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UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

privacyinternational.org

71–80 of 102 posts

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#71
post #22
post #19

When back in the early 00's the UK wanted to introduce a picture ID card, there were huge protests across the country that resulted in the scheme being shelved indefinitely. It took the UK years to even introduce a picture driving license (you might have seen the "counterpart" old driving licenses which were in use until very recently. They were a single A4 sheet with no picture on it). How ironic that despite the co…

Well..CCTV cameras caught the 2005 bomber's at King's Cross Station and helped establish their identities and their full itinerary when cross-referenced with other CCTV videos

>Well..CCTV cameras caught the 2005 bomber's at King's Cross Station and helped establish their identities and their full itinerary when cross-referenced with other CCTV videos

But it didn't prevent the bombing

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't mean its worth it. There is always a tradeoff and I would rather live in a world where I know I am free from surveillance than a world where I am .000001% safer or criminals are caught 10% faster.

> That doesn't mean its worth it. Just the presence of surveillance alone discourages criminals from acting in the first place. Without any surveillance, I don't think criminal activity will increase by just .000001%.

In the case of (PUBLIC) meatspace, physical surveillance (e.g., cameras), I'm onboard with the Big Brother panopticon state. Bad, meaningful stuff happens in meatspace, like explosions.

When it comes to cyberspace, digital surveillance, I fled Windows for Linux and read /r/StallmanWasRight. Bad stuff happens in cyberspace, but none of it is meaningful enough to me to warrant the limitations to privacy that we endure IRL.

Does anyone else have this arbitrary configuration of opinions?

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#73
post #41
post #27

Surely whatever mechanism they are using cannot overcome device encryption?

Last I heard (see source) is that they can bypass the pinlock delay, making brute-force entry much more efficient. If you use a numeric pincode, even if 8 digits, "breaking the encryption" is well within their reach. If you use an alphanumeric+symbols password that 8 characters or longer, brute-forcing rapidly becomes impossible, even for cellebrite. A running, unlocked phone may be hacked by zero days. Encryption at…

What about a pattern?

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#74
post #8
post #2

How exactly are they doing this?

Using zero days which are quite valuable when sold to a company which specialises in this.

Are you sure or is this a guess? The article doesn't mention what technique is used (as opposed to e.g. coercion to reveal passnumbers or just collecting data from unencrypted devices).

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn't mean its worth it. Just the presence of surveillance alone discourages criminals from acting in the first place. Without any surveillance, I don't think criminal activity will increase by just .000001%.

In the case of (PUBLIC) meatspace, physical surveillance (e.g., cameras), I'm onboard with the Big Brother panopticon state. Bad, meaningful stuff happens in meatspace, like explosions. When it comes to cyberspace, digital surveillance, I fled Windows for Linux and read /r/StallmanWasRight. Bad stuff happens in cyberspace, but none of it is meaningful enough to me to warrant the limitations to privacy that we endure…

But the purpose of cyberspace surveillance is to collect evidence for crimes committed in meatspace.

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#76
post #68
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a campaigner against ID cards back then, and this is basically spot on: even back then, the people on the street who supported ID cards mentioned immigration. What happened? The biometric residence permits. ID cards are mandatory if you're a non-EU immigrant. The rest of the "hostile environment" made proof of immigration status mandatory for employment and renting a house. We got all the pieces of a surveillan…

Excuse me if I have a simplistic view of this, but wouldn't an ID card have helped Windrush citizens prove their citizenship?

Indeed it would have. I think the worst kinds of surveillance mechanisms are the ones that can cause a lot of suspicion and false positives, but don't allow those affected to refute any allegations. Identity documents are not like that at all. On the contrary.

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#77
post #19

When back in the early 00's the UK wanted to introduce a picture ID card, there were huge protests across the country that resulted in the scheme being shelved indefinitely. It took the UK years to even introduce a picture driving license (you might have seen the "counterpart" old driving licenses which were in use until very recently. They were a single A4 sheet with no picture on it). How ironic that despite the co…

>How ironic that despite the continued protests against picture ID cards based on privacy concerns, the UK is the most watched country based on the number of CCTV cameras per square mile, and now this. It's because people have given up hope of winning the war against the surveillance state but they still feel like they can opportunistically win a few battles.

Most of the CCTV isn't operated by the government, though.

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How ironic that despite the continued protests against picture ID cards based on privacy concerns, the UK is the most watched country based on the number of CCTV cameras per square mile, and now this. It's because people have given up hope of winning the war against the surveillance state but they still feel like they can opportunistically win a few battles.

Most of the CCTV isn't operated by the government, though.

Then by whom? Or do you mean that the CCTV systems are private(home/commercial/offices)?

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#79
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's asking everyone to report suspicious behaviour ? You have raised a _strawman_ argument. Automatic surveillance of public property and public spaces is in my opinion necessary for analysis, investigation and prosecution of terrorists. This must be done by career intelligence folks not by amateurs.

Pervasive surveillance will inevitably lead to machine learning techniques being used to analyse the data which will massively increase the rates of false positives, people who aren’t a threat but who the system flags as potential threats. Freedom and security trade off against one another.

Citation needed. You are making a strong statement about the inevitable future based on what? Sounds like evidence as strong as your claim would be worth some very interesting papers.

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#80
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't mean its worth it. There is always a tradeoff and I would rather live in a world where I know I am free from surveillance than a world where I am .000001% safer or criminals are caught 10% faster.

Well. Strangely I happen to be one of the folks in that .000001%, so I apologize if my opinions have been shaped differently. I lost one of my ex-school mates in an market-place explosion (2005 Delhi bombing). While the London Bombing suspects were identified, all suspects in the Delhi bombing that same year were released due to "lack of evidence". I am completely in favor of surveillance of public property.

> While the London Bombing suspects were identified

They were identified. After they’d blown themselves up on trains and a bus. The one person ‘identified’ as it was happening was in fact mistakenly identified and killed by the police.

Surveillance only helps in situations like this where the authorities have intelligence upfront. Even then you can argue that regular on-foot surveillance is a more proportionate approach over serveilling the entire nation ‘just in case’.

I was in London when the bombs went off (I worked on Russel Square along from the bus bomb - I would walk past the site, every day, to and from work; and have a friend who was on the train going from Liverpool St that was blown up). And, I remember being nearby (and hearing) the IRA bomb in Bishopsgate. I still believe very strongly that governments should not have carte blanche rights to spy on all citizens. Privacy is more valuable

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