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Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

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Re: Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would be a very hard fight Not at all. It's enough to point the finger at commercial VPN providers and claim the the users are doing suspicious things including filesharing, and encourage ISPs to block VPN providers by address block. Many ISPs would love to do that because they want to inspect cleartext traffic and sell metadata. Of course corporate VPNs would be left untouched. There.

> It's enough to point the finger at commercial VPN providers and claim the the users are doing suspicious things. The problem there is we live in a containerised world, how would they stop someone running a 'recipe' that creates a VPN on something like AWS/Digital Ocean and uses that as the VPN exit point. The only way to deal with that is to have a central licensing authority for VPN's where you have to hand over t…

> how would they stop someone running a 'recipe' that creates a VPN on something like AWS/Digital Ocean

They don't need to. Even if 10% of citizens were able to do that, controlling and censoring information for the 90% is way more than enough to manipulate people perceptions and ideas, and thus, democracy.

Not even Stasi or the "great firewall" of China aimed at 100% success rate - they simply don't need to.

Re: Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

#92
post #63

What is the easiest way to explain to the average citizen that the "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument is not a good reason to let the Government keep tabs on your online activities? Most people don't give any thought to online privacy that it truly scares me.

I like to use the fact that nothing to hide and privacy are different. You don't hide the fact that you use the bathroom, but you still go to a dedicated private room and close the door.

Re: Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

#93
post #63

What is the easiest way to explain to the average citizen that the "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument is not a good reason to let the Government keep tabs on your online activities? Most people don't give any thought to online privacy that it truly scares me.

The tactic I always use is that historically, the government does not have good intentions when collecting data on ethnic minorities such as myself.

Re: Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

#94

I will just leave this here: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com

Been using these guys for a few years now, best use of $40/yr. You'll occasionally get blocked on certain sites (which you can often fix by simply changing location), but their infrastructure is definitely impressive. I get to use the full speed of my connection, which ironically is not always the case when I'm not connected through PIA (there's definitely some selective throttling going on, even though my ISP preten…

Does Netflix work through it? I have an DO box that I use as a VPN, and Netflix has blocked it recently.

Re: Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

#95

Brazil has passed that a few years ago as part of Marco Civil - 1 year period too, which can be extended per request from the authorities: >Art. 13. Na provisão de conexão à internet, cabe ao administrador de sistema autônomo respectivo o dever de manter os registros de conexão, sob sigilo, em ambiente controlado e de segurança, pelo prazo de 1 (um) ano, nos termos do regulamento. It demands the storage for 1 year of…

Its not the same thing, as in Brazil the investigation forces will need to get a warrant from a judge to have access to that data. Exactly the same way it happens for phone records or private bank accounts.

This data is protected by law, and is considered private.. so only a judge, in a ongoing investigation, when asked by police forces, when investiganting crimes for instance, can grant access to this data.

As i understand from what i read in the article, the UK government has direct access to that data, so the privacy of its citizens is not respected or granted by the rule of law.

Re: Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

#96
post #63

What is the easiest way to explain to the average citizen that the "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument is not a good reason to let the Government keep tabs on your online activities? Most people don't give any thought to online privacy that it truly scares me.

Read up on the history of government abuse of power and explain to them why doing nothing wrong will not protect them, and the necessity of standing up for others.

No no no, this is a very ineffective tactic because most people don't have the time, energy, or ability to read and comprehend history sufficiently well.

Just ask them if they'd be comfortable with Donald Trump or Nigel Farage being able to read their browsing history for a year. If they are, there's no point in talking to them. If they're not, then introduce them to Tor.

Re: Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

#97

It will be interesting to see the response when this data is hacked and the browsing histories of the politicians who passed it are released to the public.

Coming into possession of such information will soon be a crime in and of itself.

Re: Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

#98
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah right, because using PIA==privacy. How about we refer people to actual privacy tools like Tor instead?

Tor has zero to do with privacy and everything to do with anonymity.

Nonsense. Protecting traffic from nosy ISPs and carriers is exactly privacy and it's one of Tor's stated goals.

Re: Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

#99
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Worthless bastards, one and all. Why write this crap? The labour party is the biggest left wing party in Europe, are you saying everyone inside it is worthless?

They are also staggeringly ineffective and can't seem to decide what they stand for. Miliband was OK despite the "controls on immigration" equivocation, but since then the party has turned into a circular firing squad. Going back into history, I'm fairly sure we saw attempts at invasive surveillance under Blair's Labour; Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, and the failed ID cards scheme. It's not even clear wheth…

That's because Blair's Labour Party was as right wing and authoritarian as the Tories they replaced. Both Corbyn's supporters and opponents know well what they stand for. The problem is it isn't the same things.

The only people who have any moral right to oppose Brexit are the Scottish nationalists and the Northern Irish republicans. England and Wales voted to leave.

Re: Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”

#100

As a UK resident, this irks me beyond belief. It's a sickening invasion of human rights[1]. To echo u/rubberstamps sentiments, it's such that there's been little to no coverage of this in the media. But it's the same everywhere, introduce an encroaching bill, have uproar from those with the heads screwed on (the minority). Let it grow a little stale in the publics eye and keep reintroducing with slight alterations it…

Then you'd better do something because pretty soon you won't have the option to leave for a more enlightened jurisdiction.

Like the U.S? No point soon...
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