christmas that little bit less fun. Moronic.

    4. Maurice Shakeshaft

      Agreed

      Anyone supporting this proposal should be aware they have helped tilt the slippery slope just a bit more.

      There will be a bureaucracy associated with this and it will need continual feeding with taxpayer funds.

      By all means try and find a way to manage down the effects of porn and child/adult abuse but check whether this is the most effective way, first

      What is the cost/benefit - and don't cry 'think of the children', because I am. I am looking for a 'better' solution with less negatives!

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. ph0b0s

        @Maurice Shakeshaft

        "By all means try and find a way to manage down the effects of porn"

        And what 'effects' would those be pray tell. Go ahead, I'm listening.....

    5. Dropper

      I beg to differ, slightly

      I appreciate your comments, you're point of view is spot on - except on one, important point. You do have something to hide. We all do.. it's called your "privacy". Our private life, whether online, in the living room or whereever else is called that for a reason. We expect it, it's a human right recognised by many democratic constitutions as a necessity. We want our private lives private so we can do whatever we please without having the judgement of others impinging on our lifestyles, artistic expression or whatever else we choose to do with the limited time we have on this planet.

      My own objection is that a politician of all people is going use the moral highground and say everyone should be watched in case we break the law.. I'm sorry, but does he not realise he's a politician? Does the term pot-kettle-black mean nothing to these people? There's a theory that thieves are the most paranoid about people stealing from them, which tells me a lot about paranoid politicians and the laws they want enacted. I'm thinking a quick gander at the photos he stores on his computer might be a good idea..

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    George Orwell Revolving

    Well so long as the Italians pay for it ... after all they can afford it

    And while we're at it, why not install Police CCTV in all homes, as most murder victims are killed by their partners?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Ahhh... no one cares about murderers

      We're happy to have them living in our society. No register for them. Get your priorities right, it's the paedos that threaten the existence of mankind.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @AC 1041

        We do have a register for Murderers, because anyone convicted of murder gets a mandatory life sentence. This means that even when they're released from prison they are tracked and monitored by the authorities, they are subject to recall to prison due to any offense.

  4. hplasm
    FAIL

    I expect this

    to happen shortly after the flying car and cheap fusion. And world peace.

    Clueless twit.

  5. mark l 2 Silver badge

    Hahahah, what a complete tool! so pedos will not be able to just install an linux without the 'digital signature' and use a VPN/TOR then?

    Oh, Won't someone think of the children!

    1. NomNomNom

      at least then linux will become synonymous with paedos

      everyone wins

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tiziano Motti - You are a fucking idiot

    That is all.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't get me wrong

    I'm all for batching the bad guys.

    But why do us good guys have to be under suspicion as well?

    These politicians really don't understand the Internet do they?

    They don't even seem to understand life.

    Anon, not cause I'm a bad-un, just because it's how I prefer things to be.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      We are all sinners and there is no help for us.

  8. trarch
    Big Brother

    GTFO

    "Ghioni said his "precise mechanism" would need the "collaboration" of operating system manufacturers such as Microsoft and Apple to log all activities on their systems, according to the automated translation of the report."

    My interpretation of this is system logs that are then uploaded to some central store.

    What's next? We all wear pinhole cameras on our coats to monitor what we've been up to?

    How soon before Linux becomes outlawed by not following this requirement?

    Give me a break.

  9. Northern Fop
    Facepalm

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    No.

  10. Tony S
    Megaphone

    Translation

    "I know sod-all about technology, but I am being paid lots of money by the voters, so I have to do something to make it look like I give a damn, and am working"

    And call me cynical, but I bet that they would put something in the legislation to make them exempt. After all, they are so much better than the rest of us proles.

    As it happens, my traffic is being monitored with my consent (for a small fee) - and if I choose I can bypass it. But that is the point; it is with my consent.

    1. Arctic fox
      Flame

      @Tony S RE "Translation" It is indeed a very serious problem - the attention seeking.......

      ...........politician that is. I have in my lifetime seen more examples of bad, poorly thought out and counter-productive legislation "birthed" by some politico or other than almost any other source of changes to law/public policy (other than the results of the special interest lobbying industry of course). I won't bother to list the potential horrendous consequences of this idiot's proposals, it is obvious from the thread that posters are well aware of the damage that such stupidity could do. There are few more pernicious sources of bad law than a politician with a hard-on for personal publicity and a pathological need to be seen to being do something - anything, however bloody stupid it is.

  11. newtonslife
    Black Helicopters

    Follow me Fanboi

    At least Ill have one more follower on twitter

  12. yossarianuk
    FAIL

    linux = outlawed?

    "Ghioni said his "precise mechanism" would need the "collaboration" of operating system manufacturers such as Microsoft and Apple"

    What about the other OS's ....

    What could possibly go wrong with this plan.

    1. Ru
      Big Brother

      "What about the other OS's "

      But you won't be using those, and by your own admission they are tools with which you can circumvent this tracking system, and therefore pervert the course of justice. Or something.

  13. DavCrav
    FAIL

    "Ghioni said his "precise mechanism" would need the "collaboration" of operating system manufacturers such as Microsoft and Apple to log all activities on their systems, according to the automated translation of the report."

    And presumably it would also have to make owning an old computer, or owning Linux, illegal? Or force them not to be able to connect to the Internet. Oh, and make reinstalling your operating system illegal. Oh, and proxies.

    FAIL for obvious reasons.

  14. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    This shows that

    As despicable as the paedophiles are, the politicians are much more dangerous. Where is my pitchfork?

    1. John F***ing Stepp
      Happy

      Pitchforks and torches.

      And don't forget the spare batteries.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Take note: Tiziano Motti

    Oh it sounds so measured, so reasonable. But it does mean investigating every last one of us to pick off the few bad apples, maybe. IIRC not the first time he's proposed another "think of the children" canard. Soon he'll have earned the "paver of the road to hell" merit badge.

    Data retention has already been shown to not significantly help. It does promote taking dragnets to datastores, and that does indeed increase, sometimes lots. To me that indicates it promotes lazyness and facilitates arsecovering in a perverse sort of way.

    There's so many better things you could be doing. You could be putting better effort into catching perps in the act, whatever they might be doing --if you need to single out notorious, uncommon and narrow hot buttons for such broad and general measures your arguments aren't very strong--, and for that you only need to be able to legally, with warrant in hand, tap any and all thing they might be using to communicate.

    We're not trying to do extensive pro-active pre-suspicion traffic analysis spookery to the populace, are we? Or were you thinking more of lucrative side uses of all those black boxes and easily mislaid keys, don motti?

  16. MJI Silver badge
    Facepalm

    What planet is he from?

    What a tool!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      A tool... Methinks you insult tools!

      Wouldn't calling him a tool insinuate that he actually had a useful purpose?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Alas...

    A headling that will likely never be published ... "MP talks sense."

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can just see the UK embracing this idea.

    ...if it wasn't impossible to impliment.

    1. Chris 3
      Unhappy

      Oh...

      I don't think we's let a little thing like that stop us

      1. Chika
        Devil

        Actually, as far as it goes, this idea a bit too bland for our lot. All it means is an unimaginably big log. They'll want to spice it up a bit, pinpointing addresses and such so that the trace filters in use become just as unwieldy as the logs they produce or, at the very least, are a technically impossible to implement (e.g. DEA)

        ;)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Err...

      So you didn't read the comments by Ken Clarke at the bottom of the article?

  19. Michael Nidd
    Facepalm

    Inexpensive?

    Ok, let's pretend the solution is technically possible across all potential end systems, and fantasize that the privacy aspect can somehow be handled securely.

    Does Tiziano Motti have a disk drive or tape manufacturing company based in his home town? Never mind explaining how the key can be stored by the user; who's storing all that traffic detail, on what, and who bought all that equipment? It might be inexpensive to operate (it wouldn't be really, but theoretically it could be), but what about to buy and install?

    If the system were just going to store hashes, then I expect the sites they are worried about would install something to regularly modify their content enough to change the hash values. Somebody will need a permanent record of what the content actually looked like at the time of the download, so he's not just going to back up the internet, he's going to retain regular backup snapshots for months. Or did I miss a detail?

  20. Robert E A Harvey
    Thumb Down

    Oh well. Time to switch off.

    Not because I have anything to hide, but because the cost of all that storage will fall on the ISP, and therefore on me.

    If I had anything to hide, I could use an anoynymous vpn somewhere like latvia. I'm just fed up with being governed by complete morons.

    1. Annihilator
      Black Helicopters

      "vpn somewhere like Latvia"

      May want to pick a non-member state for your VPN then, I imagine VPNs would be treated as ISPs and be forced to log too.

    2. Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face

      hehe, my logs are going to look pretty boring - one long tcp session to a cheap vps in the States (with the added bonus of being able to watch Hulu). You want to talk to my email provider? That would be me, and I don't keep logs, sorry.

  21. trafalgar
    Childcatcher

    You're not 12, and you know what this is.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Have you seen enough hentai to know where this is going?

  22. James 51

    What colour of shirt was he wearing?

    I wonder what this would do to the price of hard disks.

  23. freekyeekz

    wow, just wow

    This man's ignorance beggars belief.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What do you have to hide?

    Everything!

    Anonymous for a reason!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And phone!

    And car travel! And we should all have to log in when moving towns!

    1. PT

      No need. ANPR already does that, to save you the trouble.

  26. ClassicalLiberal
    Black Helicopters

    Won't someone please think of the children?

    Unless you're a pedo. In which case, don't, because doubtless before too long we'll all have to have a police-controlled implant in our brains monitoring our thoughts, lest we think bad things about anyone under 18. Or anyone who looks like they're under 18. Or cartoons of anyone who looks like they're under 18. Or cartoons of tigers that look like they're under 18.

    The further notion that the benevolent and entirely trustworthy authorities of the eminently democratic and in no way illiberal, statist and authoritarian EU might perhaps decide later to use this tech to identify people who, say, don't agree with them, and make them 'disappear' in the middle of the night, is ridiculous.

    Right?

    1. Richard Wharram

      Remember that you are legally allowed to marry and have sex with a 16 year old. Presumably you must not think about it though when you are doing it. Perfectly legal as long as you are thinking about your tax returns whilst having sex.

      Or the mother-in-law.

      *shudder*

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Coat

        "Remember that you are legally allowed to... have sex with a 16 year old."

        Really? Who is she??

  27. theblackhand
    Go

    A better way of catching criminals...

    Would be to monitor all politicians expenses and income.

    Once we have that in-place, and we can see Mr Motti isn't being paid large sums of money by storage manufacturers then I might believe his intentions are good.

    It's still a stupid idea, but following this approach we will have cleaner politicians and know Mr Motti has good intentions.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      @A better way of catching criminals...

      Can't we have exploding collars for them that log everything to do & see during their term in office and for a year afterwards?

      If they do wrong we get to push the button...

      Could be a popular TV show, you listening Mr Berlusconi?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Happy

        Battle Royal

        Battle Royal with politicians? Oh my... that's a genuine awesome idea.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Que?

    How on earth can anyone who claims to be part of something called the "European People's Party" possibly thing this massive breach of privacy is a good idea?

    Other than the fact, anything that is recorded can be hacked, and of course Civil servents will probably have access to the data at will for "Convenience".

    I trust the "Authorities" with details of my online activities about as much as i trust any other Hackers.

    Really.

    1. dervheid

      "European People's Party"

      You sure it's not the "People's Party of Europe"

      or the "Popular People's Party of Europe"

      or the "European Popular People's Party" (bloody splitters)

      1. Chika
        Childcatcher

        Got any lizard spleens? I'm feeling a bit peckish...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Actually, now you mention it...

        its not entirely unlike the Yes minister joke.

        Sir Humphrey: East Yemen, isn't that a democracy?

        Sir Richard Wharton: Its full name is "The Peoples' Democratic Republic of East Yemen."

        Sir Humphrey: Ah, I see, so it's a communist dictatorship.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You have to get with the terminology here: "people's", "popular" and "progress" are just codenames for the more fascist political factions. Think "Daily Mail" but where it's an actual political party.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Because in general, if a country, party, etc. has words like

      'people's' or 'democratic' etc. in the title, it is far less likely to warrant them.

      For example: Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How on earth...."European People's Party"....?

      Think Democratic People's Republic of Korea, People's Republic of China, Democratic Republic of Congo, German Democratic Republic, Democratic Kampuchea and many many more. Then you'll understand how some organisations choose their names.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Idiotic

    Even if it were a practical proposition, this would be way, way more expensive than Mr Ghioni is saying.

    And of course, it wouldn't solve any serious problems - just put a final nail in the coffin for our freedoms - the scope for abuse is tremendous.

    I expect such idiocy from politicians, but I'm surprised that someone who professes to be a computer expert would encourage it. Is there an Italian word for 'ethical'?

    1. CD001

      > Is there an Italian word for 'ethical'?

      Yes - but the literal translation equates to something like "slightly more expensive to bribe".

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Meh

      Yeah but..

      they are likely to go the MPAA route and force the ISP to pay for it all, so we end up paying.

      As the little people pay for the privilage for the government monitoring your every online move, it will be fine.

  30. Eponymous Cowherd
    FAIL

    Collaboration?

    ***"Ghioni said his "precise mechanism" would need the "collaboration" of operating system manufacturers such as Microsoft and Apple"***

    And that's the rub, isn't it?

    The only way this can *ever* work is if the operating system intercepts the data *before* it is encrypted, sent via a secure VPN, or otherwise obfuscated.

    And that will require the cooperation of, not just Microsoft and Apple, but of all of the Linux distro providers, game console manufacturers (Sony, Nintendo), smartphone OS providers (Blackberry, Google), Internet TV, set-top box, blu-ray, etc manufacturers, and so on.

    It ain't going to happen, and still won't account for legacy systems (or would the "authorities" intend to prevent all all non Mottified boxes from connecting?)

    The bottom line is that if person A wants to communicate with Site/Person B over the Internet without anyone else being able to read/view the content of that communication, they are *always* going to be able to.

    This kind of bollocks just gives the "authorities" a nice, cosy (but false) sense of security.

  31. Joao Pereira
    Big Brother

    Beware

    Its 1984 all over again.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Does that mean I need to read the file 1984.djvu?

  32. Pete James

    How nice of this MEP to use the old paedo excuse to want to have more control over the silly arses who voted for. Twat.

  33. rossm
    Meh

    Risks of centralised data bases

    The problem with this idea of logging every detail of Internet traffic is that it centralises power in the hands of the authorities. The risk then is that this information is abused by those in power. While i laud the efforts to crack down on child pornography - I believe that the tools and powers that state bodies have today are sufficient in order to crack down on the perpetrators.

    How often have we heard the term " in the interests of State security" - - we have seen abuses take place under such pretexts in the Middle East following the uprisings there. So i would err on side of capturing less information; on less surveillance by the state; and rely on the benefits arising out of the network effect of mobile and Internet networks. These have been proven time and time again and the Arab spring is the most recent and most dramatic reminder of that.

    1. PatientOne

      @rossm

      Erm... no... the problem is the amount of data they would collect would be too cumbersome to process and pretty meaningless without context.

      How many nodes, how many proxies, does your connection go through? How many IP addresses get attached to your packets? How many layers need to be unwrapped if this detailed logging takes place just to find out you clicked a link that some hacker had hijacked to send you off to some dodgy pron site? Then consider just how many records would be stored for a single day. How many spiders out there trawling through the internet looking for key pages, how many links off each page to other sites, and how many people using AV that scans such links thereby generating a record.

      How many millions of rows of data will be generated, which would need indexing to search properly, and those indexes will quickly become fragmented, slowing down queries. And what do you search for? How do you know what is illegal activity and what is genuine, legitimate traffic, and how do you know which IP addresses belong to which subnet so you can filter for the correct data.

      Dinosaurs would look on this and laugh, and we should, too, as the system gets so swamped with data that it becomes impossible to analyse.

      MEPs tend to be clueless, but they all seek publicity. That is what this is: Nothing more, nothing less, and is a total waste of our money.

  34. zb

    Bureaucrats and politicians

    This is typical of their mindset. They want to do anything and everything that is possible to intrude and micromanage out lives. The only reason they want to do this is because they can do it. They would love to record every thought in our minds; after all if we were innocent we would have not thoughts to hide.

  35. Nick Ryan Silver badge
    Trollface

    Wow

    Another half baked through from a power / control freak politician attempting to manifest itself. Hell, half baked is probably an exaggeration and an insult to all reasonable half baked plans.

    Freedom. A word that used to be in use but has since been removed from the dictionary as its continuing inclusion was considered subversive.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What if

    All members of every parliament in the EU, incl the EU. Should have it installed on there PC's. After a trial period on there personal equipment will we look further.

    They first, then us?

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shame that...

    the vast majority of peado's are known by the victim (relatives / "friends" of family) and therefore never actually have the need for the internet to commit their crimes.

    Still, facts, who needs them.

    1. Semaj
      Childcatcher

      Exactly what I was thinking.

      Funny isn't it that these people always ignore the elephant in the room - that most child abuse (sexual and otherwise) is done (or at least allowed) by the parents (male AND female) so have never seriously suggested that all parents should be monitored in such an invasive way.

      1. Yet Another Commentard

        As I recall it's abuse, not merely that directed at minors, that came from [extended] family.

        As the OP said - "facts? who needs those?" or similar.

  38. Annihilator
    Coat

    True

    "Politician claims data records will help ID paedos and predators"

    They're absolutely correct, much in the same way my handy lump hammer here will do a great job of cracking open a nut. Will probably turn out to be quite expensive though as I'd need to keep replacing the dining room table after each nut...

    1. John G Imrie

      You must learn to think out of the box

      and replace your dining room table with an MEP.

    2. steogede

      Re: True

      >> my handy lump hammer here will do a great job of cracking open a nut... I'd need to keep replacing the dining room table after each nut...

      A lump hammer (used with a chopping board) can be quite a careful tool for cracking nuts. A better analogy might be a pneumatic drill/jackhammer.

  39. Matthew 17

    But how?

    Ignoring the MASSIVE invasion of privacy and the civil liberties issues for a moment.

    If every system that connected to the Internet uploaded everything it was doing to a central syslog server, how much data would be collected, would have to be 1000's of petabytes per day, which would cause massive network congestion as it tried to cope with all this extra load and the impossibly large data centre required to store this information.

    It would be so much that processing it in any meaningful way would become impossible.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But that's the point...

      Congesting the network to the point of uselessness is one way to make it much harder to organise any kind of co-ordinated protest... if nobody shows up, that just proves 'Joe Public' loves Big Brother and justifies his actions...

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Citizen Databases

    The database will get created under the cloak of the usual "Horsemen of the Appocolypse"

    A. Paedo

    B. Terorrist

    C. Drug Dealers

    D. Money Launders

    E. Migrants/Benefit Fraud (dependant on the current poltical spin in your country)

    F. Anything else that sounds scary and might get votes

    And the month after it is passed, the prime ministers press sectary will be using it to dig for dirt on the civil servant that had the cheek to point out the politician was lying, and the dodgy dossier was just an excuse to take the county to war.

    The year after it is passed, the police will be regulaly using it as "a matter of routine investigation", for shoplifting investigations (just like the oyster card data)

    18 months after it is passed, the most frequent users will probably be ex-NOTW staff, via brown paper enevelopes stuffed with cash given to members of the met.

  41. David Ward 1
    Go

    The 'year of linux' is upon us!

    "operating system manufacturers such as Microsoft and Apple" - maybe 2014 or whenever this would be introduced *WILL* be the year of Linux, (been waiting for it almost as long as fusion!)

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I heard of a Firefox Add In

    This add in was to fill up Googles user tracking with spurious information. It used to send random queries behind the scenes whenever Firefox was open.

    Could someone devise something that would generate spurious traffic for filling up the thought polices storage units? The real police can carry on catching paedos the same way they do now - by doing real police work. The politically inspired infringements on our freedom (that have nothing to do with capturing nasty people) will be so full of harmless cruft that they can do little harm.

  43. Alan Firminger

    Logically

    When it becomes possible legislators will call, and probably act, to see every citizen to be microchipped for gps logging.

  44. Anonymous Coward 15
    Childcatcher

    Hi, I'm Chris Hansen.

    Why don't you take a seat right over there.

  45. ElNumbre
    Stop

    Holey.

    This idea has more hole's than the Pope's colander.

    #Thatisall

  46. Andy Gates
    FAIL

    Even if it worked (LOL), they'd still do nothing when presented with a priest fiddling kiddies.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      and of course despite all of this hi tech wizadry

      paedos would still keep engaging in the lo-tech crime of actually abusing kids.

  47. Yet Another Commentard
    Pint

    The whole Europe thing annoys me when it does this. I can’t see from a technical perspective how this would be feasible with any reasonable level of funding, nor do I see how it would be superior to actual police work. Invoking the bogeyman of paedophilia is a really cheap trick.

    Personally I think the MEPs should start with a bit of transparency over their doings, comings and goings. As I recall the accounts for the EU bodies have not been signed off, due to potential fraud, for many, many years. The last chap that tried to map MEP attendance versus travel claims for them (and spouses) was jailed for his trouble. Indeed, a look here - http://bit.ly/rdnnsx (sub required) - shows the high probability of mis-statement in Member State returns. Off on a rant, but a few years ago we did some work for the EU. When we added up the area Italy claimed subsidies for Olive Groves, it was more than the entire surface area of Italy. We found a guy claiming for 300 head of cattle. Fine, but he lived in a flat overlooking St Mark’s Square. That’s small beer, and not Thinking of the Children, but each Euro wasted is a Euro that could be used to relieve child poverty, improve policing, education, healthcare or a hundred and one things more appropriate for dealing with crime than recording the internet on Yottabytes of storage.

    I’m off for a pint to calm down.

  48. nichobe
    Stop

    Status Quo

    I'd rather let the companies store their own info in a decentralised fashion and then let the governments request it like they do now....

    Letting one government organisation store it all is too much of a risk, especially with their track record of data leaks.

  49. J.G.Harston Silver badge
    FAIL

    Falling off the...

    Logs of all internet activity will be sent to a central repository... over the internet? An will it also send logs of the log traffic, and logs of the logs of the log traffic, and logs of the logs of the loggs of the logssesess

    Chap needs hitting with the clue log.

  50. I understand now
    Happy

    Swings and roundabouts.

    Well we will get to see our politicians browsing habits. That will be fun.

    Once they clock onto that, I'm sure they'll change their tune.

  51. This post has been deleted by its author

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good idea.

    Expand this black box to cover every article, post and byte on the internet as well. We need a decent archive system for future academic study.

    Oh, wait, this is to protect the children?

  53. dwieske

    hilarious

    a party consisting mainly of KATHOLIC parties using pedophiles to take a step closer to a police state....I really think dawkins is right, time to FIGHT religious assholes

  54. Oath of Chaos

    The real issue...

    The real issue comes in the form of:

    Regulations trading security for freedom,

    Giving the government an easier method to monitor its citizens under the guise of some hot topic,

    There are already methods available to elude any type of monitoring system aimed at targeting packets' // frames' payload. (128-bit point-to-point encryption // TOR // Multi-point proxy // VPN would like to say Hi)

    The next step after a monitoring system is in place:

    --Any device or monitoring system can be abused by any corrupt official (as we've seen, there are many of those)

    --Tied with the previous possibility, censorship ensues due to the availability of the monitoring system.

    Granted, the "Next Step" is all hypothetical, but the logic is solid.

  55. Asgard
    Headmaster

    Control ... endless control

    @"Details of all internet traffic should be logged"

    If they want that, then I want all details of all government meetings logged and recorded. Lets see how our so called government representatives like being watched the way they want to watch all of us.

    The two faced MP/bastards in power fear the Internet, as they know we can talk behind their backs. We can share and learn what our two faced leaders are really doing and as a result, we can see when they lie to us. That means we can see when our so called government representatives are not representing us.

    Basically they don't want us to learn the truth about them, because if we learn the truth we learn how often they use lies to control us.

    Everything else they say is lies & FUD to get what they want. They want control over the Internet because they want control over us. They look at the so called Arab Spring and fear it. Just as centuries ago the whole of Europe looked at the French Revolution and feared it could happen to them as well.

    The irony is this same control freak pattern of behaviour was played out in England over 200 years ago (and for generations before that). The "upper crust" as they were known despised the working class learning how to read and write, because they knew if the working classes could read, then they could learn the truth. The Aristocracy & Landed gentry wanted to keep the people down and they done that by keeping them ignorant of the lies used to control and manipulate them.

    Its the same pattern throughout history simply because a minority group of society (in every country) ruthlessly (and desperately) fight to have power over other people and as part of their endless need for power, they (almost by definition) seek to keep other people down so they have power and as a result, they keep people blind to the truth behind the lies which they use to manipulative people with.

    Our present generation of two faced bastards in power are the same, only this generation in power fear the Internet just as their kind centuries ago feared books.

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If I'm not mistaken, isn't Burlesconi in his party?

    The same Burlesconi who had sex with underage girls? (Or something along those lines.)

    Maybe he should deal with his parties problems first before talking out of his ass.

  57. Kurgan
    Unhappy

    I'm sorry

    I'm sorry for being italian. Please, come and conquer us, and hang all of these idiots.

  58. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not just to go after pedos

    After the media's reporting of the Jo Yates case yesterday, I think more will be added to the list of groups they would want to ID with this database.

    After the media's 'hard on' for what the murder was looking at before the murder (even though ruled inadmissible). I can see a range of non child porn being added to the list of things that they would want to be looking through your history for. Also if you have searched for prostitutes as the media seemed to equate that as well, or seeing any naked pictures of someone who looks like a murder victim. And they wonder why it was all ruled inadmissible. I think the admissible search history of him searching for body decomposition times and the difference between manslaughter and murder was a lot more telling.

    The media reporting on this aspect of the case was shameful. I think the best part of all the reporting was the BBC who had on their rolling bar at the bottom, 'Vincent Tabak found guilty of murdering Jo Yates after watching internet porn.'

  59. BigUglyDean

    Boy, I'm lucky.

    I sure am glad I live in America, where we're spied on and censored by our corporate overlords, and not the government! USA! USA!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      Well, our corporate overlords haven't got the ability to jail us for 30 years, confiscate our money, force us to perpetually announce ourselves as disgusting filth if we're convicted of bizarrely arbitrary crimes, and execute us.

      That said, our corporate overlords -do- force packaged cable tv plans on us, so perhaps it evens out.

      I know it's in fashion to do the whole tape-money-over-your-mouth thing (In order to get a huge megacorp to show how huge megacorps muzzle everyone) but when it comes down to it, the government has something nooooooobody else does: Big goddamn guns. Corporations have influence insamuch as their influence alters monetary and regulatory issues. Important? Yes. Absolutely. As important as deciding reproductive rights, free speech on an -all-encompassing- level, deciding what citizens are allowed to do or not? No.

      Corporate and governmental issues interact closely, but they're not locked together. North Korea keeps a rather tight reign on the corporate overlords, and hat hasn't helped the citizens. There are countries that have free political societies, regulated economies, and are still miserable.

      I don't happen to believe that fairness -or- capitalism can exist in a laissez-faire system; Goldman Sachs is an excellent example of pure capitalism destroying the market it makes.

      Unfortunately, terms like 'corporate overlord' hurt the credibility of everyone else in favor of sane regulation.

      Hell, if the Occupy movement keeps going down the road it has been, with arrests and things burning and yelling and tent cities, the independent electorate will have such a bad taste in their mouths that, even if they agree with the need for more regulation, they'll vote Republican anyway.

      How does that sound - trade some main street theater and feel-good self-righteousness for President Cain? The corporate overlords will owe the 99% a debt of gratitude, certainly.

  60. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ohh

    My parents taught me to never trust a government that doesn't trust you.

  61. T J
    FAIL

    They make it SO EASY

    They stick their heads up and say "DONT VOTE FOR ME OR MY PARTY. WE WEAR TINFOIL FASHION AND WE ARE A JOKE. AVOID! AVOID!"

    The process of attrition will eventually wipe these idiots from the board. Good riddance.

    Oh and parting shot - the technology soon wont let you do any logging whether you want to or not Mr Big Brother moron sir.

  62. Sam Therapy
    Stop

    Privacy and communication

    Any form of communication should automatically carry a basic assumption of privacy. New methods of communication should by default have the same rights of non interference as old ones, rather than the current trend of making a special case for anything done on the interwebs.

    Otherwise, you may as well give the government(s) authority to open your mail and tap your phone without warrants and/or probable cause/reasonable suspicion. I'm pretty sure that sort of thing does happen anyhow but still...

    Like Mr "Nothing to hide", I have no dirty secrets but it doesn't mean I want each and every bit of my private life open to the public.

    Finally, I have two small children who I love dearly and will do my utmost to protect. That does not, however, include the erosion of yet more privacy for the sake of chasing yet another spectre.

  63. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a £*%&£%

    If you're going to come up with ludicrous, unworkable and unethical ideas please don't pretend it's anything to do with "protecting the children", that just denigrates a worthy cause.

  64. Thomas 18
    Big Brother

    "collaboration" of operating system manufacturers...

    Could be just the boost Linux needs.

    Oh and "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!" this clichéd tactic is so god damn old.

  65. Pete Spicer

    If it requires intervention from the operating system to help, all that will happen - pretty much like always - those who take the less well travelled route will be free to carry on as they would normally, and those who stick to the mainstream get shafted.

    Consider DRM: those who buy it legitimately (the mainstream) get to have the joys and woes of DRM, while those who obtain modified copies have no such limitations. Or DVDs, with their 'do not copy this DVD' trailer, which has been removed on copies, again the mainstream and legitimate consumer is penalised by having their experience eroded while those who are the targets of such skirt round the limitations.

    It might increase market share of Linux on the desktop though... maybe that's not inherently a bad thing.

  66. Nick Galloway

    Privacy laws???

    I would love to see how this fits with privacy laws and more interestingly how quickly the civil libertarians will react. It won't work because even with the best will in the world someone will hack it and 'adjust' the data to make sure there is a swathe or incriminating evidence to condemn the entirety of the European parliament. Maybe the Chinese will do it as a way to get control in that arena, or more than they already have!?

  67. Shakje

    Sorry, does he realise just how many people use the internet? And just how many different connections are made when looking at one site? From image servers to ad servers the amount of data would be ridiculous.

    And if he wants it implemented on the OS level it would take about 20 minutes to figure out a way to prevent the data hitting the main servers, and an hour to implement, while everyone who is legit would be burdened with connections slowed by every single interaction being logged to some rubbish central server. Never mind that a live disk would come out within a few days with an OS that just decided not to bother.

    And what about secure communications, say between government agencies and informants, do you really want a complete log of the route between them?

    Seriously, you would expect a bit more intelligence about things from a technical writer, maybe not the MEP.

  68. AndrueC Silver badge
    Mushroom

    The man's an idiot.

  69. phuzz Silver badge
    Boffin

    Ok, let's think about this.

    Number of people using the internet in the UK: 51,442,100 (from http://www.internetworldstats.com/eu/uk.htm).

    Working out how much traffic each of those people use is tricky, so I'm going to pick an entirely arbitrary 10GB per month.

    So, that would lead to the UK generating around 500PB of data a month, of course, de-dupe would put a dent in that (how many people are just watching Eastenders on iPlayer?), so lets scale down to 'just' 100PB per month.

    I have no idea what the cost per GB for enterprise storage would be, but Amazon charge $0.055 per GB per month at the high end, so one month of the UK's data usage might cost $2.5 million to store for one month. Although of course it's increasing by 100PB every month, so the bill for a rolling 12 months of data would be something like £20 million per month.

    Of course, this is before we even start to think about having to build the data centres, and provide them with power or providing any way of finding 'suspicious activity' in a data set that large.

    So, I'm going to put a guesstimate of logging all of the UK's data traffic at being somewhere north of quarter of a billion quid a year.

    To my mind, the kids aren't worth that. (even assuming that such a system would stop child abuse which is highly unlikely).

  70. John A Blackley

    Call for Signor Motti

    Please return to Italy and help pay its debts instead of living at the taxpayers' expense in Brussels and thinking up silly ideas to burden said taxpayers.

  71. The Nameless Mist
    FAIL

    Go for it!

    I know one group of people who will be rubbing their corporate hands in glee at this kind of concept. The storage manufacturers.

    you must store details of all internet traffic.

    just how much is that going to require? how many TB of data / hour.

    then watch the MPs try to exclude themselves from the auditing and tracking process of course.

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