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Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

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Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#161

Post by noir_lord »

Shinchy wrote: post #57
andy_ppp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And do what exactly? Go to a protest? It doesn't work and never has; most people are content just by reading The Daily Hate. They already won.

I'll agree on that, maybe the solution is to keep one step ahead at all times.

The problem there is that as techies we can keep one step ahead of what the average citizen could do (whether that is one step ahead of the authorities is another matter) but any popular movement that could emerge wouldn't be full of just techies.

That's one of the reasons why the concept of the 'cell' has emerged in multiple places in multiple movements, the only way to keep the organisation as a whole going under massive scrutiny from the authorities is to internally partition it so that compromise of one cell doesn't compromise the others, this only works for a longer period of time if the cell contacts up the tree are beyond the reach of the authorities for either political reasons (Sinn Fein in Ireland) or judicial reasons (they are outside the country in a place they can't be extradited from).

There is a fascinating history of the ANC in South Africa using a digital technology and long distance lines to London as a clearing house for information to avoid the security services in South Africa during apartheid.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#162

Post by ue_ »

BearGoesChirp wrote: post #160
ue_ wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>government policy of using the police and security services to [...] protect company profits and the status quo If anyone needed more evidence that we are living in a bourgeois democracy rather than a people's democracy, look no further than this government policy enforced by their thugs.

Given how easy a group can be swayed and controlled given our current centralization of media/culture, our technology, and our understanding of psychology, is it possible for there to ever again be a people's democracy? Giving the vote to the people seems to be inherently giving the vote to those who control the information being fed to the people, be that an oligarchy or the government.

This is partly why I am an anarcho-Communist, in favour of decentralised planning or to a lesser extent market Socialism.

I'm not sure what to do about giving the vote to people; arguably democracy is very good, but I would rather have per-commune direct democracy (with instantly recallable delegates or without) rather than a representative democracy.

In short, I want to do away with voting for masters, as it will be unjustified authority no matter which way it's taken.

Edit: can people please explain why they are downvoting? It would be nice to know so I can improve the quality of my posts in future.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#163

Post by geofft »

dTal wrote: post #122

>The Bindmans LLP law firm, acting on behalf of Jones, contacted six of those listed to verify their passwords (the others could not be traced). In response, five of the six gave passwords that matched those given in the letter, and the sixth was nearly a match. Well jeez no wonder they were hacked if they're that easy to socially engineer. "Verify my password? That's funny, you're the third one this month..."

Hmm. Thinking realistically about threat model, a well-known law firm is obligated to behave ethically or will lose the ability to conduct business. If someone who can prove that they're from a reputable law firm - AND that they're acting on behalf of a former Deputy Mayor of London and current member of the House of Lords - comes to me and asks me for my email password with a good reason why they want it, it's not clear that saying yes would be a mistake.

Personally, I would almost certainly say no on the principle that nobody should have my email password, but I'd probably be okay with revealing one letter at a time while they also reveal one letter at a time of the alleged password.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#164

Post by germanier »

yAnonymous wrote: post #118
ak4g wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find myself self-censoring on topics like this, not because of what I (don't) fear is being done by authorities, but because I can't help but to note that we're not, in fact, living in some Orwellian dystopia, and that seemingly the surveillance that is being done is promulgating a safe and stable society, but not toeing the sky-is-falling line doesn't do much for those numbers by my username. Meanwhile, there are…

>We have a society where we can air discussions about topics like this If anything, cases like this demonstrate how quickly that can change when you soften surveillance and free speech laws. Look at Turkey. Turning a democracy into a dictatorship took only a few years. The German government, too, is working on establishing a massive censorship complex. How can you tell it's censorship? They don't bother going after t…

Sure the German justice goes after people making unlawful postings and entire specialized police units are being established. Charges and successful verdicts regarding internet posts are nothing new at all. However, going after the posters (and even just identifying them) takes a long time. Much to long compared to the speed postings get shared.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#165

Post by forgotpwtomain »

ethics_gradient wrote: post #135
acd wrote: post #49

Its an issue when you self censor opinions which deviate from the mass. It also an issue of freedom of press. The government know who you talk to through metadata collection even if you use encryption.

To get that data, governments may need a bunch of things: the company being under their jurisdiction in some legally relevant sense, laws allowing for such requests (those may or may not be needed, sadly), the company keeping the data. If the company doesn't keep the data, they could try to compel it to or hack it, but those may be more difficult. So that's a lot of steps. For this reason Signal is hardly comparable…

The server implementation is not open-source. I have a lot of respect for what OWS is doing but let's not peddle in false assurances.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#166

Post by noir_lord »

mmjaa wrote: post #98
duncan_bayne wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, right - although one could argue that's a subclass of crotch-grabbers.

Yeah, but I think its a little more serious than Trumps' crotch-grabbing sexism, when such a significant swathe of UK politicians is embroiled in child-sex scandals, that it becomes a frickin' National Security issue to prosecute them. If only the subjects of the UK had a spine, as a people, and the willingness to confront the dire evil that has usurped their political infrastructure .. alas, they don't. A nation of…

> A nation of cowards, really.

A nation of sheep perhaps but not a nation of cowards.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#167

Post by afoot »

So the Met asked the indian police, who in turn reached out to groups (!) of local hackers to carry out the work, who then presumably passed the data back through the chain to the Met.

Hard to believe someone found out with such a watertight process...

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#168

Post by BearGoesChirp »

cmdrfred wrote: post #133
dTal wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the people hacking accounts are the baddies. But I don't think it's inappropriate to note that, seemingly, someone literally phoned them up, asked for, and received their passwords - and that's not even the main story!

I still can't believe the "humans are generally trusting and helpful to strangers" vulnerability has yet to be patched. http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2526

I've been installing cynicism for years. Its a huge patch and the devs seem to have added more bugs than they fixed. It causes some communication issues with those not running the patched version.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#169

Post by noir_lord »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #91
dovdovdov wrote: post #9

Almost makes you think we only have terrorism just so the countermeasures can be exploited to keep the masses under total control. ;)

I don't know if I believe that, however the spectre of terrorism is WAY overblown (more people die slipping and falling in the shower). So I do find it really unreasonable that it's used as an excuse to monitor our communication...

If you asked me which I fear more, the government (I'm British) slowly inching towards 'soft' totalitarianism or terrorism I'd have to say the former not the latter.

However I don't really fear either though I think the former is the more likely thing to affect me.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#170

Post by TallGuyShort »

dTal wrote: post #130
RubenSandwich wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your selling the victims short here. The law firm could of been more discrete. e.g. "Hello X, We are investigating a case involving the government hacking journalists. You are a person of interest in this case. The government records show that your password is Y. Can you confirm or deny that this was your password around the dates Z?"

Well, at the very least, "the sixth was nearly a match" is pretty damning. "Nono, you've got it wrong, MY password is hunterTHREE - you see there was this incident..."

For those who don't get this brilliant reference: http://www.bash.org/?244321
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