221–230 of 241 posts
>The IPAct effectively prohibits ISPs from talking about much of this How very democratic and transparent of them Kinda in two minds about this...tempted to implement a VPN to a VPS but not super keen on killing my gbps speeds.
You've gone from your ISP being the point at which interception can happen to your VPS provider and/or their ISP being the point at which interception can happen.
The UK is getting less and less attractive all the time...
Has everyone forgotten about Tempora [1], XKEYSCORE [2], PRISM, [3] and the other Snowden revelations [4]? This kind of shit has been going on for at least a decade in various forms. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...
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Because the UK is only borderline a free society. It's like asking why does the king of Saudi Arabia need to have the power to jail his subjects for no reason? Why does Putin need to have the right to jail or kill political opponents? The UK doesn't give you right to remain silent (your silence will be used against you), you are compelled to bear witness against yourself (you must surrender passwords), and there are…
well, yes, the UK has many problems including some of the above, but most Western countries are deeply flawed in terms of real freedoms - e.g. US governments routinely murder people (both official "judicial" executions and extra-judicial killings by police), the "patriot" act abridges all sorts of freedoms in the name of terrorism, routine civil forfeiture of random property by police, denial of basic healthcare for…
But there's a difference. The US is not living up to its ideals of equality and democracy, or even equal treatement under the law (e.g. lying to congress about not "collecting" data about US citizens). The UK is not even aspiriting to living up to those standards.
For example take torture. The best way to paint this is to "do horrible things for the protection of freedom and democracy". It's Realpolitik.
I'm still absolutely against torture, but it's a difference in kind to the UK putting religious clergy into positions of government power.
It's possible to defend torture as an instrumental goal to the ultimate goal of freedom & democracy. But the UK is not aiming for the same ultimate goal.
Similarly it's a difference in kind when Trump or Bolsanaro practice nepotism, compared to when some asshat gets a peerage in the UK.
We can list flaws all day, but the difference between the US and the UK here is that the US really does have an ideal of equality, freedom, and democracy, and the UK does not. The UK has not outgrown the Monarchy. And I'm not just talking about the royal family, but the whole aristocracy.
Another way to explain this: If you tell the story of Plebgate to an American, they won't fully get it. It's an insult, yes, but merely saying it's an insult is missing the point. It's bad because the class society is still there. People owning their homes often still literally pay a land tax to someone with a lord title. A land Lord.
It's a step on the spectrum to Saudi Arabia, where within its borders every grain of sand, and every person, is the personal property of the king.
If you take the US and add a permanent unelected head of state, add 20 dedicated priest posts to the senate, remove the first, second, fourth, and fifth amendment, and on top of that have a society that generally feels like this is a good idea, then you have a completely different country.
And it's not a country that even aspires to be as free or democratic as the US. And since the UK doesn't try, it also isn't.
Under Trump we saw that the US institutions were (mostly) holding. What's being "held" in the UK is not even a goal on the level of the US.
You point out many things. And probably those kinds of things the US has done more than Saudi Arabia has done. But nobody would therefore conclude that Saudi Arabia is more freedom&democracy than the US, would they?
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Use a VPN for everything.
This is what I have done since the original snooper's charter came out. It is not perfect -- I am sure that GCHQ etc have got pretty good at correlation attacks -- but by encrypting _everything_ BT, Virgin Media etc. will just get a list containing exactly one IP and a month-long connection time. Secondly, I really recommend Andrews & Arnolds [1] as an ISP if you can only get ADSL. I don't use them at home because I…
I'm currently with a BT reseller and am thoroughly disappointed with the service so looking to move.
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Because we, unlike the Americans, have article 8 protections.
You have a piece of paper, America has a piece of paper, but neither of them are worth anything if the protections to declare are not upheld. The repurcussions for violating those protections are more trivial than traffic violations.
Has everyone forgotten about Tempora [1], XKEYSCORE [2], PRISM, [3] and the other Snowden revelations [4]? This kind of shit has been going on for at least a decade in various forms. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...
As a person from the UK, no I've not forgotten. The difference here (and this is NOT excusing them) is that you've gone from a series of systems which didn't officially exist, accessible from the select few of intelligence agencies and no doubt secure as hell into private ones which are controlled by people like BT. Yep, BT. The same BT who are laying off 10k staff this year because they need to cut costs. This isn't…
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The night security guard surveills the premisis. Your school nemesis snoops on what you're up to to try to embarrass or one-up you in some way. Surveillance can be good or bad. Snooping is always bad.
You've left the context out of your position. This is a couple ISPs in bed with the government. Under what conditions is that good surveillance?
Has everyone forgotten about Tempora [1], XKEYSCORE [2], PRISM, [3] and the other Snowden revelations [4]? This kind of shit has been going on for at least a decade in various forms. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...
I find it a bit amusing that we are now at the point where we can say "has everyone forgotten about" about Snowden revelations. When those came out, my reaction at the time was "has everyone forgotten about ECHELON?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
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1. Trivial to bypass: Check 2. Further degrades the privacy of the general public: Check Just another day in internet legislation.
This often makes me think, what would happen if the authorities suddenly instituted something that actually wasn't trivial to bypass? There are smart people working for them, why do they keep bringing in this stuff that doesn't actually have an effect against the baddies? Is it possible that they are self-sabotaging because they actually realize they don't want to live in the world they are rushing headlong towards?…
Had the government gone all-in trying to stop piracy, or drugs, back in the day they'd have kicked off this privacy awareness years ago, when they were much less ready. Now they've had a chance to gear up and get behind the terrorist attacks as they happen with stories about the chat clients they use, or how their iphones kept police from reading their texts, etc. With a little more of this by the time they do crack down not only will the tech be much more refined but there'll be a properly trained group of people who defend the censorship on safety, or moral, or whatever grounds, to keep the heat away from those who made the decisions.