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UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

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Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#101

Post by SeanDav »

peterlawest wrote: post #24
Nursie wrote: post #7

The political silence on this issue is indeed deafening. As was the press silence (other than the Guardian). The press in this country are far more interested in reality tv, political infighting, fanning flames about 'immigrants' and what the royals are up to. And I suspect it's because most of the public don't care either. There are people who would like privacy, who think that GCHQ should be accountable and then th…

I consider myself an educated, well-informed person, and I have no problem whatsoever with government surveillance. Like anything, it can be abused, but I don't think that outweighs the benefits. I think it's sad that it makes you 'angry' that some people simply disagree with you. We have a democracy, and obviously only a minority consider this to be an issue of concern. If you have a problem with it, stand for elect…

This attitude is incredibly naive (the fact that you made an account 2 hours ago to express this opinion, means you probably agree and are just trolling). Governments change, but data is forever, what you say now or do in public may be politically neutral or acceptable at the moment, but might be worth a jail sentence in 20 years time. Your data will never disappear and you can be held accountable for something you said 15 years ago, even if your opinion has changed or if it was out of context.

For example, have you ever expressed a view about abortion, either for or against (or homosexuality, or religion, or politics? Right now any of the views you expressed may be socially and legally acceptable. It is conceivable that the legal views on this could change 10 years down the line and if you expressed a view that is out of favor with a government of the future you could potentially be in serious trouble.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#102

Post by ivanca »

netcan wrote: post #83
Nursie wrote: post #7

The political silence on this issue is indeed deafening. As was the press silence (other than the Guardian). The press in this country are far more interested in reality tv, political infighting, fanning flames about 'immigrants' and what the royals are up to. And I suspect it's because most of the public don't care either. There are people who would like privacy, who think that GCHQ should be accountable and then th…

There are issues that people care about in theory, in books & political science courses and such and there are issues that people care about in practice. In their political sphere, people care about their wealth (economy), their identity (nationalism, religion) & drama (political scandals). These are pretty constant. They are the bread and butter of politics and have ben since ancient time. When wealth decreases, ide…

Everyone should care about this; but as you said most people don't see the issue in practical terms. I think is our jobs as tech-savy people to put it in more practical terms for them, someway the average Joe can relate to, for example:

- NSA and GCHQ are probably watching your kids naked, a lot, because exploits from webcams are very common, and they cannot know before hand if someone is using Skype to plan tewowist attacks or a video for their teenage boyfriend.

- They are watching everything related to any company, so if an NSA employee happens to have stock in a rival company, well, that's insider trading sponsored by the state.

- Blackmailing is a piece of cake, because completely normal and legal activities such as watching porn are enough to defame you.

- They want security exploits to exist (and they pay for those), because that's how the intercept your communications, the problem is, those are the same exploits tewowist and black hat hackers use against you.

You get the idea.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#103

Post by grkvlt »

pja wrote: post #47
noir_lord wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Created 9 minutes ago (as of this post) and has one post. Doffs tin foil hat. I see this a lot on a variety of forums whenever topics like this come up. It would be interesting to do an analysis of the age of the average commenter’s account by topic across popular comment type sites.

We know that the security state is spending large amounts of money employing people to run 'personas' on social media sites, make blog comments etc etc. Sometimes these are spectacularly obvious, but there are plenty who are good enough at their work to look plausible. The goal is to create the feeling amongst those who are seeking to change the status quo that the population is not with them & that changing things w…

Yes, I'm sure this has happened many times, and will continue to happen, although probably not as much on HN as on jihadi extremist forums and so on...

But the knee-jerk responses of 'shill' or 'astroturfer' to dismiss anyone whose opinion differs from the local majority is sad, and seems to be getting more common on many sites I frequent.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#104

Post by arel »

herghost wrote: post #54
spingsprong wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect something much more mundane. Politicians love to shout about their successes. Only, this government hasn't really got any to shout about, so they're falling back to the old standby that all governments do in situations like this. Wave the flag and be proud to be British.

Sort of. The problem that the mainstream political parties have right now is that right-wing sentiment just scored high in the elections. They need a little bit of sabre-rattling and flag-waving to convince those on the left-most fringe of the newly-empowered right to come back towards the centre, and the only way they can do that is through winning the stupid, populist vote on simple issues again. That of course, co…

Charlie Brooker, brilliant as ever:

David Cameron has responded to this crisis by declaring we need to celebrate "Britishness" with more enthusiasm. More enthusiasm? More? We've been celebrating Britishness with the strained determination of a man desperately trying to shit a cricket ball for the past five years.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/16/david-c...

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#105

Post by melvinmt »

rayiner wrote: post #62
madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget about "the muslim problem" and the "international islamic conspiracy". I'm sorry to Godwin the thread, but it's pertinent. The push on "british values" (nationalism) and "preventing non-violent extremism" (such doublespeak) and "combatting islam" is fucking terrifying to anyone even vaguely familiar with the events that preceded the holocaust and the second world war. The surveillance state we find ourse…

Not every cultural clash should be compared to the Holocaust. There are plenty of historical examples of societies that got eaten from within when they couldn't maintain their culture in the face of aggressive foreign ones.

If you truly believe that "culture" is a fixed phenomenon, unable to transform itself, adapt and merge to new mixtures of people in society then I fear for our future.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#106

Post by [deleted] »

harshreality wrote: post #98
netcan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are issues that people care about in theory, in books & political science courses and such and there are issues that people care about in practice. In their political sphere, people care about their wealth (economy), their identity (nationalism, religion) & drama (political scandals). These are pretty constant. They are the bread and butter of politics and have ben since ancient time. When wealth decreases, ide…

Is there one (or a few) book(s)/article(s) that shaped your view on this (most of all the wealth, identity, drama triad)? I'd be interested in reading them.

[deleted]

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#107

Post by viraptor »

lnanek2 wrote: post #95
viraptor wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm being naive, but while I'm certain there are easy ways for GCHQ and others to obtain data of chosen people, I have a hard time believing Google would just give them all-you-can-eat data access with no restrictions or monitoring. Simply because they are big enough to be able to take their data elsewhere.

Why would you find that hard to believe? The NSA has been putting their own hardware in other people's data centers and requiring their SSL keys, for example. So it certainly happens in the US.

Yes, but providers don't have much choice in that case. (also because the company has to follow local law) But with all available interconnects, there are many places in Europe where you could open a datacentre and not have to deal with GCHQ requests. It's not the case about every spy agency with every company - it's about specifically US companies like Facebook / Google and GCHQ.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#108

Post by Jacobs »

fit2rule wrote: post #76
madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget about "the muslim problem" and the "international islamic conspiracy". I'm sorry to Godwin the thread, but it's pertinent. The push on "british values" (nationalism) and "preventing non-violent extremism" (such doublespeak) and "combatting islam" is fucking terrifying to anyone even vaguely familiar with the events that preceded the holocaust and the second world war. The surveillance state we find ourse…

The biggest problem in the UK is: groupthink. The national identity is oriented around just how conformant and pliable an individual is, in relation to their peers, and thinking what everyone else thinks is, fundamentally, at the core of what it means to be an Englishman. Don't rock the boat, don't go outside the boundaries of 'acceptable society', and so on. Well, I'm sorry to say, but you English deserve your oppre…

Sure many of them deserve it. But the problem is that they infect the rest of us with their disease.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#109

Post by grkvlt »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #18
jpgvm wrote: post #11

There can be no secret laws in a democracy. Else it's not a damn democracy.

Since the secret laws are actually out there, what conclusion does this fact support?

What 'secret laws' are you talking about? No such thing exists in the UK, at least. Is there not a similar process for creating legislation publicly in the USA?

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#110

Post by digitalengineer »

harshreality wrote: post #98
netcan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are issues that people care about in theory, in books & political science courses and such and there are issues that people care about in practice. In their political sphere, people care about their wealth (economy), their identity (nationalism, religion) & drama (political scandals). These are pretty constant. They are the bread and butter of politics and have ben since ancient time. When wealth decreases, ide…

Is there one (or a few) book(s)/article(s) that shaped your view on this (most of all the wealth, identity, drama triad)? I'd be interested in reading them.

"The Century of the Self" (BBC documentary by Adam Curtis) is a good start. It discusses the Self(image), nationalism, (mass)psychology and much, much more. http://vimeo.com/87419450
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