Government to monitor internet traffic and calls

Johnboy1951

IN the last few days Britain has enacted a new ‘Big Brother’ EU directive which allows the Government to monitor all internet traffic by the public for the next 12 months, and the same directive is about to come into force here.

The legislation requires internet service providers to archive all email traffic — the identities of the sender and receiver, but not the contents of the messages — as well as recording broadband telephone calls. Information about every website visited by any computer user is also stored.

http://www.examiner.ie/Ireland/idsnausnmh/rss2/

I am almost speechless .....

It seems to say they are to record calls over broadband not just the fact that the two parties made contact, as with emails ...

Run_to_da_hills

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

http://www.examiner.ie/Ireland/idsnausnmh/rss2/

I am almost speechless .....

It seems to say they are to record calls over broadband not just the fact that the two parties made contact, as with emails ...

This data can alos be accessed by various state departments both at home and abroad. Nothing is sacred anymore. Its back to the carrier pidgeon.

Johnboy1951

It is time to use encryption for everything, even the most innocuous communications ..... at least make it a little harder for the bas...ds to spy on us.

Zorba

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

It is time to use encryption for everything, even the most innocuous communications ..... at least make it a little harder for the bas...ds to spy on us.

Anyone know any free encryption software ? And would it slow down your computer much ?

drusk

This is a complete invasion of privacy. What is worse is the fact that they can bring it in without the people's consent.

According to that article in the examiner, the EU wants to bring it in because it will help to combat terrorism. We live in Ireland for feck sake - how ridiculous.

I'll be voting "no" to Lisbon second time around.

With each passing day, I become more and more disturbed by the actions of the powers that be. Never has the question "What is the world coming to?" been more serious.

Purple Gorilla

You should be welcoming this. This has been in effect in Ireland for quite a while now and originally made all ISPs archive internet traffic for 3 years. This EU directive lowers that to 1 year now.

drusk

They shouldn't be "archiving" anything, for any length of time!!

How would you feel if the government kept records of all of your phone conversations, and had a list of all of the books you had read in the last year, and the books/magazines you're currently reading!

It reeks of communism.

IT'S AN INVASION OF PRIVACY! We shouldn't be welcoming this, we should be marching in the streets against it!

Purple Gorilla

I agree that they shouldn't be invading our privacy like that, but it's not all that bad. They don't actualy record the content of your e-mails, just that you sent an e-mail.

If you're scared about your privacy, you should be more worried about the Framework Decision on the use of Passenger Name Record for Law Enforcement.

What exactly does that mean? It means that your travel will be recorded. Air carriers will be forced to give your government every detail of your flights..right down to what seat you're sitting in and whether you have changed seats

Run_to_da_hills

Purple Gorilla wrote: »

You should be welcoming this. This has been in effect in Ireland for quite a while now and originally made all ISPs archive internet traffic for 3 years. This EU directive lowers that to 1 year now.

Not the same, The Irish legislation requires data to be held by service providers etc for three years and is NOT live access, (Requires a warrent) This new EU directive allows LIVE access 24/365 without ta warrant.

If the UK is behind this one which it is you can guarantee it will be a total invasion of your personal liberties, just like all their CCTV, live access to the congestion cameras and their up and coming EBorders. We Voted NO for a reason.

Johnboy1951

Zorba wrote: »

Anyone know any free encryption software ? And would it slow down your computer much ?

PGP

Pretty Good Privacy

might do what you need ...

Johnboy1951

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Not the same, The Irish legislation requires data to be held by service providers etc for three years and is NOT live access, (Requires a warrent) This new EU directive allows LIVE access 24/365 without ta warrant.

I thought it was only for three months :mad:

Johnboy1951

I have been in contact with the Minister's office and he says that the content of the VOIP calls will not be recorded, but that the record of the connection between parties will be stored and held, similar to what is done presently for PSTN calls.

The legislation is to be published in the coming weeks apparently. Maybe then we will get a better idea of what it does and does not do.

One part concerns me at present ...... there seems to be no method of notifying a person that their data has been accessed and by whom.
There is a provision, if you find out about say the Gardaí accessing your information, for a person to apply to the 'supervising' judge to check and ensure that the access was in accordance with legislation.

Now the only way I know that a person would be aware of the Gardaí accessing such information would be if they were to use it in a court case against you.
I have no idea how the rights of an innocent person, who is not going to be charged, are upheld.

Hopefully someone will give us a breakdown of the legislation when it is published.

Johnboy1951

Update
I asked the Minister about the situation regarding an innocent person being notified about their records being accessed ...... in a long and detailed reply he avoided the question entirely!
Par for the course I guess .....

On a related item ..... this act will allow access to records of calls over VOIP -> when using a provider.
It is possible to carry out VOIP conversations without a registered account, and thus there would be no record of the call.

I don't see how they can do anything about that ...

Johnboy1951

What I guess is the final response from Minister Dermot Ahearn TD was received today.

At last I have clarity ..... or at least the bill contents have been clarified.

Here are a couple of relevant excerpts ....

... a person, who for any reason, believes that data relating to that person
and in the possession of a service provider have been accessed following a
disclosure request, may apply to a complaints referee for an investigation into the
matter. The referee will investigate all such complaints, except those that appear to
be frivolous or vexatious, and ascertain whether a request has been made, as
alleged and, if so, whether any provision of the legislation has been contravened in
relation to the request. If the referee concludes that the Act has been contravened,
he or she will notify the applicant of that conclusion and report the findings to the
Taoiseach. In addition, the referee may direct that the data be destroyed and
recommend the payment of compensation to the applicant.

(emphasis mine)

OK, that seems clear enough. If I have reason to believe my data has been accessed I can ask the referee to investigate the circumstances.

But .... and this is the real kicker .... if the accessed data is not used say in a court case or such, where it is obvious to me that it has been accessed, I have no means of knowing the data has been accessed, hence I have no cause to ask the referee to investigate the matter. On this the Minister says ...

As is customary with such legislation that is essential for the investigation of serious crime and safeguarding the security of the State, persons whose data is disclosed will not have a right to that information.

(emphasis mine)

So the legislation gives me the right to ask for an investigation if my data has been accessed and if I have any reason to believe it has

---

but I have no right to know that the data has been accessed!

So if someone abuses their position for personal or other reasons and accesses private data, the owner of that data has no right to be informed that it has been accessed.

I find this situation abhorrent.

Misuse of the scheme can go totally unchallenged because those whose data has been accessed are never told about it.

Criminals will likely find out of course if the evidence is used in a court case.
Innocents will never know their data has been inappropriately accessed.

The Minister and our Government are obviously happy with this situation.

I am not.

JohnBoy

truedoom

hmm i'm not really sure why people are freaking out over this. as far as i know, they can document a call took place and for how long. I'm also pretty sure there would not be enough storage in the world for them to record every call by net, phone, or email sent by every person in the country for a full year. you're talkin about massive ammounts of information, thousands of terabytes a year.


Please feel free to challange me on this, as this is merely speculation.

RangeR

truedoom wrote: »

hmm i'm not really sure why people are freaking out over this. as far as i know, they can document a call took place and for how long. I'm also pretty sure there would not be enough storage in the world for them to record every call by net, phone, or email sent by every person in the country for a full year. you're talkin about massive ammounts of information, thousands of terabytes a year.


Please feel free to challange me on this, as this is merely speculation.

Storage is VERY cheap.

You don't see the problem here? This opens the floodgates for "other logging" of personal information. Every year or three, more and more private information is being logged about us. There WILL come a time were we won't be able to move [London anyone?] without are steps being traced.

mehmeh12

Curious will this new legislation apply to all content that people download over the internet? oh say music and the like...

and in relation to earlier comments how do you encrypt all internet traffic?

and do programs such as peer guardian provide adequate privacy protection?

Johnboy1951

truedoom wrote: »

hmm i'm not really sure why people are freaking out over this. as far as i know, they can document a call took place and for how long. I'm also pretty sure there would not be enough storage in the world for them to record every call by net, phone, or email sent by every person in the country for a full year. you're talkin about massive ammounts of information, thousands of terabytes a year.


Please feel free to challange me on this, as this is merely speculation.

I don't know what it is you expect to be challenged to be honest.

The fact is they have brought in a law that essentially can do nothing except get information on law abiding citizens and very dumb criminals.
It does nothing at all in the area it is pushed through for -- speaking here about the section that is the object of discussion of this topic.

The new law will allow them to monitor commercial communications over the internet, and some private communications.

For instance they cannot record communications between Skype members .... so the voice records are useless.
They cannot record SIP VOIP communications except that the users make use of a commercial company to supply the service. Again useless as there are other means of communicating using voice over the internet that cannot be recorded --- I don't mean the actual voices but the record of who called whom when and for how long.
So the only ones that can have their communications recorded are those that have nothing to hide in the first place.

That should make you think why our government felt it necessary to be able to spy on law-abiding citizens.

I don't think I have freaked out over this, but I am certainly anything but happy that my government has lied to me and everyone else about the true reason for this law.

To add to the insult, the citizen is not entitled to know that his private data has been accessed.

Why?

Regards,

johnboy

BigDuffman

What exactly is going to be recorded and what are the grounds for accessing them??

For example, myself as the average joe soap not being investigated for running a peanut smuggling cartel should I be worried that the powers that be are "listening in" and recording my MSN conversation and what is said over facebook?

Johnboy1951

BigDuffman wrote: »

What exactly is going to be recorded and what are the grounds for accessing them??

For example, myself as the average joe soap not being investigated for running a peanut smuggling cartel should I be worried that the powers that be are "listening in" and recording my MSN conversation and what is said over facebook?

If you are an associate of someone being investigated then your data may also be accessed (associate may = have a pint with sometimes).

As a totally innocent citizen you are not entitled to know that the authorities have accessed your data ....... the data that tells them about the phone calls and emails you sent and received.

The criminal, if taken to court is entitled to know that his data has been accessed, if such data is used in the case. In any case if he is charged with something it is a fair bet that all his data, from all locations, has been accessed.

You, the innocent citizen, are never entitled to have knowledge that your data was accessed.

Then look at the data that can be accessed under this law ....
email records
VOIP phone records

Any criminal with a brain is aware that those email records can be accessed and will take measures to bypass it. That might be as simple as not sending emails, but instead use one email account (or other such account) where messages can be left within the account (like draft emails) for the other users of the account to read and delete, but no email is ever sent from or received by the account (except spam).
So accessing email records (records of emails sent and received) will have little or no effect on any criminals worth the name.
The situation certainly does have a serious effect on the privacy of the innocent citizen! Every one of them!

Similarly with regard to VOIP records ... everyone's records can be accessed under this legislation.
But because there are many simple ways to have voice conversations using VOIP which do not generate any record of the connection, it is only the records of those who are not trying to hide what they are doing that are available to be scrutinised.

So in both situations -- email and VOIP -- it is easy for those who wish to hide their communications to do so, and thus the only records that are available belong to 'innocents'.

So why does our government think they need access to the records of innocent people?

That then raises the distinct possibility of this legislation being abused by those in a position to do so.

It also raises the possibility that some of those records could be commercially sensitive ...... and maybe worth a few bob to others.

BTW anything said on Facebook or other social networking sites is available to all.
Prospective employers make great use of such things to gauge the suitability of applicants.

Nothing on the net is private.

This legislation means that what used to be private conversations are now not so private after all.

.... and they used the excuse of catching criminals to bring in the legislation ...... which as I have just shown above is a crock of excrement!

... and nobody seems to care that their privacy is being eroded daily ....

Olympus21

It is time to use encryption for everything, even the most innocuous communications ..... at least make it a little harder for the bas...ds to spy on us.

Regards

Olympus

____
dossier surendettement