What if the "state remote computer hacking" target isn't running Windows?
Snooper's charter to extend police access to phone and internet data
21–25 of 25 posts
Re: Snooper's charter to extend police access to phone and internet data
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
The weird thing is that in many ways the UK's risk from terrorism is much lower than it used to be, since the Good Friday Agreement put an end to the actual civil war going on in the UK.
The IRA knew what they were doing. They were dangerous. They'd been practicing and honing for generations. ISIS and Al Quaida are a bunch of clueless fuckwits and are not commiting a mainland bombing every 3-6 months like the IRA tried to. Which group resulted in major restrictions to UK freedoms? Meh, this is a depressing thread.
> Which group resulted in major restrictions to UK freedoms?
The one that didn't have American citizens, politicians, and organizations bankrolling and lobbying for it.
Re: Snooper's charter to extend police access to phone and internet data
#23"The Price of Dissent"
https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7443-the_price_of_dissent
Thus is a talk by Moazzam Begg[1] about the harassment by the UK (with US involvement) of political minorities, and Cerie Bullivant representing Cage[2]. It is a heavy talk, because it is very frank about what all this surveillance technology has been used for. The use of COINTELPRO-style tactics are not hypothetical.
This is the other half of the "snooper's charter" story. As said in the talk, this harassment of minorities is the canary in the coal mine, that hopefu9lly serves as a warning that other groups might be next.
[1] former detainee at Guantanamo
[2] an advocacy group that supports the victims of the War On Terror
Re: Snooper's charter to extend police access to phone and internet data
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
This, sadly, is the right answer. There's advantages to not having a written constitution, but this is not one of them. We don't have amendments we can take the government to court over. We have the EU and the Human Rights Act as our last line of defence, but the popular media is too busy trying to ridicule it as part of the "reluctant European" agenda. In this case our history as very reluctant Europeans does not he…
Everybody knows that history runs in cycles, just like fashion. The people before us have fought (and died) for freedom. We are the ones giving it up. And some day after we're gone, some people will fight for it again. And the whole thing starts over once more.
You may be right, but I'm not overly keen for my children's or future generations to have to die just to get back what we lost through apathy.
It might not be as easy to get back as getting them first time around. The pervasive surveillance will enable govt to hinder those pesky demonstrators far more effectively.
Re: Snooper's charter to extend police access to phone and internet data
#25I see the UK roll out what seems to me increasingly intrusive laws because "terrorists" but relatively muted responses to these encroachments. Do people just not care or have they become numb from the incremental changes over time (starting with surveillance cameras etc.)?
I work in the UK and live in a household where 3 of 4 people work in tech. It's mostly a case of the people outside of tech simply not knowing. Short of a prime-time TV special that outlined just how long the tentacles of GCHQ are and how it actually affects people; there won't be a change. For those that are in tech, there are essentially two fields of thought I can extrapolate: 1. There's those like myself who are…
I think there's a third group for those "in tech":
3. I know how mindblowingly easy implementing and obfuscating strongly encrypted messages is. I know how expensive it is to crack iff it was even intercepted. Given the odds of being able to intercept and decrypt before an attack (the supposed raison d'être for these laws), I care that so much taxpayer money is being jizzed up the wall of what amounts to security theatre. Doing something to be seen doing something.
I realise that even if not technically powerful, it does serve as a deterrent to the terrorists... But at the same time, as somebody living under this increasingly Orwellian nightmare, it also seems like the terrorists won.