|
Elspeth Howe tries again with her House of Lords Bill to mandate ISP blocking with the censorship criteria set by Ofcom
|
|
|
| 27th June 2013
|
|
| See article from
services.parliament.uk
|
The Bill passed it's first reading in the House of Lords on 14th May 2013. The core or the bill is: Online Safety Bill Make provision about the promotion of online safety; to require internet
service providers and mobile phone operators to provide a service that excludes adult content; to require electronic device manufacturers to provide a means of filtering content; and for parents to be educated about online safety.
1 Duty to provide a service that excludes adult content (1) Internet service providers must provide to subscribers an internet access service which excludes adult content unless all the conditions of subsection (3) have
been fulfilled. (2) Where mobile telephone network operators provide a telephone service to subscribers, which includes an internet access service, they must ensure this service excludes adult content unless all the conditions of
subsection (3) have been fulfilled. (3) The conditions are: (a) the subscriber opts-in to subscribe to a service that includes adult content; (b) the subscriber is aged 18 or over;
and (c) the provider of the service has an age verification policy which meets the standards set out by OFCOM and which has been used to confirm that the subscriber is aged 18 or over.
(4) In this section,
internet service providers and mobile telephone network operators shall at all times be held harmless of any claims or proceedings, whether civil or criminal, providing that at the relevant time, the internet access provider or the mobile telephone
operator was: (a) following the standards and code set out by OFCOM in section 2; and (b) acting in good faith.
2 Role of OFCOM (1) It shall be
the duty of OFCOM to set, and from time to time to review and revise, standards for the: (a) filtering of adult content in line with the standards set out in section 319 of the Communications Act 2003; and (b) age
verification policies to be used under section 1 of this Act.
(2) The standards set out by OFCOM under this section must be contained in one or more codes. (3) Before setting standards under
subsection (1), OFCOM must publish, in such a manner as they think fit, a draft of the proposed code containing those standards. (4) After publishing the draft code and before setting the standards, OFCOM must consult relevant
persons and organisations. (5) It shall be the duty of OFCOM to establish procedures for the handling and resolution of complaints in a timely manner about the observance of standards set under this section.
(6) OFCOM must prepare a report for the Secretary of State about the operation of this Act: (a) every three years from the date of this Act coming into force; and (b) at the direction of the
Secretary of State
|
|
Liberty issues claim against British Intelligence Services over PRISM and Tempora privacy
|
|
|
| 25th June 2013
|
|
| See press release from
liberty-human-rights.org.uk
|
Today Liberty announced it has issued a claim against the British Intelligence Services over their suspected involvement in the PRISM and Project Tempora privacy scandal. Earlier this month it emerged that the US Government has
been routinely intercepting the electronic communications of non-Americans outside of the US via the PRISM programme, covertly run by the National Security Agency (NSA). It now emerges that GCHQ, the UK's eavesdropping agency, may have subjected people
in the UK to blanket internet surveillance in any event. Liberty believes that its electronic communications -- and those of its staff -- may have been unlawfully accessed by the likes of the Security Services and GCHQ.
Liberty will ask the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) whether the British Intelligence Services have used PRISM and/or Tempora to bypass the formal UK legal process which regulates the accessing of personal material. The human
rights group has issued a claim in the IPT, contending that rights under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act (the right to respect for one's private and family life, home and correspondence) have been breached. The PRISM/Tempora
scandal came to light after former CIA technical assistant Edward Snowden exposed the secret US Government programme which seeks to monitor online communications across the globe. Leaks suggest the US administration has the ability to directly access
content held by the world's largest internet companies and that the NSA has established an infrastructure enabling it to intercept almost everything. Furthermore, the US Foreign Intelligence Service Act treats all non-US citizens as possible enemy
suspects -- entitled to none of the basic privacy protections afforded to US nationals. Liberty is also concerned that the British Intelligence Services have used PRISM and Tempora to evade legal checks and balances and monitor
people in the UK. They may be treating internet communications as international rather than domestic to evade closer scrutiny and receiving material from their US partners to evade scrutiny altogether. The revelations come soon
after the supposed scrapping of the Snoopers' Charter -- the UK Government's official attempt to stockpile information about the online habits of the entire country. James Welch, Legal Director for Liberty, said:
Those demanding the Snoopers' Charter seem to have been indulging in out-of-control snooping even without it -- exploiting legal loopholes and help from Uncle Sam. No-one suggests a completely
unpoliced internet but those in power cannot swap targeted investigations for endless monitoring of the entire globe.
|
|
GCHQ haven't been sitting idly by waiting for the government to pass the snooper's charter
|
|
|
| 22nd June 2013
|
|
| See article from
guardian.co.uk
|
Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American
partner, the National Security Agency (NSA). The sheer scale of the agency's ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and
telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate. One key innovation has been GCHQ's ability to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30
days so that it can be sifted and analysed. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been running for some 18 months. GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as
well as targeted suspects. This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to websites, all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to
limit interception to a specified range of targets. The existence of the programme has been disclosed in documents shown to the Guardian by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Update: Guardian Blocked by the US
Military 29th June 2013. See article from
guardian.co.uk The US army has admitted to blocking access to parts of the Guardian website for thousands of defence personnel across the country. The confirmation
follows reports in the Monterey Herald that staff at the Presidio military base south of San Francisco had complained of not being able to access the Guardian's UK site at all, and had only partial access to the US site, following publication of leaks
from whistleblower Edward Snowden.
|
|
BBC reveals that hackers (and security services?) can take remote control of your webcam
|
|
|
| 21st June
2013
|
|
| See article from bbc.co.uk
Listen on iPlayer from bbc.co.uk
|
Webcams should be covered when not in use because hackers could be using them to spy on people. A BBC Radio 5 live investigation found sites where hackers exchanged pictures and videos of people captured on their own webcams without their
knowledge. The team found a thriving black market where access to compromised computers was bought and sold for a few pence. Student Rachel Hyndman, 20, from Glasgow, who has a part-time job in a computer shop, believes she was the victim of
webcam hacking. She spotted the camera on her laptop had switched itself on while she was watching a DVD in the bath. She says: I was sitting in the bath, trying to relax, and suddenly someone potentially has access to me in this incredibly private
moment and it's horrifying. Hackers are able to gain access to victims' computers using a piece of malicious software (malware) spread in infected files or by tricking the victim into visiting a spiked webpage. Such victims are labelled slaves
or bots. A BBC Radio 5 live producer posing online as a computer security enthusiast made contact with several webcam hackers from the UK and around the world. At least one of them has since been arrested on suspicion of cyber-offences.
The investigation uncovered websites where hackers share pictures and videos of their victims. They include pages where hackers exchange photos of ugly slaves, and others where men swap pictures of female slaves. For some reason the
programme did not discuss whether national security services have similar capabilities. It will be interesting to see if computer manufacturers are allowed to fit a lens cap.
|
|
New York Times speaks of US capability to listen in on Skype calls
|
|
|
|
21st June 2013
|
|
| See article from
nytimes.com
|
About 5 years ago, Skype, the Internet-based calling service, began its own secret program, Project Chess, to explore the legal and technical issues in making Skype calls readily available to intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials, according
to people briefed on the program who asked not to be named to avoid trouble with the intelligence agencies. Project Chess, which has never been previously disclosed, was small, limited to fewer than a dozen people inside Skype, and was developed
as the company had sometimes contentious talks with the government over legal issues, said one of the people briefed on the project. A Skype executive denied last year in a blog post that recent changes in the way Skype operated were made at the
behest of Microsoft to make snooping easier for law enforcement. It appears, however, that Skype figured out how to cooperate with the intelligence community before Microsoft took over the company, according to documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden.
Microsoft executives are no longer willing to affirm statements made by Skype several years ago, that Skype calls could not be wiretapped.
|
|
Governments ends the need for trouble free pubs to install CCTV
|
|
|
| 18th June 2013
|
|
| See article from
bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
|
Concerns have been raised by pub landlords and the public that council licensing authorities have been making CCTV a legal condition of every pub license. To tackle the problem, the Government has announced that the blanket use of surveillance in
pubs will end and replaced with a policy providing better balance between privacy and security. Community Pubs Minister, Brandon Lewis MP, commented that: CCTV has a role to play in stopping and deterring crime
in anti-social behaviour hotspots. But well-run community pubs that don't have a public order problem shouldn't be tarred with the same brush. The public deserves to have a pint in peace in a community pub without being snooped
on. This government has called time on Big-Brother's secret, intrusive and costly rules that has forced pub landlords to pay to install CCTV where it was not needed. The use of surveillance cameras should only be used if it is
necessary and where it has public support.
Big Brother Watch commented: It is only right that people should be able to enjoy a quiet pint without being constantly recorded on camera. This
announcement brings some long overdue common sense to a situation where councils were driving up the cost of a pint by demanding pubs spend thousands of pounds on CCTV where there are no problems to deal with. Our privacy is too
important to be undermined by a tick-box on a licensing form and I'm sure landlords across the country will join me in raising a glass to Eric Pickles and Brandon Lewis for defending people's local pubs from needless surveillance cameras.
|
|
Britain revealed to be spying on G20 meeting attendees in London
|
|
|
| 17th June 2013
|
|
| See article from
guardian.co.uk
|
|
|
Facebook and Microsoft speak of the scale of data disclosure to the US government. And admit that previous reports were bollox.
|
|
|
| 16th June 2013
|
|
| See
article from
dailymail.co.uk
|
Facebook and Microsoft have revealed limited information about the US government orders they have received to turn over user data to security agencies. Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, said in a statement that they had between 9,000 and
10,000 requests from all government entities, from local to federal, in the last six months of 2012. The orders involved the accounts of between 18,000 and 19,000 Facebook users on a broad range of surveillance topics. Microsoft said they had
between 6,000 and 7,000 orders, affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 accounts, but downplayed how much they had revealed. The announcements come at the end of a week when Facebook, Microsoft and Google, normally rivals, had jointly pressured the
Obama administration to loosen their legal gag on national security orders. The companies are still not allowed to make public how many orders they received from a particular agency or on a particular subject. But the numbers do include all
national security related requests including those submitted via national security letters and under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which companies had not previously been allowed to reveal.
|
|
William Hague steps up to support Obama's crimes against democracy
|
|
|
| 10th June 2013
|
|
| See article from
independent.co.uk.
|
Spy chiefs may have been operating a secret snoopers charter' to track people's internet use in the UK, a senior Government minister has admitted. Business Secretary Vince Cable made the claim after it emerged GCHQ trawled through private
information, including emails, photographs and social networking pages, harvested by a secret U.S. surveillance programme. Critics accused agents at the listening post of attempting to bypass British law by sending requests for intercepts to
American authorities. Foreign Secretary William Hague responded with the fanciful nonsense that the critics fears were fanciful nonsense. Only terrorists, criminals and spies should fear secret activities of the British and US
intelligence agencies, the Foreign Secretary has claimed. However large numbers of people getting in trouble with the authorities for jokey tweets and the like may think otherwise. People downloading porn may also consider it a bit fearful to watched
by the state, considering the clamour for men to be jailed should they download a dangerous byte or two. William Hague is due to appear before the House of Commons on Monday in an attempt to play down concerns about the US National Security
Agency's snooping scheme, codenamed Prism, which allows it to mine data from Facebook and other internet companies. While he will offer reassuring words, it is unlikely that Mr Hague will offer MPs much by way of hard information. In an interview
on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Hague refused to say whether the British government knew of the existence of Prism before it emerged last week. H e said: I can't confirm or deny in public what Britain
knows about and what Britain doesn't, for obvious reasons
Major-General Jonathan Shaw, the former Ministry of Defence head of cyber security, said yesterday that there was no such thing as total security or total freedom. He said:
What we're seeing is an incredibly difficult job of getting the balance right between security and freedom.
When politicians speak of 'balance' then you know rights are being taken away, and that the
balance will end up in favour of the state. Offsite Article: Modern Day Hero 10th June 2013. See
article from guardian.co.uk
Edward Snowden has been revealed as the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations. The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he
never intended on hiding in the shadows ...Read the full article Offsite Article:
What is Prism? 10th June 2013. See article from gizmodo.com
What's most troubling about PRISM isn't that it collects data. It's the type of data it collects. According to the Washington Post report, that includes: ...audio and video chats, photographs,
e-mails, documents, and connection logs... [Skype] can be monitored for audio when one end of the call is a conventional telephone, and for any combination of audio, video, chat, and file transfers when Skype users connect by computer alone.
Google's offerings include Gmail, voice and video chat, Google Drive files, photo libraries, and live surveillance of search terms.
...Read the full article
Update: Charges 22nd June 2013. See article from
guardian.co.uk The US has filed charges against National Security Agency ( NSA ) whistleblower Edward Snowden in a sealed criminal complaint dated 14 June, according to a
court document made public on Friday. Snowden was charged with theft of government property, unauthorised communication of national defence information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an
unauthorised person, the document said.
|
|
Open letter pointing out the remarkable similarities between the UK ID card and an Edinburgh Entitlement Card.
|
|
|
| 10th June 2013
|
|
| See open letter from
jwelford.demon.co.uk See full details about the Scottish Identity Card
Scandal [pdf] from jwelford.demon.co.uk
|
The Scottish Identity Card Scandal, John Welford Most people will recognise the card pictured: it's the pensioner bus pass, first introduced by the Scottish Government in 2006. Well no, actually it isn't. In fact, it's a fully
functioning Scottish identity card. And its covert and dishonest introduction has been a gross national scandal. I think that it's time at last for the Scottish people to know the truth... This is one of the most shocking
governmental scandals that I can ever recall. It has involved a deliberate, systematic deception of the Scottish people by their government over several years. Stealthily creating a National ID scheme and supporting database represents a most sinister
and despicable conspiracy against the people. And yet it continues today... Please do take whatever action you can. This Trojan Horse ID card has absolutely no place in Scotland, so complain to your MSP and council about it...
Demand honest government and transparent, privacy-friendly entitlement systems. We deserve nothing less - take action now.
|
|
The future of our free society demands that we seek the truth from the government about internet snooping
|
|
|
|
9th June 2013
|
|
| See article from
guardian.co.uk by Henry Porter
|
Anglo-American intelligence scandals, such as the one that preceded the Iraq war, are usually smothered or buried in an endless, unpublished inquiry. Normal service soon resumes and everyone gets to keep his job. But the issues thrown up by the
Guardian's Prism revelations couldn't be more clear-cut. Did GCHQ make use of NSA 's Prism system to bypass British laws and spy on the public through covert access to internet giants such as Google and Facebook? All that is
needed from William Hague and Theresa May, the ministers who oversee the intelligence agencies, and the head of GCHQ , Sir Iain Lobban, is straight answers about what they knew and who authorised an operation that generated 197 intelligence reports last
year. No obfuscation. No cover-up. No inquiry yet. That way, we will know that the proper checks and balances on Britain's intelligence agencies are finally being activated. Nothing
less will do. Assurances from Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the head of the compliant Commons intelligence and security committee, will not be enough, particularly as he has hinted at his support for the mass surveillance proposed in the communications data bill.
...Read the full article
|
|
The Guardian kindly informs Americans that their communications are under routine and comprehensive surveillance by the security services
|
|
|
| 7th June 2013
|
|
| See article from
guardian.co.uk See also Dear President
Obama: Stop Spying on Me from act.freepress.net
|
The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. The order, a copy of
which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an ongoing, daily basis to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. The document
shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk -- regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing. The
secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19. Under the terms of the blanket order, the
numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered. ...Read the full
article Offsite: An interesting day of reactions 8th June 2013. See
article from guardian.co.uk
Offsite: Total disregard for the basic democracy of consent from the people 9th June 2013. See
article from
dailymail.co.uk Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Larry Page of Google both strongly denied giving unfettered access to user data to U.S. officials, ...BUT...
it turns out both companies have, in fact, cooperated with governments requests. Zuckerberg denied his company's link to secret government data-sharing scheme PRISM on Friday in a blustery posted message that described
allegations that Facebook gave US or any other government direct access to our servers as outrageous. Now, sources tell the New York Times that both Facebook and Google discussed plans to create secure portals for
the government like a digital version of the secure physical rooms that have long existed for classified information with U.S. officials.
|
|
|
|
|
| 5th
June 2013
|
|
|
Trying to analyse the amount of activity on Google+ in comparison to Facebook or Twitter yields little useful information, because it doesn't have the same purpose as them See
article from guardian.co.uk |
|
|
|
|
| 30th
May 2013
|
|
|
The Attorney-General's Department has admitted data retention will be trivially easy to avoid and that intelligence services want to be able to break into encrypted internet systems like Tor See
article from crikey.com.au |
|
Snooper's Charter absent from Queen's speech but there is a reference to new legislation to more accurately record and correlate users with their internet activity
|
|
|
| 9th May 2013
|
|
| See article from
publicaffairs.linx.net
|
This session's Queen's speech did not contain any explicit mention of the Communications Data Bill, but did make reference to proposals aimed at making it easier for law enforcement to match IP addresses to individuals.
My government will continue to reduce crime and protect national security. Legislation will be introduced to reform the way in which offenders are rehabilitated in England and Wales. Legislation will be brought
forward to introduce new powers to tackle anti-social behaviour, cut crime and further reform the police. In relation to the problem of matching internet protocol addresses, my government will bring forward proposals to enable the
protection of the public and the investigation of crime in cyberspace. The government provides more details in the briefing notes on the Queen's Speech: [IP] addresses are generally shared between a
number of people. In order to know who has actually sent an email or made a Skype call, the police need to know who used a certain IP address at a given point in time. Without this, if a suspect used the internet to communicate instead of making a phone
call, it may not be possible for the police to identify them. The Government is looking at ways of addressing this issue with CSPs. It may involve legislation.
Commentators have linked these proposals to
comments made by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in April, suggesting that the government could be considering some sort of intervention relating to IPv6 adoption. Right now, there are not enough IP addresses to go
round for all of the devices being used. Temporary addresses are attached to computers and phones while they are online, but the records of these are patchy, which means they cannot easily be matched back to individuals. The
police say a clearer picture would be a huge help in their investigations and we should explore how that can be done. --- Nick Clegg, writing in The Telegraph
|
|
India starts rolling out state surveillance of internet and telecoms
|
|
|
| 9th May 2013
|
|
| See article
from timesofindia.indiatimes.com
|
The Indian government last month quietly began rolling out a project that gives it access to everything that happens over the country's telecommunications network---online activities, phone calls, text messages and even social media conversations.
Called the Central Monitoring System, it will be the single window from where government arms such as the National Investigation Agency or the tax authorities will be able to monitor every byte of communication. After the Mumbai blasts in November
2008, the government has been arming itself with powers and technology to help it eavesdrop on digital communications. The information technology law, enacted in 2000 and amended twice in 2008 and 2011, gives designated government officials the authority
to listen in on phone calls, read SMSes, emails, and monitor websites. However, Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court advocate specialising in cyberlaw, said the government has given itself unprecedented powers to monitor private internet records of
citizens. This system is capable of tremendous abuse, he said. The Central Monitoring System, being set up by the Centre for Development of Telematics, plugs into telecom gear and gives central and state investigative agencies a single point of
access to call records, text messages and emails as well as the geographical location of individuals. Work on the system has been kept under wraps for nearly two years. Several government agencies have issued tenders seeking specialised equipment
and systems for such monitoring. The program is currently said to be running in a preliminary state, and should be fully in place by August of 2014.
|
|
Joint letter sent to BT, Sky, Virgin and TalkTalk by ORG, Privacy International and Big Brother Watch, asking ISPs to stand up for their customers.
|
|
|
| 24th April 2013
|
|
| See article from
openrightsgroup.org
|
Sent to: Neil Berkett, Virgin Media Jeremy Darroch, Sky Dido Harding, TalkTalk Warren Buckley, BT Jeremy Woodrow, Royal Mail Ronan Dunne, O2 Richard Tang, Zen Internet One year
ago, it became public knowledge that the Government intends to introduce legislation relating to communications data. We did not learn of this in Parliament, but in media leaks. It has become clear that a critical component of the
Communications Data Bill is that UK communication service providers will be required by law to create data they currently do not have any business purpose for, and store it for a period of 12 months. Plainly, this crosses a line
no democratic country has yet crossed -- paying private companies to record what their customers are doing solely for the purposes of the state. These proposals are not fit for purpose, which possibly explains why the Home Office
is so keen to ensure they are not aired publicly. There has been no public consultation, while on none of your websites is there any reference to these discussions. Meetings have been held behind closed doors as policy has been
developed in secret, seemingly the same policy formulated several years ago despite widespread warnings from technical experts. That your businesses appear willing to be co-opted as an arm of the state to monitor every single one
of your customers is a dangerous step, exacerbated by your silence Consumers are increasingly concerned about their privacy, both in terms of how much data is collected about them and how securely that data is kept. Many
businesses have made a virtue of respecting consumer privacy and ensuring safe and secure internet access. Sadly, your customers have not had the opportunity to comment on these proposals. Indeed, were it not for civil society
groups and the media, they would have no idea such a policy was being considered. We believe this is a critical failure not only of Government, but a betrayal of your customers' interests. You appear to be engaged in a conspiracy
of silence with the Home Office, the only concern being whether or not you will be able to recover your costs. We urge you to withdraw your participation in a process that in our view is deeply flawed, pursuing a pre-determined
solution that puts competition, security and privacy at risk in an unprecedented way. With best wishes, Jim Killock, Executive Director, Open Rights Group Nick Pickles, Director, Big Brother Watch Sam Smith, Technologist, Privacy International
Update: ISPs respond 25th April 2013. See article from
publicaffairs.linx.net Responding to the letter, ISPA UK pointed out the active role of ISPs in criticising the draft Bill. ISPs have
been open in their approach, with a number of ISPs and ISPA giving evidence publicly to the Joint Committee that criticised the draft bill. It is for the government to publish its proposals, and when it does, we will examine the new draft bill closely
alongside our members, parliamentarians and other stakeholders as part of the open parliamentary scrutiny the bill will receive. ISPA members recognise the needs of law enforcement, however want to see a bill that is workable and proportionate and takes
into account the recommendations of the joint committee.
|
|
The Home Office is refusing to reveal the basic details about exactly how invasive the snooper's charter is
|
|
|
| 22nd April 2013
|
|
| See
article from
telegraph.co.uk
|
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has so far declined to explain a proposed snooping system that would allow officials to trawl through the public's private emails, text messages and other messages sent through the internet. The Information
Commissioner has now ordered the Home Office to publish advice ministers received on the design, cost and risks of the new snooping system by May 11. If the Home Office does not comply with the Information Notice issued by the Commissioner last
week it will be judged as being in contempt of court . Dominic Raab, a Tory MP with an interest in human rights, requested the advice in a Freedom of Information request last summer, but May's department has refused to publish the guidance
citing supposed national security concerns. Raab said: This far-reaching scheme could drain the swamp of every email, text message and phone call made by every citizen, a tectonic shift in the relationship
between the citizen and the state. So, it's astonishing that Home Office bureaucrats are risking contempt of court by trying to cover up the most basic information on how the scheme will operate in practice.
|
|
US snooper's charter passes in the House of Representatives
|
|
|
| 22nd April 2013
|
|
| See article from
pcmag.com See article from
action.eff.org
|
In the wake of this week's passage of the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) by the U.S. House of Representatives, representatives from internet activists Anonymous are calling for an Internet Blackout Day on
Monday in protest. Specifically, Anonymous is calling upon website owners to take down their normal pages and replace them with a page that explains the reasons for the protest. CISPA is a US snooper's charter which would allow
Internet Service Providers and other Web-themed companies to share information about their users with the government and one another under the guise of cyber-security -- with increased protection against any privacy lawsuits that their users might
bring as a result. The Electronic Frontier Foundation have explained in a FAQ: Whenever these prerequisites are met, CISPA is written broadly enough to permit your communications service providers to share your
emails and text messages with the government, or your cloud storage company could share your stored files
Although the bill passed the house, there are still some fairly significant hurdles before CISPA springs alive. Not only does
the bill have to make its way through the Senate, it also has to survive a previously threatened veto by the White House.
|
|
|
|
|
|
20th April 2013
|
|
|
The Coalition's new internet surveillance laws are disastrous and could be used to oppress us, one of David Cameron's technology advisers has said. See
article from telegraph.co.uk |
|
|
|
|
| 11th April 2013
|
|
|
Documents shows free access to emails for US tax police without needing to get warrants See article from theregister.co.uk
|
|
|
|
|
|
10th April 2013
|
|
|
The Tories said they would end the database state, but ministers like Jeremy Hunt are doing the opposite See
article from techweekeurope.co.uk |
|
|
|
|
| 4th April 2013
|
|
|
Are We Sleepwalking Into a Totalitarian Society? By Malcolm Prowle See article from
huffingtonpost.co.uk |
|
India can now snoop an national BlackBerry messages but not those originating from abroad
|
|
|
| 2nd April 2013
|
|
| See article from
slate.com
|
In late 2012, back when it was still officially known as Research in Motion, the company behind BlackBerry handsets worked with the Indian government to enable surveillance of Blackberry Messenger and Blackberry Internet Service emails. But now
India's authorities are complaining that they can only spy on communications sent between the estimated 1 million BlackBerry users in India---and they want a list of all BlackBerry handsets across the globe. Though India's government says its
spooks have now been provided with a list of all Indian BlackBerry users' PIN codes---meaning monitoring communications of these users is now feasible---the authorities don't have PIN codes of foreign users. That makes it difficult for them to identify
and eavesdrop on messages sent between India and people in other countries. And that's what they want to change. As India's Economic Times reported yesterday, a government panel has recommended that BlackBerry be asked to provide access to
'PIN' details of all its handsets across the globe to enable intelligence agencies in the country to track messages exchanged between Indian subscribers and those living abroad. BlackBerry has not yet provided these data due to privacy and legal
provisions, but the company has previously ceded to India's surveillance demands after being threatened with getting shut off from the country.
|
|
|