UK Government Wins Villain of the Year 201
Anonymous Cowpat writes "The BBC is reporting that the UK Government, or rather their six month presidency of the EU, has been awarded the Internet Villain of the Year award by the Internet Service Providers Association for being the driving force behind the new EU data retention laws. These require that ISPs and other telecomms providers keep records of the time\date & recipient of every communication made by their subscribers."
Tor? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tor? (Score:4, Funny)
On a side note.... don't install this on a military computer just to check your yahoo mail.... it will get the computer taken and sent to Quantico, VA after it makes a connection in Brazil.....opps........and they will then discover that you managed to reset the xadministrator password (stupid NMCI)
Re:Tor? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Tor? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are ways to get other protocols running though Tor I have done it I have gotten FTP, SOCKS, Telnet, HTTPS, HTTP, and
Re:Tor? (Score:2, Interesting)
Only downside on the implementation is its only running through socks4 - so DNS gets routed through the normal path rendering it a bit useless.
Also, TOR is by no means strong anonymity, if you want that go have a look at Herbivore.
Re:Tor? (Score:2, Interesting)
You don't *have* to use your ISP's nameservers. Try 4.2.2.2 or other public ones relatively easy to find on the internet. You could also just toss the domain -> ip of activity you'd rather not have logged in
If you are still that paranoid why not just spend the 50 - 60 bucks it costs to bring up a co-located Celeron , toss VNC on it and surf from there if you have any concerns. A quick search on google for "dedic
Re:Tor? (Score:2)
Re:Tor? (Score:2)
Re:Tor? (Score:2)
I think the only thing Tor specifically disallows is to use it to connect to SMTP servers, but that's only to make sure it won't be abused as an anonymous untraceable spam relay.
UK's not the only one (Score:4, Informative)
Re:UK's not the only one (Score:3, Insightful)
All that matters is it gets passed.
Once that happens, the laws will spread through Europe & eventually overseas... all in the name of "harmonization"
It's a kind of backdoor way to get laws passed in your country that would otherwise be unacceptable to the populace. The Bush Administration (maybe Clinton did it to, I dunno) is the most recent example I can think of.
They encouraged restrictive European laws that would never have f
Re:UK's not the only one (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you are forgetting your patriot act, which got passed in the U.S. Those laws are pretty restrictive in every sense and restr
Re:UK's not the only one (Score:2)
The RIAA/MPAA arn't governmental organisations, they're trade organisations representing companies within the US. If they wanted to take action in Australia or any other country, they could have done, they just have to go through that countries legal system. If they got a court order from an Australian court (provided th
Re:UK's not the only one (Score:2)
We dont win much,so I will claim this.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We dont win much,so I will claim this.... (Score:2)
Re:We dont win much,so I will claim this.... (Score:2)
Re:We dont win much,so I will claim this.... (Score:3, Funny)
- UK
"We're number two! We try harder!"
- USSA
"In former Soviet Russia, being number three means not trying at all!"
- CIS
Re:We dont win much,so I will claim this.... (Score:2)
Thats because US is not in EU. Otherwise, we'd have kicked your butt without breaking a sweat.
The Customer Wins! (Score:4, Insightful)
And, of course, they won't need to as they'll merely pass the savings (sic) to their customers. While politicians might be willing to merely call this the 'cost of doing business in the age of terrorism' I call it yet another stab into the heart of freedom and liberty.
Re:The Customer Wins! (Score:2)
PS: Nice sig. Hope you brought your own towel.
Big Brother means cheaper big hard drives... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Big Brother means cheaper big hard drives... (Score:2)
Re:Big Brother means cheaper big hard drives... (Score:3, Interesting)
Considering that America is giving up freedom and privacy for security who to say that Corporate America won't come up with a better deal?
Retaining Logs - Pah (Score:5, Insightful)
It would appear that if you want to get legislation past PM Blair - just add a terorist threat - or say your name is Bush (guess who with have the extradition agreement with with).
I'm not even starting to list domestic issues (well I guess id card is domestic) and will completely skip Iraq itself.
Re:Retaining Logs - Pah (Score:2)
And if your name's Gates, you can get every government I.T. project and dinner at No. 10.
Re:Retaining Logs - Pah (Score:2)
Re:Retaining Logs - Pah (Score:2)
You forgot RIPA, of course - hand over your encryption keys or go to gaol, tell anyone the demand was made and go to gaol...
Privacy and the Internet (Score:2, Interesting)
First and foremost, I consider the Internet to be a type of "public" space. I am reasonably certain that anything I do on the Internet can and probably will end up in someones log file. Whether or not such information can be used against me is what really concerns me.
Second. It is reasonable to expect that ISPs do in fact keep logs of i
Re:Privacy and the Internet (Score:2)
They only really *need* to keep enough logs to be able to bill customers correctly and deal with disputes that might arise. Presumably, "keep records of the time/date & recipient of every communication made by their subscribers" means tracking email, IM (of all kinds), ftp, telnet, ssh, http, https, &c. I mean, it would be trivial for a terrorist cell to use anony
Re:Privacy and the Internet (Score:2)
Here's one that was spotted in Sydney the week before the Alan [abc.net.au] Jones [abc.net.au] riots that caught the attention of international media late last year. The fact that our to
On behalf of the Minister of Intimidation (Score:5, Funny)
Some have said "You can fool some of the people all of the time."
Luckily for us, it turns out all you have to do is just go up to a queue of people, put on a stern face, say "Terrorist", and they'll all happily give away all the rights that people died to gain in just a quick nip of time.
Now, on behalf of us and our ally Oceania, I'd like to thank you all, and ask you please show your papers and salute with stiff arms as we play our national anthem, "Brittania, Brittania, Uber Alles!"
Thank you.
Re: On behalf of the Minister of Intimidation (Score:2)
No no no. We are at war with Oceania. We have always been at war with Oceania.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Ah Tony Blair (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ah Tony Blair (Score:2)
Re:Ah Tony Blair (Score:3, Informative)
Blair and his Labour party are nothing to do with socialism. The abolition of Clause 4 [cool-stuff.co.uk] and granting tax breaks to businessmen [bbc.co.uk] (even though it was later revoked - at least our judges have balls) don't sound very socialist to me.
What we essentially have in today's Labour is the old conservative party only slightly less rabid.
Re:Ah Tony Blair (Score:2)
In any case, the government's social policies can be independent of its economic policies. See The Political Compass [politicalcompass.org] for an alternative (compared to lef
Re:Ah Tony Blair (Score:2)
What a lot of dreck - you US so-called "libertarians" make me want to vomit. You are so so dumb - as a libertarian socialist and a former member of the British Labour Party before Tony Bliar converted it to "New Labour", I can assure you Bliar's government has nothing to do with socialism.
The only difference between them and the Bush administration is that Bliar's government is more economically fiscally
Myopia (Score:4, Insightful)
With all of that, the EU wanting to make sure data is kept, not forever, but just long enough for most normal criminal investigations to take place doesn't bother me much. If they did other stuff with it, that would be a problem, but just making sure it's there seems prudent.
Re:Myopia (Score:3, Funny)
I tell ya man. "And then they came for me". Fear it.
(did I miss anything?)
Re:Myopia (Score:2)
The point?
When will the English take back their country? (Score:4, Insightful)
First they took your guns, and you sat in the pub and said it was for the good of the people.
Then they effectively took away your right to self-defense (they took away the means in step one), and you locked yourself in your bathrooms when the burglars break into your occupied house.
Then, they sent letter to the shopkeepers telling them not to bother reporting thefts of less than 75 pounds and not to detain thieves.
Linky:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006060516,00 .html [thesun.co.uk]
You have cameras installed in every orfice, officious busybodies poking noses into your every affair.
Your medical system is refusing treatment to patients who are over weight (gasp) or smoke (the horror) in order to save money. An un-assimilated population of immigrants is holding up signs saying "wait for the real holocaust"
What will it take to push you over the edge, the banning of cricket?
Wake up, it is already too late, and you better get cracking on fixing things.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:3, Informative)
The sun news paper rates up there with fox news (as I understand fox news to be) in the US. Fear and Anger. Fear and Anger. Fear And Anger.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
That explains it
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
OTOH, if all the people in IRAQ were unarmed, it would make the US's goals a lot easier.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_wit_f i r_percap [nationmaster.com]
Murders with firearms (per capita)
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:4, Insightful)
I was reminded of it tonight watching a satirical comedy current affairs show, when the last demonstration/protests which actually influenced the Goverment into changing a decision - was for lowering the homosexual age of content. [The gag of the story was that it wasn't 16 year olds males demonstrating, rather it was millions of 40+ single men with leather trousers and pierced ears]. Millions of people marched, the goverment listened - and the law was changed. Democracy worked?
The lastest demonstrations were at the G8 summit, whereby the day after the London underground/bus bombings took place - whilst all of the countries security was focused in Gleneagles. Before *that*, up to a million people demonstrated in London against the invasion of Iraq. So many many people were on the streets, a huge turn out which took an enormous amount of effort for people to make - people traveled several hundred miles to be there, which is a mean feat in itself in the UK anyway).
If the goverment won't listen to a few hundred thousand people (minimum, 1 million max) who peacefully demonstrate, execute their primary right to disagree with the goverment decision as strongly as possible - what can be done? How many people does it take to reverse a decision, or to even get a referendum on it?
The control and balance does need to be taken back, but people have too much to lose these days. They aren't directly interested in anything which isn't going to effect their bank balance or routine. Back in the day perhaps, the average family might have a lot less, be more hardup and actually demonstrating and protesting publicaly and peacefuly wouldn't be much more effort than their general hardships. Now-a-days (pipe in mouth, slippers on and reminiscing about the war..) we have it too easy that we order pizza thats cooked less than a mile away, delivered by scooter, and posted through our letterboxes. We are lazy, and we do not care/
What chances do we have while we have it so easy, such an appeased population.
I disagree with the examples in your post, but you are actually pointing in the right direction I think. As long as you make a noise, even if it isn't for the right reasons - just at the moment.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:3, Informative)
Things are much worse than that. We've started locking up innocent people indefinitely [amnesty.org], using anti-terrorist laws on Holocaust survivors [telegraph.co.uk] and have introduced a Hitleresque dictatorship law [blogspot.com].
Next on the agenda is the world's most intrusive mass surveillance system [bristol-no2id.org.uk] and a law to bypass Parliamentary scrutiny [spy.org.uk].
We are heading towards a police state faster than 1930s Germany and probably less than 0.1% of the population are doing a thing to stop it.
It's scary to see how quickly the defences against fa
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
That's why the USA is so good. It's legal in Texas to shoot someone in the back for, say, letting the air out of your tires (excuse me, tyres) provided that it is at night. Also, if they have robbed you, are running away, and are off your property, it is perfectly legal to shoot them in the back. I could list all the ways in which the law states you may shoot
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:4, Insightful)
"'First they took your guns'
Most of us didn't have/didn't need them."
Your argument for why it doesn't matter that your Government took your guns is that you didn't need them at the time and most people didn't have them? Do you think they're just going to give them back to you when you DO need them? Even the tired old "they're too dangerous for the common man to use" argument makes more sense than that.
And why does how many people have or don't have something matter when the Government is trying to ban it? Most people 15-20 years ago didn't have cell phones; does that mean it shouldn't have mattered if the Government had banned them from private use? Plenty of people fifteen years ago would have liked to regulate the purchase of computers and bandwidth, you know (some still would).
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2, Interesting)
guns (on their own) dont bring down governments either, especially not small guns.
every iraqi houshold had a gun under saddam, it did nothing to stop that oppressive government.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Also, no one keeps track of the lives fire arms have saved.
Some jack hole shoots someone at random, it is in the national news, some 70 year old lady manages to stop a mugging with a gun, it is in the local paper.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2, Informative)
You missed the point (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/xsdataset.as p?More=Y [statistics.gov.uk]
http://bjsdata.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/Search/Cri me/State/statebystaterun.cfm?stateid=52 [usdoj.gov]
in short:
England ~13 per 100,000
U.S.A. ~6 per 100,000
Re:You missed the point (Score:2)
Re:You missed the point (Score:2)
For example, Canada in 2003 (the latest year I have numbers for) the homicide rate continued its steady decline to 2 per 100K. Our level of gun ownership is probably comparable to that of the US -- especially in the rural areas.
Re:You missed the point (Score:2)
England ~13 per 100,000
U.S.A. ~6 per 100,000
look again:
England ~13 per MILLION
U.S.A. ~6 per 100,000
So the US rate is FIVE TIMES HIGHER.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
I think you should check it out. It's much much higher in the US than in the UK (per capita). And I think you should also read up on the difference between England and the UK.
some 70 year old lady manages to stop a mugging with a gun, it is in the local paper.
If an OAP managed to fight off a mugger it certainly would make the national news -- human interest story. I have visited the US and the biggest fans of guns we
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
yes I know, my bad.
However, the homocide rate per capita in the UK is 13 people out of 100,000. In the US it is 6 people per 100,000.
"
If an OAP managed to fight off a mugger it certainly would make the national news -- human interest story. I have visited the US and the biggest fans of guns were not little old ladies."
No, it doesn't.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
The homicide rate per capita in the UK is 1.3 people per 100,000 [statistics.gov.uk], not 13. In the US, it is around 6 per 100,000.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Please. One gun nut vs a SWAT team. Who wins?
we do not live in some magical age where no one will come to power that will become a blood thirsty tyrant.
Try exercising your right to vote. Try not giving your leaders carte-blanche every time they cry "Terrorist" or "WMD".
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
You're an idiot. Check your facts before you try to "correct" someone.
No, it doesn't. I have seen many police reports where someone has thwarted an attack with a fire arm. None of which ever made national news.
Maybe it is because it doesn't happen very often?
So saying x number of people were killed by guns is meaningless without comparative data.
Well you find the comparative data then. But you'd
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't have socialized medicine in the USA. We also don't have doctors refusing to treat patients because they're overweight or because they smoke. We also don't have three to four month waiting lists for bypass surgery, or a large number of other proceedures. Maybe the answer isn't more taxes, it's going back to the old system of private practice because it works better. Yes, that would mean y
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Just to be clear, I'm going to respond to your post and another respondent's post at the same time.
I don't know if there are still free clinics, supported by charities, but I'd be surprised if there weren't. I never said the US system is perfect, just that it doesn't have many of the flaws of the British system.
Have you ever seen a free medical clinic? They're usually understaffed, inundated with patients, and unable to provide anything but the most basic brand of care. If you're one of those people wh
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
no instead we have doctors refusing to treat patients because they don't have health insurance, or because they are poor. How is that any better.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Just fine, thank you. Of course, I'm a 'Nam vet and get nearly free care for life from the VA.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:3, Insightful)
what did I miss?
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
for example, there i no reason someone had a socialized system that didn't preclude the obese and smokers*
Or someone could implement a hybred of both. Have social medicine, but don't outlaw private practice.
Re:When will the English take back their country? (Score:2)
It's not just shooting people in the back. Read this about housholders being prosecuted for defending their homes and families -- not attacking perpetrators who are already leaving. [telegraph.co.uk]
The fact is that Blair reneged on
Kill the pidgeons! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt [ietf.org]
http://tecfa.unige.ch/perso/staf/nova/blog/2005/0
The problem for all 'governments-of-the-day' who enact stupid legislation is that there is always a way around the 'problem'. There is also clandestine high frequency high speed RTTY.
CONtrol (Score:3, Insightful)
UK government is scared by that they don't understand, Islam, Internet, anything that has passed their arts education by. They don't understand and therefore they need 'more information' to feel that they have 'kept on top' of the problems that confront them.
You know that feeling when you are swimming, but its not working out and you are getting lower and lower in the water, swallowing more and more water? That's the UK, and when they realise it, the US governments.
Ok you win.. (Score:3, Funny)
Please explain this to me. (Score:2)
Re:Please explain this to me. (Score:2)
There is a lot of crime outside, maybe we should make peoples stay in their homes.
Also, I doubt very many ISPs kept logs around for very long.
Re:Please explain this to me. (Score:3, Insightful)
The "AAHH LOG EVERYT
Re:Please explain this to me. (Score:2)
If I am walking down the street and go into a store, and that store 'logs' me, I don't have a problem. If I was 'logged' every time I just walked down the street, I would have a problem.
Also, if stores were forced to log me, that would be an issues as well. You can open a bank that doesn't give logs to the government, but don't expect FDIC, or any other government help.
Re:Please explain this to me. (Score:2)
Re:Please explain this to me. (Score:2)
Chill! Retention, not new capture (Score:2)
I read TFA & elsewhere the word "retention". No-where does it mandate that information not being captured will suddenly have to be.
I do not expect ISPs will have to log all TCP/IP traffic (ala tcpdump). They'd need massive new firewall logging servers. Insteady, they will just have to keep their sendmail and login files for two years. And phone billing info likew
Re:Chill! Retention, not new capture (Score:2)
Running a full capture (minus content) will not be possible on most current equipment. Crisco will be selling a lot of new routers. There are very few 100baseTX hubs out there (most are switches) so sniffing traffic will take new [router] hardware as well as the new beefy logging machine. And I
Bush did it (Score:2)
Look on the bright side (Score:2)
At least I think so.
Re:Look on the bright side (Score:2)
What is the penalty for not keeping logs? (Score:2)
Re:Who's to blame for all this? (Score:5, Funny)
Strange, I thought most members of the House of Commons and House of Lords weren't Muslim.
Good thing I'm a Jedi, then. Like most brits.
Re:Who's to blame for all this? (Score:2)
Nope, they're Brits of course, and we all know what that means:
Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, and then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture & watch American shows on a Japanese TV. And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of anything foreign.
Re:Who's to blame for all this? (Score:2)
and then they came for the Jedi.who crushed their wind pipes."
hmmm.
Re:Who's to blame for all this? (Score:2)
I'm beginning to be convinced that there's no such thing as a Muslim extremist. I believe the US govt pulled the whole thing off clean. Like the gal in the movie Brazil said "How many terrorists have you MET?"
Re:Who's to blame for all this? (Score:2)
That was the initial theory, Occam's razor has since shortened it to "extremists".
Re:Introductions are in order (Score:2)