The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System • Hacker News Board

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#171

Post by newsgremlin » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

2a0c40 wrote: post #3

Sometimes I can‘t help thinking whether the UK is just the US‘ trojan horse in the EU. Well, things might change quite a bit after October 31st, so hurry up!

I recently discovered a documentary: "The Spider’s Web – Britain’s Second Empire". Highlights that as much as 25% of the worlds wealth is held in offshore and onshore British jurisdictions.

The Russians have nothing to do with Trump or Brexit, in my view the connections have been fabricated to seem real only to turn out to be dead ends that don't lead directly to the Kremlin in any meaningful way, both of these events have stifled democracy and social progress. The negative effects will only hurt the population and not the corrupt and nontransparent institutions.

The US and UK look like the least likely countries in the world to start a revolution. The powers at be know this, and we the people know this to an extent.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#172

Post by maximente » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

_Understated_ wrote: post #42

tomxor wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want to leave ? Good riddance. As citizens at least, it's pretty well understood that in majority we don't want to leave, one half definitely doesn't, the other half are mostly a combination of naive, manipulated and coerced based on false claims and social media, some portion are not manipulated or naive but have settled on some narrow view of a very large and complex decision... and finally the minority (the…

> it's pretty well understood that in majority we don't want to leave, the other half are mostly a combination of naive, manipulated and coerced based on false claims and social media... What? There was a vote. A vote where everyone elligible had the chance to voice their opinion and the majority (albeit slim) said "we want out". As for the slur of being naieve and manipulated that's bullshit (from my standpoint anyw…

social media is a real problem though. witness how Brazil's elections went: basically WhatsApp was used to spread really nasty stuff about the opponents, and since it's a country whose consumption of social media >> any other media, that had a real effect.

i suspect we'll see this used in other elections ASAP.

https://theconversation.com/whatsapp-skewed-brazilian-electi...

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#173

Post by Lio » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

malka wrote: post #10

2a0c40 wrote: post #3

Sometimes I can‘t help thinking whether the UK is just the US‘ trojan horse in the EU. Well, things might change quite a bit after October 31st, so hurry up!

as a french, I cant wait for them to be out. They spent the last 50 years trying to sabotage the EU. They want to leave ? Good riddance.

Well you can't really say that the UK was welcomed into the EU (or EEC) with open arms in the first place. France blocked the UK's entry three times. So there's probably always been some mutual distrust.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#174

Post by newsgremlin » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #170

newsgremlin wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily a bad idea, unless you have other ideas as to which global power you will be under the influence of, or that your country can withstand such influences on its own. There is no denying it, the meddling in foreign affairs from the western point of view shows that the influence of global powers on individual countries is very possible and this can easily come back around to bite you if you're not part of…

> The UK will be fine on it's own, because they have always been under the influence of a greater global political power. I'm assuming you mean the US there and ... I'm not convinced because when the UK asked the US for assistance with their Iran-seized ship recently, the US told them to go away. They had to go to the EU for assistance (hilariously.)

That just shows the power dynamic between the two, and military assistance is a lot more open and obvious than the murkiness of the financial industry. The UK itself can't protect all this wealth with only a fraction of the power it once had.

This current issue is not a biggie, the US doesn't really need to get involved over a single British flagged tanker that is operated by a Swedish company with no British crew. The US already has been trying to hurt Iran with sanctions and pulling out of the nuclear deal, and they stated themselves that they have no interest in protecting tankers in the strait of hormuz. Clearly not important enough for the US's own oil industry.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#175

Post by xpuente » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

daviddumenil wrote: post #5

This is a misleading title. The UK government gave access to US companies. There's currently no suggestion that the data moved to the US. More details here: https://euobserver.com/justice/145530

Surprise. The bits can be in two or more places at the same time. You known... the magic of "cp"

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#176

Post by loopbit » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #166

dangerface wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data does exist, and they are and have been collating it into one super database according to the article pknight posted. So I go back to my argument: > So we should wait until every one's details are leaked before deciding this is a bad idea because it will inevitably leak?

You claim the data does exist - but where did it come from? There has been no program to forcibly collect fingerprints of all EU citizens. There is some biometric data collected for Schengen passports, but not even close to all people even have a passport. And if you claim my biometric passport fingerprints are in that DB, you are claiming that the police in my country has performed a massive illegal data handover. I…

Maybe that data doesn't exist in your country.

In mine, the police has the picture and fingerprints of everyone older than 12 years old and any younger person that needed an ID card for whatever reason, travelling being just one.

Maybe that information has been shared with that database, maybe it hasn't. I have no way of knowing. Other EU countries have the same level of information about their citizens (and some record even more data).

Can we simply agree that what the UK has done is bad, should be investigated and, if true, the people resposible should face charges for it? Or should we spend days arguing about what information might/might not have been copied and how many people have been afected?

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#177

Post by Lio » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

_Understated_ wrote: post #148

mdpye wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the vote was poorly informed and actively manipulated. Many people voted leave as a protest against the state of the country, not the EU, and have said so. And many of the most persuasive statements made by the leave campaign were shown to be deliberate falsehoods. I respect the desires of those who genuinely wish to leave the EU, but the referendum result was not anything close to a true measurement of that, and…

Perhaps I live in a bubble but to me it was pretty clear: In or out. As for the result not reflecting the people that's nonsense: Everyone with the ability to vote and the right to vote could and should have voted. If they didn't then tough. If people were swayed by politicians promising one thing or another and all the nonsense that flowed through social media then that's on them. I don't get this attitude that peop…

Except that in or out isn't clear because it doesn't cover the details of what out means.

I'm assuming you wouldn't expect the Brexiteers to stop campaigning if they had lost the vote? They'd just carry on trying to smash things up until they got their way.

There were supposed to be rules follow with regard to funding and truthfulness on the part of the Leave campaign and it's now clear that those rules were broken. [1]

So in short, those of us in the UK that think the UK would be better off as a member of the EU are still going to fight for that because we care about doing what we think is best for the country.

[1] https://news.sky.com/story/vote-leave-broke-campaign-spendin...

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#178

Post by Silhouette » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

emn13 wrote: post #121

norswap wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any positive may come out of this debacle, it's to set a precedent that leaving the EU is a bad idea.

Well, maybe. The future of the EU isn't safe beyond all doubt, so there's a risk this'll turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy of EU doom. i.e. Despite the shock of brexit causing EU support to rise pretty much everywhere (IIRC including in the UK, but I'm not sure on that one), most italians are still decidedly negative (which is relevant because post-brexit Italy would be the #3 EU economy). If Brexit were to be fol…

The future of the EU isn't safe beyond all doubt, so there's a risk this'll turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy of EU doom.

There is certainly more potential downside than a lot of people seem to realise.

The EU27 member states are not going to be affected in some uniform way by Brexit, particularly if we get the no-deal version without any sort of overall orderly transition. Those states that are particularly exposed to Brexit overall -- such as Ireland and the Netherlands -- stand to take a large economic hit, perhaps even worse than the UK itself in the Irish case. Other states may do fine in many respects, but specific industries or other collaborative efforts may be seriously affected.

This is why I find the Irish government's strategy puzzling: they continue to insist on a measure that has been a proven deal-breaker for an orderly withdrawal, which means unless they genuinely believe that the UK will fold and call the whole thing off, their strategy is almost certain to cause the maximum damage of any plausible outcome to their own country.

It's also worth saying, because it is relevant but rarely reported, that the economic models for different scenarios and how much effect they would have on various European countries' economies relative to a baseline no Brexit case do tend to assume that in the baseline the EU economy continues as-is or grows significantly. I have yet to see any serious economic model that compares outcomes for different types of Brexit against a no-Brexit scenario where the underlying problems with EU economics do then cause another serious problem or there is some sort of black swan event that affects the EU or Eurozone.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#179

Post by toyg » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #80

barry-cotter wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Support for Scottish independence is greater in England than it is in Scotland. The U.K. isn’t Spain, the English are no more likely to keep the Scots in by force than the Canadians were going to keep Quebec in by force.

That's nonsense. Some English might claim indifference or scoff at the idea of an independent Scotland. In reality however the UK is more a part of their identity than it is ours - Scotland splitting away literally kills off the concept of the "UK". Force wouldn't even be needed however - Westminster can just brush off pleas for an independence referendum (they'll point towards the one we had a couple of years ago pr…

> there's no revolutionary movement

... yet. A few years of Westminster arbitrarily frustrating calls for independence, coupled with Brexit-induced hardships and a resurgence of sectarian violence in NI, could well radicalise the SNP into taking matters in their own hands.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#180

Post by tzs » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

dangerface wrote: post #95

daviddumenil wrote: post #5

This is a misleading title. The UK government gave access to US companies. There's currently no suggestion that the data moved to the US. More details here: https://euobserver.com/justice/145530

You are posting a false narrative according to your own link. > UK made illegal copies of classified personal information from a database reserved for members of the passport-free Schengen travel zone. Why?

His link says that the UK made copies, and that private contractors hired by the UK government such as IBM were given access. IBM, and most other firms that the UK government likely uses as contractors, have offices and data centers in the UK.

I didn't notice anywhere in his link that said that anyone moved copies of the data to the US.