UK 'must log' phone and web use

Originally posted by lightchild
reply to post by XXXN3O

 

here was a tread on here last year about traffic wardens been given warrant arrest cards. Because of some future event the police were going to be very busy just keeping order.

I had read of this not just from ATS etc.

It does look like it will go that way which is disturbing to say the least.

Nothing would surprise me, bigger picture wise its all fitting together, I always question motives and the answers I find are what lead me to a hange of belief after many years of searching to keep it very short due to topic at hand.

[edit on 7-6-2009 by XXXN3O]

reply to post by XXXN3O

thanks for the reply mate, thought that might happen.. but what iam worried about is these "wanna be " contractors getting out of hand, like the two German tourists having their camera confiscated for taking happy shots of "buses" and having their entire camera memory deleted, way out of line but the more confident these "rent a cops" become the more they will empire build, because the real law enforcement guys are to snowed under....

reply to post by Lebowski achiever


I think that you implicitly suggest the reasoning behind this whole enterprise - it is more of a project of "archiving" than of "snooping".

When a target is identified, the general course of action would be to start snooping from that point onward and the resources applied on a selective basis for decoding/decryption if necessary. The problem is that you do not know what happened before your data stream became available.

By being able to "archive" everything, you have no need to analyse it all as it occurs and certainly the resources for such an operation would be limited in comparison. However, once you have a target identified you now have access to everything they have "ever" done prior to their being marked.

This provides a whole new data stream that was not available before. The clear indication is that wide-scale "archiving" provides a source of material that can be analysed at leisure and so resources can be managed much more easily.

reply to post by SugarCube


I hear what you are saying. But storing so much data centralized and in one place and then monitor is not something that they have the means and technology for as people who mean us harm would use encryption, code, whatever to hide their message. Why announce it? It makes no sense at all. I think they are just saying it to keep undesirables out.

reply to post by Lebowski achiever


I think that Sir David Pepper announced it as a measure against the resource "accountancy" that has been witnessed under the government in recent years. The thinking of government leaders is not the same as the thinking of government personnel even if they appear to be working to the same objective. From a political perspective, "traffic monitoring" is up there with "ID Cards" however, the use of such tools is perceived quite differently by those that would apply it.

To make my self clearer, I would use the analogy of a soldier: his (or her!) duty is to follow orders, when new tools are made available they are only interested in whether it makes their job easier. It is the political masters that decide whether to invade another country or not.

By having a mandate for such tools, GCHQ has a lever to introduce the technology that would make their job easier, however, we must not confuse that with the objectives of politicians. Pepper is being honest when he says that "Agencies faced 'enormous pressure' to keep up with technology. It's a constant arms race, if you like. As more technology, different technology becomes available, the balance will shift constantly."

In terms of pure efficiency of the tracking model, it makes more sense to hold data prior to identification of targets than to only do it afterward.

As for the technology required, it is just a matter of cost and project ramping. You don't try to track "everything" from day one, rather, develop a system that grows holistically, taking into account usage and deployment specifics. The key here is the analysis infrastructure rather than the raw data.

By developing canonical analysis tools you greatly reduce the need to store "all" data "online" and only require re-analysis when new routes of threat are detected. The major problem is developing the canonical dictionary and analysis engine rather than the storage mechanism for raw data and this is where government projects habitually fall down - having been involved in such a project I can vouch for the madness!

And this is what I don't get..Being an american citizen,THIS is exacly what we are holding off,and wanting to change the course of our freedoms..And for people to sit and bitch from the UK about the talks of an uprising,is like a day late and dollar short,cuz they are stuck with a # sandwich and forced to smile...I WONT HAVE IT..!!!!lol

reply to post by Vitchilo


You want to attack us come ahead, see how far you get, . We would nuke you back to the stoneage. So do not think we are pushovers.

There is already been a backlash against this, a couple of months back the courts, went against a company for witholding people internet chat. They deemd this unlawfull.

Also I would rather have the royal family at the head of our country rather than some of the presidents who look out for no one else but themselves.

Originally posted by Lebowski achiever
reply to post by jpmail

 

Look, The UK government has never had a centralized system for anything, EVER.

Case in point:
Child Support Agency Fiasco

Software problems of the CSA

They could not organize a piss-up in a brewery, to be honest and there's simply not the money to do it. Why they say that they will do it and not have the means to back up the claim is beyond me but I suspect it is just a desperate ploy to keep undesirables out. So...

Don't believe those Bond movies. It cannot be done...YET.


[edit on 7/6/09 by Lebowski achiever]

Oh yes they can, some agency can tap all internet, phone and mobile data at some point routing it to a very powerful computer (supercomputer) and then run analysis on the material. The EU is very keen on implementing such systems in some member states, Sweden i think, is among the first EU member that have such a system in place and ready.

2006 Data Retention Directive, IPRED, supercomputers, advanced software to build sociograms etc. Its all there already.

See EUR Lex, Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC.

Article 5

Categories of data to be retained
1. Member States shall ensure that the following categories of data are retained under this Directive:
(a) data necessary to trace and identify the source of a communication:
(1) concerning fixed network telephony and mobile telephony:
(i) the calling telephone number;
(ii) the name and address of the subscriber or registered user;
(2) concerning Internet access, Internet e-mail and Internet telephony:
(i) the user ID(s) allocated;
(ii) the user ID and telephone number allocated to any communication entering the public telephone network;
(iii) the name and address of the subscriber or registered user to whom an Internet Protocol (IP) address, user ID or telephone number was allocated at the time of the communication;
(b) data necessary to identify the destination of a communication:

Continued ....

Free communcation is something VERY dangerous, dont you know?


[edit on 2009/6/7 by reugen]

Okey Dokey then! In return, we the people, who pay the wages and privileges of all these government workers, should have unfettered open access to every phone call, email, meeting transcript 24x7. After all, someone has to watch the watchers.

If we must be subjected to constant surveillance to weed out any subversives and malcontents, then we too need to very carefully monitor everything our supposed representatives do. If THEY have nothing to hide then THEY have nothing to fear, to use a popular phrase. If we are to have no privacy in our lives and have everything we do or say open to scrutiny, then they too should be stripped of any privacy, to lead by example so to speak.

reply to post by Britguy


Oh wait until the General Elections comes around, they lot. Those in Pariament right now, are going to get a kicking from us all.

This is an interesting take on 'terrorism', form Germany.

I created a thread about how the UK government database has gone live and holds the details of every child in the UK.

@SugarCube
You seem very knowledgeable, can you provide more info please?

- How are telephones traced, do they use Fourier transforms for voice analysis? I can imagine it would be hard to decipher some accents like scousers or people from Dudley

- How do they analyse internet usage? Do they trace every URL or just those with keywords they flag?

- Do VPN's really work? What level of obfuscation is possible for Joe Public?

We need to empower ourselves with knowledge and appreciate any thoughts or insight you may have.

Personally, i don't see this Orwellian totalitarianism as an act of anti-terrorism, more for revenue generation, much like CCTV cameras being used by counclis to automate tickets if you drive 3 inches over a white line.

Also, it is a way to disseminate society with an 'us and them'. The Contact Database mentions that MP's and celebrities kids details won't be held, as they are 'special' people, compared to the rest of us they see as muck that needs to be tagged.

I also find it amusing that they have rolled out the ID card in Manchester as a pilot scheme as voluntary (for £60), yet make it compulsory for pilots.

reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety


This is an interesting change in German policy since, as a result of WWII (let us not go into the details!), they generally held quite stringent privacy policies concerning internet usage.

I worked in Germany for quite a long time and the general rule was that internet history should be obfuscated from an identifying data entity such as a login name. The overall approach was for one of respect of privacy.

In terms of information that I can share, I have always been specifically associated with databases and analytical engines and their associated data architecture (the most important aspect) - I don't get into the data capture routes per se, just the down wind processing of data streams. If you want to understand how canonical data is used to improve processing efficiency, providing coherent data streams that can be used for analysis and projection then I'm your man, if you want a VPN hacker then I'd try a different kind of tech-head.

In spite of this, I think we can all agree that as a general rule, the internet is public domain and there is very little that cannot be intercepted and in turn processed for information - whether targeted or processed in a generic form.

reply to post by SugarCube


So in a nutshell, you know how data is crunched?

If so, how do 'they' interpret the wealth of information collected? Do they first tag key words like "bomb" and then cross reference this with other keywords like "Jinn (جنّ)" - an invisible being of fire, for example. Does this then raise a flag and further data is mined under a primary key used by agents for dissemination?

It seems to me that the algorithms used to crunch these acquisitions seems subjective and prone to mistakes or misinterpretation by the programmer, you really do wonder why they arrest so many 'terrorist' and later release them with no proof; it's all just a public front to perpetuate fear of an invisible enemy.

How can they interpret statements of intent via a text message or email, if the perpetrators use predefined code, like saying "Grandma Betty spoke to Colin and they agreed the knitting pattern was one stitch out of place".

I suppose a nod is as good as a wink to a blind man, but running database scripts to interpret info, just seems nigh on impossible.

reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety


I will refer to your last paragraph first, "running database scripts to interpret info, just seems nigh on impossible". You are quite correct as by implication the data that you run your scripts against is defined by a finite dataset and a rigid interpretation.

Classically, Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) are the product of a strict method of categorising data with relational links between entities to indicate association. There are, essentially, only 3 types of relationship, "1 to Many", "Many to 1" and "Many to Many". The rules of normalisation generally group "1 to 1" relationships into single entities so this can be ignored.

The point is, the structure of the data base is defined early on and to incorporate "whimsical" associations between data means using "Many to Many" relationships in abundance. However, this too is restrictive since it is still encapsulated by the context of the original relational model. Generally, most police systems use this method since they support the relatively straightforward methods of police investigation (i.e. Here is a "criminal", here are attributes that we are interested in).

When you have a much more amorphous dataset (i.e. Here are "people" and we're not sure if an attribute is useful or not) then it gets much more difficult. The key is to reduce data entities to "types", this is where a canonical data architecture comes in. An attempt is made to convert all data into types, at a simple level starting off with non-restrictive labelling: you can identify a location as such but you do not restrict its interpretation to an actual place name, it is simply an amorphous data entity that may be interpreted as a location. In terms of speech, this requires grammatical analysis to determine the use of words to identify their contextual meaning.

There are a number of complex processes that are undertaken to categorise data entities but the key is that they may occur under more than one category depending on the analysis weight for grammatical context. Secondarily comes the interpretive phase whereby data is contextual analysed according to a specific scenario - this essentially means that the rigid categorisation of data present in an RDBMS is applied at retrieval time rather than at data storage time. This maintains the fluidity of data and does not compromise the ability to select pertinent data during database trawls.

If you are familiar with databases, it is the equivalent of creating a table of every column and only applying relationships at analysis time. Pretty neat in terms of conceptual delivery but quite a art to implement in reality.

Also, remember that most often, data is trawled to determine patterns rather than just keyword occurrence. We've all heard the stories of "mentioning" a keyword and have our call/text/email intercepted "just in case" but this is only effective when used in the context of other available attributes - that is to say, cross-referencing.

This is where the importance of data collection comes in. In order for data analysis to be truly effective you have to maximise the hit rate for positive identifications via the use if appropriate cross-referencing. By incorporating data sets from all walks of life, from credit card sales and movement tracks, etc., it is easier to discern whether so-called "keyword" occurrence is actually relevant.

If you have a clear history of extreme politics, your purchases include the ingredients of a bomb and you start talking about bombs then analysis could be termed positive. If you are a farmer with a need to buy fertilizer and you are telling your farm manager that the barn looks like a bomb has hit it then this would be termed negative.

The key factor is context and a canonical architecture allows you to store data in a "context free" environment with prejudicing downstream analysis.

A combination of canonical feeds into relation models that dictate scenarios is a powerful tool indeed. On the upside (depending on your point of view) the UK government does not have a good history of implementing complex data analysis engines and the phrase "arse from elbow" springs to mind. Some of the data architecture would make you weep, surely, but that is largely because we have systems that have evolved from different purposes and so are not fit for the complex requirements we have now - hence the need to build a new system from scratch.

My day rates can be provided upon request, haha!

[edit on 7-6-2009 by SugarCube]

Originally posted by Ace High
I couldn't imagine living in the UK during this day and age. The US is bad enough.

I would not be surprised to see a big backlash against the "big brother" government in the UK very soon.

I've lived in both and currently live in the UK.

Trust me on this one, the US is worse (but the UK is trying to catch up).

reply to post by SugarCube


Thanks for that very detailed reply SugarCube

My day rates can be provided upon request, haha!

I'd dread to think, perhaps you charge rates that would make bankers blush

I guess i'll just stick to googling 'fluffy kittens', to obfuscate my porn requests