back to article Spies, avert eyes! Tim Berners-Lee demands a UK digital bill of rights

The UK needs a digital bill of rights to protect citizens against the government's "indiscriminate online surveillance", world wide web inventor Tim Berners-Lee said on Saturday. The Greatest Living Briton™ was speaking at the Web We Want Festival in London. He lobbied politicos in Blighty to take action in the run up to next …

  1. Ole Juul

    If only they cared

    He has previously said that the NSA's spying tactics . . . were "appalling and foolish."'

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Money talks, money talks, dirty cash i want you, dirty cash i need you"

    "Come on Tim!", the only way that you can get what you want is to take full control and reponsibility for your invention. Patent, Register & Copyright that 'www' Motherfuka NOW!!

    Once you own it then you can start 'Invoicing the NSA, Google and every other fuckspanner for TRILLIONS.

    Remember; "Ownership=Civilization", Andrew Ryan said that......didn't pan out too well for him....but i think YOU can learn from his mistake....don't keep a putter in your office.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Money talks, money talks, dirty cash i want you, dirty cash i need you"

      Was Reddit closed for the weekend?

  3. Christian Berger

    Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

    It would start with things like telephone privacy adapted to the Internet, so governments and companies are not allowed to store your traffic or meta-data easily.

    But in the end it would also have to include the right to decide what software runs on your devices, so closed down boot loaders and DRM-systems would be illegal.

    1. tom dial Silver badge

      Re: Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

      You have the right to decide what software runs on your devices, if you are choosy about your devices. Manufacturers and vendors have the right to limit the devices they provide in any way they like. It is up to you whether to buy them. And those who hold government granted monopolies on books, recorded performances, and the like are entitled to insist on whatever constraints they like, including specifically DRM systems to control your access to them; it is your choice whether to accept the restrictions or not.

      Some people (I have read) like the locked down walled garden DRM ridden approach of Apple or the slightly less restrictive approach of Microsoft and the vast majority of Android device providers. There is no more reason to make them illegal than there is to make them legally required.

      That copyright duration exceeds by at least a full order of magnitude what is reasonable and that the patent issuing system, especially in the US, is out of control are matters related only peripherally to the mechanisms used to enforce them. They can be addressed separately and, unfortunately, with a similar success probability.

      1. Christian Berger

        Re: Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

        Actually it's not "my choice" to accept DRM or not. Companies are forcing me into accepting it, it's not a free choice I can make. I cannot go to a store and buy a copy of a movie with or without DRM. I can only buy it with DRM, and have to remove the DRM later. Unfortunately because of really broken laws that would be just as illegal as getting a copy I don't pay for at all.

        1. tom dial Silver badge

          Re: Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

          No. You do not have to purchase their products or perform whatever other act that they require for access. It is their product. They are entitled to offer it on any terms they wish, and you are entirely free to arrange to use it on their terms or to not use it. It is a matter of mutual agreement (or not) between provider and consumer. This type of argument is made by people who, having made a contract for a price, think it their right to change it unilaterally because they don't like the terms

          I agree that the laws are broken, but that is a side issue in the case of DRM, which is simply a technical means to help verify and enforce compliance with a contract. You can only buy a movie copy with DRM because the creator says so; and if you remove the DRM you violate a contract. If you obtain a copy of someone else's legally obtained copy you have acquired something to which you have no legal entitlement, and the person who provided the copy almost surely has violated a contractual obligation. The real effect of copyright laws in the context of effective DRM is to limit the period during which courts would allow DRM to be effective: a reasonable court would order that a vendor stop incorporating DRM and provide technical means to remove it from existing copies when (i. e., if) the copyright expires, in the same way that a court would deny claims for copyright infringement after expiration.

          1. User McUser
            Headmaster

            Re: Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

            I agree that the laws are broken, but that is a side issue in the case of DRM, which is simply a technical means to help verify and enforce compliance with a contract. You can only buy a movie copy with DRM because the creator says so; and if you remove the DRM you violate a contract. If you obtain a copy of someone else's legally obtained copy you have acquired something to which you have no legal entitlement, and the person who provided the copy almost surely has violated a contractual obligation.

            While there are laws that detail which activities I should not engage in with copyrighted works, this has sweet FA to do with a contract between myself and the copyright holder because no such contract exists. I have bought a number of DVDs and BluRay discs over the years and not once have I ever had to sign a contract with the copyright holder in order to do so.

            1. tom dial Silver badge

              Re: Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

              Indeed, copyright is not a private sector contract. But copyright laws do specify an implied contract, based in the U. S. on Article I, Section VIII, paragraph 8 of the Constitution, in which the people granted the federal government the authority to establish and enforce such laws. English law, as I understand it, is less formalized but has a similar basis. CDs, DVDs, and books usually include a statement of what rights are not granted to the purchaser. DRM may be used to enforce the limitations.

              Most commercial software products come also with an explicit contract, the EULA, to which a "purchaser" assents by opening the package and installing the software on a computer. It is a problem that many times the agreement is not visible until you open the package and thereby "accept" it, but it usually is possible to circumvent that difficulty by viewing an online copy. DRM may be used to enforce contract rights.

              In either case, a potential consumer has the right to accept the limitations, decline them by declining to purchase, or to purchase and ignore the limitations at some risk of being summoned to a court and punished.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          have spent years chatting with Tim over Lasagne at Tortellas on Thursdays

          Tim initially sought to defend the nascent web from monolithic FUD spreading 'embracers & extinguishers' - and he did an amazing job. Now, however, a million strong 'security' army has quietly subverted everything on the web, in 13 different ways for every ten that you can guess! it is almost - but not quite - beyond repair.

          We know some of the ways out of the problem, e.g. the new "Trust" model for the near-future internet has the usual problem that key personalities on the standards' committees are biased by their covert employers to avoid at all costs things like PERFECT FORWARD SECRECY and numerous other real steps-forward. The eventual suggestions from our standards organisations are often slightly poisoned.

          One of these subtly poisoned steps is the idea to improve the CA/Browser "trust" by implementing "Certificate Transparency", an idea that means you'll need to personally check a ZILLION certificate logs to try and spot an MITM, allegedly

          http://blog.okturtles.com/2014/09/the-trouble-with-certificate-transparency/ has a good overview.

          I think asking questions, trust but verify the responses, is one of the ways out and a UK Digital Bill of Rights could certainly help, CESG could even help write a bill that maintains the proportional level of national security that they seek. Put that in my dossier that you are compiling, guys/gals!

          it's not like our web/phone meta-data is being used to bomb children anyway?

          http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/GCHQ/story-23003482-detail/story.html

        3. DragonLord

          Re: Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

          The choice you have is whether to buy or not buy the movie legally. It's not as if these things are essential for your survival.

          Of course if they started DRMing food/essentials you might have a leg to stand on. But as it stands they are only DRMing luxuries. And while they're only DRMing luxuries you have the option of not having said luxury.

          Additionally I'm pretty sure that you could approach a studio and ask them for a DRM free copy of the film that you want. Though you can expect to be laughed at if you're not rich enough or from the right industry. But if you're rich enough I'm sure they'd sell you one for a few hundred thousand pounds.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

            > Of course if they started DRMing food/essentials you might have a leg to stand on.

            I think Monsanto would disagree with you on that.

            1. DragonLord

              Re: Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

              >> Of course if they started DRMing food/essentials you might have a leg to stand on.

              >I think Monsanto would disagree with you on that.

              I don't believe they are DRMing their products, and if they did I'm pretty sure that various governments would have strong words with them. But growing GM food is a different topic to purchasing the end product, and should probably take place in a different setting. Suffice to say that my issue with GM food is when they start making it so that you can't grow from G2 seed, rather than you're not allowed to grow from G2 seed.

              1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
                WTF?

                RE: DragonLord Re: Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

                ".....But growing GM food is a different topic to purchasing the end product, and should probably take place in a different setting. Suffice to say that my issue with GM food is when they start making it so that you can't grow from G2 seed, rather than you're not allowed to grow from G2 seed." Strange, I don't remember there being any restraint on Third World farmers growing further crops from genetically-enhanced, drought- and disease-resistant seeds supplied by the UN, specifically the GM maize supplied to African countries to help them beat famines. Are you taking a hypothetical case and trying to pass it off as inevitable or just talking male bovine manure?

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: RE: DragonLord Well we'd need a more refined bill of rights

                  > Strange, I don't remember there being any restraint on Third World farmers growing further crops from genetically-enhanced, drought- and disease-resistant seeds supplied by the UN, specifically the GM maize supplied to African countries to help them beat famines. Are you taking a hypothetical case and trying to pass it off as inevitable or just talking male bovine manure?

                  You may be right in this particular case, but there are many documented instances of Mansanto and others supplying seed on the proviso that they do not replant seed but buy from them year after year. This is not DRM but is a good analog.

                  A better comparison would be companies developing plants that do not themselves produce seed. That would be a horrendous thing to drop into our eco-system and would inevitably hasten our demise after any natural disaster causing the general collapse of our society. Bottom line: we have to be careful what we let these companies do to our food chain.

  4. Camilla Smythe

    Meanwhile..

    On another Planet, in another Sol type system in another Galaxy far far far away.

    "Five minutes of data collected."

    "Run the predictor."

    "Already have."

    "And?"

    "Intelligence but perverted again."

    "Chances of recovery?"

    "Insignificant within their time scale."

    "Chances of recovery with intervention?"

    "Insignificant."

    "Sigh. Move on to the next target."

  5. Vimes

    Do MPs really care?

    They already have their parliamentary web access 'filtered' thanks to Bluecoat (thereby copying in servers in the US in all requests made) and apparently last year moved their mail so that it would be hosted by Microsoft on servers in the Netherlands and Ireland (given recent stories regarding the US government, Microsoft and - funnily enough - Irish servers this seems like a particularly poor decision).

    If they can't understand the sheer lunacy of not having complete control over their own IT then what hope is there for any of us?

    1. Ted Treen
      Big Brother

      @Vimes

      "...what hope is there for any of us?.."

      None - I had hoped that as they were so pig-ignorant about IT that they would consider it inconsequential, but that was before they started to spout about "Terrorists" & "Think of the chillun", so I'm afraid I must answer your question with "Probably none".

      Unless of course, we happen upon a latter-day Wat Tyler...

      1. Adam Foxton
        Joke

        Re: @Vimes

        It's the world of Tech.

        We don't need Wat Tyler, we need Watt Tyler!

  6. FormerKowloonTonger
    IT Angle

    Lest We Forget.

    Perhaps somewhere in the collective [pun alert] wisdom of all those against the GCHQ and the NSA, and other such huffers and puffers, an algorithm could be found and applied, but limited in application of course just among these Anti's, that would exempt them from any protections enabled by all such GCHQ and NSA careful electronic surveillance?

    Suppose no Enigma machines were ever recovered from German submarines during the Blockade of Britain? And, their code wheels never examined and revealed by the good folks down at Bletchley Park?

    Think of the likes of Alan Turing. And the many, many so desperately needed food re-supply ships from Canada and America being torpedoed weekly during that bleak time. And those which were saved by the code breakers at Bletchley and enabled to deliver food and materiel.

    I.T. indeed.

    1. Vimes

      Re: Lest We Forget.

      ...but limited in application of course just among these Anti's, that would exempt them from any protections enabled by all such GCHQ and NSA careful electronic surveillance?...

      As always, consider the source when they tell you anything about advantages...

      http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/2/nsa-chief-figures-foiled-terror-plots-misleading/?page=all

    2. DeKrow
      FAIL

      @FormerKowloonTonger Re: Lest We Forget.

      Error: Irretrievable context failure, please reset completely and retry operation.

      1. FormerKowloonTonger
        IT Angle

        Re: @FormerKowloonTonger Lest We Forget.

        No, indeed the context is most appropriate; so, let's try putting it this way:

        How many readers here would've had Bletchley Park closed, or never used for anything but strictly as a private home, most especially never used for England's defense by its Government? [thumbs up]

        Maybe better stated as how many readers of this thread had ever heard of Bletchley Park before its being mentioned here?

        1. Scoular

          Re: @FormerKowloonTonger Lest We Forget.

          WWII was genuine war with a genuine enemy. There was no political manipulation and creation of crises for political ends needed, there really was a crisis and everyone knew that even if there was plenty of propaganda.

          The present situation is in no way comparable with the Nazis and the government was not spying on everyone, just those with a genuine military significance, those machines were owned by Mr Hitler and associates. As if it matters I have visited Bletchey Park and known about it for decades thanks.

        2. Hargrove

          Re: @FormerKowloonTonger Lest We Forget.

          Governments targeting potential threats and enemies for intelligence gathering is one thing. Wolesale indiscriminate collection of data on the citizens of a country by those who govern is completely different. It does NOT enhance security. . . Indeed, there is a strong technical basis for believing that it will significantly degrade it. At the same time it gives those who govern an unprecedented ability to intrude upon and control the lives of a society.

          The question, as ever, is, "Who profits?"

          And. as ever, remember Miriam Carey.

          1. Charles 9

            Re: @FormerKowloonTonger Lest We Forget.

            "Wolesale indiscriminate collection of data on the citizens of a country by those who govern is completely different."

            So is a world where a single man can potentially ruin civilisation if you're not careful. That's the thing about eternal vigilance. One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. One determined nihilist with time, and resources can unleash pure hell (and with technology progressing as it is, one cannot discount the possibility of something like a rampant viral plague like avian flu). Know any other way to combat a lone-wolf existential threat?

            1. FormerKowloonTonger
              IT Angle

              Re: @FormerKowloonTonger Lest We Forget.

              Well said.

              The consensus here is to grant carte blanche to our penetrating Muslim enemy [ who're reminding us non-muslims daily that they are indeed our enemy] while we just stand by all in the name of a blanket-all-encompassing 'Freedom', is simply delusional when our oriental muslim enemy aren't able to conceive of the concept of occidental 'Freedom'. They laugh at that concept. Just read their Koran. Our thought processes simply aren't the same.

              Maybe those here so earnestly-smugly saying there is no muslim threat should remember Rotheram, South Yorks. If they indeed admit we have a muslim threat but, oh dear!, we mustn't read their emails; then that's opening a door to mayhem. An obstruction of generalized freedom of muslims to rape children of both sexes and slit our throats in the street.

              Here's a partial example of muslim "entitlement" pasted from The Mirror:

              "Monsters: Zafran Ramzan, Umar Razaq, Adil Hussain, Mohsin Khan and Razwan Razaq

              Raped, beaten and abused by paedophiles, child victims of the vile monsters deserved the full support from the authorities whose job was to protect them.

              But social worker chiefs, police and council bosses ignored their plight - leaving the perverts free to continue their reign of terror for 16 years – targeting 1,400 youngsters as young as 11, a report revealed today.

              Instead, the victims were treated as “undesirables” and reports of the abuse were “swept under the carpet” because staff feared being labelled racist as most of the attackers were Asian

              http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rotherham-child-abuse-scandal-paedophile-4113152#ixzz3Eg4DOlpk

              Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook".

              And, this is merely the sexual entitlement of muslims. They also decapitate "infidel" soldiers on the street.

              Expand those two mere sample of Koran authorized "attitude" to expecting dhimmitude in all facets of our lives. Our women out in public covered in black from head to toe, eye slits permitted.

              But no, we mustn't invade the privacy of these muslims' emails to alert ourselves to protect ourselves. Nor must we read their emailed instructions from cell to cell in the old fashioned unremembered Soviet manner. That's racist and anti-muslim. Tut, tut.

              This is why I'm convinced of the ostrich-like immaturity of the posters on this thread, regardless of their chronological age, and of their delusional and lethal "political correctness".

              1. Triggerfish

                Re: @FormerKowloonTonger Lest We Forget.

                1. Actually not all Muslims believe in the Burkha, you are generalising massively.

                2. Likewise for pedophilia.

                3. As someone pointed out the Nazis was war and we spied on the enemy, we didn't treat our own citizens as the enemy.

                4. I have no problems with targeted checking, but I do have problems with our civil liberties being eroded and laws being put in place to do that. Our civil liberties which you are so worried about these Muslims taking, well our governments doing that instead. Our country has been pretty strongly founded on things like our inherent rights for a long time now we shouldn't just give them up for fear the chances of you being killed in a terrorist attack in the UK, is probably lower than you being killed by a cow or a dog.

              2. Sir Runcible Spoon

                Re: @FormerKowloonTonger Lest We Forget.

                You are making a large number of assumptions, most of which are a simple setup for a straw-man argument.

                To object to the abuse of surveillance powers and to have a desire to restrict them and have proper oversight does not automatically equate to not wanting the security services to be able to do their job. To suggest otherwise as you have done simply undermines every other point you make.

                Also, leading with ad hominem attacks is another tactic of the propagandist.

          2. tom dial Silver badge

            Re: @FormerKowloonTonger Lest We Forget.

            Miriam Carey's shooting, tragic as it was, has exactly nothing to do with collection of data by any government agency. No connection, that is, unless the claim is that the government did, or should have, collected and processes so much information on everyone that they could have provided it on the spot to DC and federal police to enable them to determine that Ms. Carey was depressed and confused, possibly psychotic, and in need of their assistance. Even if they had had such information, her actions were dangerous to those nearby and it is not clear what they could have done to effectively end them.

    3. Gray
      Alert

      Re: Lest We Forget.

      Think of the likes of Alan Turing.

      Ayup ... it's difficult to think of Alan Turing without recalling the rewards a grateful nation heaped upon him.

      Care to try another example to make yer point?

  7. Spanners Silver badge
    Flame

    It is not my own government I am most worried about.

    I am British and while of the opinion that Whitehall drones, spooks and others need to be kept under control by the electorate, I think there are bigger concerns.

    The US establishment has amply demonstrated that their own serfs have few rights. We have even less as far as they are concerned. If they do not give a toss about their own sacred constitution, what hope for the remaining 96% of humanity?

    An equal worry is commerce. Again, the worst excesses seem to come from across the pond but their subsidiaries on this side are just a bad and they seem to have been giving lessons to people on this side that customers are bad and always steal your stuff.

    The first two things that need dealt with come as handy acronyms - DRMs and EULAs need to be completely reformed. If I pay you money for something, the only right you have is how many copies of your software I run. If I sell my copy, all rights should go with it. Whether I watch/hear it on TV, phone, tablet or DVD player is not relevant to you. The Only acceptable EULAs I recall are GPL and Creative Commons. Certainly Microsoft ones are a brilliant example of what they should not say!

    There is more to say but some pigs just flew overhead...

    1. Charles 9

      Re: It is not my own government I am most worried about.

      You'll never convince the software makers to loosen their terms since many of them have captive markets with no honest competition, especially in the professional field. Let's face it. Except for the most basic of things, GIMP is no Photoshop, and I still haven't found anything that approaches the level of features in Premiere or After Effects. All the software maker has to do to (which many are transitioning anyway) is to render all of their transactions leases or subscriptions. At which point, all the buyer can do is accept the limits of the agreement or go without.

      When the town only has one well (and practically no way to make another), do you dehydrate yourself to spite its owner?

    2. tom dial Silver badge

      Re: It is not my own government I am most worried about.

      With respect, I strongly suspect that surveillance in the U. K. far exceeds what exists, or given the relative sizes and population, is even possible in the U. S. And like that in the U. S., there seems to be precious little evidence that it is being abused by either government.

      It certainly could be abused, but both countries have a very long history, most of it in common, of political restraint and forbearance and solving most problems without resort to either popular insurrection or government oppression.

      1. FormerKowloonTonger
        IT Angle

        Re: It is not my own government I am most worried about.

        Well said, but those of the mindset we're reading here are wearing blinders and are squinting through their tunnel vision. Or, if women, they're squinting through the eye slits in their black shrouds.

        That's why I mentioned Bletchley. If alive then, they'd be concerned about the rudeness and prying of reading the Nazi German military codes, even if the safety of whole cities depended upon accurate translations. That'd be a violation of Nazi's freedoms.

        There's no denying the major cultural problem, a murderous problem.

        1. Triggerfish

          Re: It is not my own government I am most worried about.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK8sxngSWaU

  8. veti Silver badge

    Inspiringly enough...

    Next year - 15 June 2015, to be precise - will be the 800th anniversary of the signing of the original Magna Carta.

    Isn't it high time the British mania for meaningless anniversaries was turned to some useful account?

    1. FormerKowloonTonger

      Re: Inspiringly enough...

      What's manic about celebrating a steady, solid and major foundation of Western Civilization?

  9. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Facepalm

    The problem with academics...

    .....is they think the World is full of ivory-tower dwellers that will want to do good and live in harmony. Indeed, the original Internet was just like that, with very few safeguards and security. And then we had the phreakers, followed by the skiddies and the criminals, and then the criminals got worse, and now you need 2FA authentication on your hobby email account, let alone the security on your corporate firewall. The Internet ended up being 'policed' (and that 'policing' will only get worse) as a result of the Netizens. Sir Tim and chums need to get out of their idealistic alternate realities and live in the real World for a while.

    1. Triggerfish

      Re: The problem with academics...

      I've lived in some low populated areas, islands etc were petty crime such as theft etc were pretty low. Sort of places where you don't worry to much when you forget to lock your door, or don't have to be super aware about muggings etc.

      I have also lived in some pretty rough areas and as such I can see the point of locking your door, and having police officers on the street and being a lot more self aware when walking about.

      At no point though would I condone having the police let themselves into mine or other peoples homes and having a riffle without the need for a warrant on the basis of just in case.

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Triggerfish Re: The problem with academics...

        ".....At no point though would I condone having the police let themselves into mine or other peoples homes and having a riffle without the need for a warrant on the basis of just in case." Which is completely different to what they are doing.

        1. Triggerfish

          Re: Matt The problem with academics...

          In what way? I mean this is pretty much whats happening with our electronic communications.

  10. gbru2606

    Olympic appearance

    I imagine he's regretting appearing on the Olympics at this point. Bowie's probably a little more satisfied he didn't wave the flag, if he ever did have any doubts.

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