Snoopers Charter: Should Our Browsing History be available to the highest bidder?

10000maniacs

The Snoopers Charter has raised a few interesting scenarios in the UK.
There are so many bodies that will now be allowed to snoop on your browsing history in the UK that it has raised some questions.
Can employers get their hands on that information and see what political affiliations are before an interview?, Or making a decision to deny you a job because you visited a porn website. And so on and so on.
Is the Snoopers Charter a gross invasion of human rights?

seamus

Employers can't get access to the information, but given the large number of agencies in the list, you can take it for granted that someone will have a way to get access to your browsing history if they want it.

What this really means now is that there's a market in the UK for a simple and trustworthy VPN service that exits/enters outside of the UK.

Between this, the porn restriction, the poppy fascists and Brexit, the UK is quickly becoming everything that it claims to hate - Nazis.

Fred Swanson

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Capt'n Midnight

Your browsing history is already available to the highest bidder.

You'll never outbid multinationals or nation states.

hatrickpatrick

I don't believe in data retention. The state having a quasi permanent record to blackmail people with is a terrifying thought - the UK in particular, as revealed by Edward Snowden, has already engaged in using people's porn fetishes against them to get them to shut up. People will say "who cares, it's only jihadists" - what's to stop them using it to silence the next banking whistleblower, for instance?

10000maniacs

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Your browsing history is already available to the highest bidder.

You'll never outbid multinationals or nation states.

But up to now in the UK, your ISP prided itself on not giving out any browsing details unless their arm was twisted in an important police investigation, and even then it did so under duress.
This is not the case anymore with ISP's in the UK.
What you do now is free for all.

The_Valeyard

UK is fast becoming Alan Moore's 'V for Vendetta'


Or Orwell's 1984.


I'm not sure which is worse.

Fratton Fred

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I don't believe in data retention. The state having a quasi permanent record to blackmail people with is a terrifying thought - the UK in particular, as revealed by Edward Snowden, has already engaged in using people's porn fetishes against them to get them to shut up. People will say "who cares, it's only jihadists" - what's to stop them using it to silence the next banking whistleblower, for instance?

I can imagine someone looking at my history.

BBC
Vaping blog
Boards
Tesco
Vaping blog
Tesco
Argos
BBC

If they're interested in that, good luck to them.

Widdershins

Why should people worry unless their porn fetishes are illegal. If so I have no sympathy.

Fred Swanson

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Grayson

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I can imagine someone looking at my history.

BBC
Vaping blog
Boards
Tesco
Vaping blog
Tesco
Argos
BBC

If they're interested in that, good luck to them.

You'd be surprised what they're interested in.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker

A New York woman says her family's interest in the purchase of pressure cookers and backpacks led to a home visit by six police investigators demanding information about her job, her husband's ancestry and the preparation of quinoa.

Michele Catalano, who lives in Long Island, New York, said her web searches for pressure cookers, her husband's hunt for backpacks and her "news junkie" son's craving for information on the Boston bombings had combined somewhere in the internet ether to create a "perfect storm of terrorism profiling".

Members of what she described as a "joint terrorism task force" descended on Catalano's home on Wednesday.

Here's another like with a bit more information.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/312599/

Capt'n Midnight

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Happened many years ago.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/big-brother-britain-2004-73167.html

Professor Norris conducted a study in 2001 which predicted that the number of cameras would double from one million to two million by 2004. But his most recent study concludes that there are now "at least" 4,285,000 cameras in operation - double his earlier prediction.

Remember the troubles in Norn Iron ? LOTS of surveillance technology. Don't imagine the hard won lessons there were forgotten.

Remember this ? http://www.lamont.me.uk/capenhurst/original.html


As for VPN's , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON means that Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States all tap coms and share info. Most Irish ISP's are owned by these countries. Eir is owned by Aussies. Most of our international cables go via those countries. And all your OS's , security software, hardware and comms gear is designed and supplied mostly from these guys, Chinese , Russians and Israelis. Malware, vulnerabilities and backdoors also cause data leakage.


As for VPN's. Alibaba will be setting up a Cloud in Germany. . So instead it's be the German Bundesnachrichtendienst and the Chinese Ministry of State Security looking at your stuff.

VPN via France and it'll be the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieur. All academic really as Five Eyes expands.

Anita Blow

Widdershins wrote: »

Why should people worry unless their porn fetishes are illegal. If so I have no sympathy.

Because there's a lot more in your browsing history which can be used against you. It doesn't have to be illegal. All it takes is one accusation or leak to tar somebody's reputation.
Actually, on your point, the UK has outlawed "unconventional" sex acts in pornography, which I read including insertion of anything beyond 4 fingers as "unconventional". Bit hilarious that that's where they draw the line, but it raises a more serious issue. In the not too distant past, homosexual acts were illegal. Would gay rights be where they are today if the government of the time had the power to identify every gay and throw them in prison or punish them?

Fred Swanson

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gctest50

Any logic to why the

Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust

is on the list ?

• Metropolitan Police Service
• City of London Police
• Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996
• Police Service of Scotland
• Police Service of Northern Ireland
• British Transport Police
• Ministry of Defence Police
• Royal Navy Police
• Royal Military Police
• Royal Air Force Police
• Security Service
• Secret Intelligence Service
• GCHQ
• Ministry of Defence
• Department of Health
• Home Office
• Ministry of Justice
• National Crime Agency
• HM Revenue & Customs
• Department for Transport
• Department for Work and Pensions
• NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services
• Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service
• Competition and Markets Authority
• Criminal Cases Review Commission
• Department for Communities in Northern Ireland
• Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland
• Department of Justice in Northern Ireland
• Financial Conduct Authority
• Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
• Food Standards Agency
• Food Standards Scotland
• Gambling Commission
• Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority
• Health and Safety Executive
• Independent Police Complaints Commissioner
• Information Commissioner
• NHS Business Services Authority
• Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust
• Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board
• Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Regional Business Services Organisation
• Office of Communications
• Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland
• Police Investigations and Review Commissioner
• Scottish Ambulance Service Board
• Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
• Serious Fraud Office
• Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust

Widdershins

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Yes but the thing is if you like something people would ridicule you for you take that risk anyway. I can't see why someone would allow themselves to be blackmailed just to save face. The knobbiest of the knobs in high places are notorious pervs, it's hardly unusual.

Is it illegal to feature spanking in UK made porn or illegal to watch any with spanking it it if you're in the UK? That's a strange one

Half of the house of lords and their ilk have probably been given a mention in professional mistresses memoirs.

Fred Swanson

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The_Valeyard

Fred Swanson wrote: »

It is illegal to feature spanking in UK made porn. Squirting is also illegal.

How about fisting?

Fred Swanson

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The_Valeyard

Why are ice cubes banned?

Mech1

AHh no this is a real pain i the arse now.

Fred Swanson

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Grayson

Plus the big thing if they're recording this information, even if they're not going to use it for evil type purposes, is that someone might hack it.

I don't care how much care they put into protecting it, they're going to be storing it all and that alone makes it vulnerable.

I've worked for a billion dollar company where hundreds of millions of accounts were hacked. And we've seen it happen to everything from Ashley Madison, to Sony, to yahoo(!).

More recently we've seen an entire US election dominated by a private email server which was a security liability and servers (the DNC) that were hacked.

JJJJNR

Its terrifying really, in the 90s an Irish girl got locked up for having a Michael Collins biography in her bedroom, because they thought she was an IRA sympathiser, so I can see this as having a similar effect.

Permabear

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NIMAN

JJJJNR wrote: »

Its terrifying really, in the 90s an Irish girl got locked up for having a Michael Collins biography in her bedroom, because they thought she was an IRA sympathiser, so I can see this as having a similar effect.

Who was that?

05eaftqbrs9jlh

Widdershins wrote:

Half of the house of lords and their ilk have probably been given a mention in professional mistresses memoirs.

The difference being that they have probably enacted many of their fantasies in real life. Currently I enjoy an unsavory form of (completely legal) Chinese pornography. I would never allow it to become part of my daily life or impact my judgement on issues in reality. Porn is fantasy. If it became publicly known that I enjoy it, my entire existence would be a farce framed around this one thing I get off to. And I have really nice friends who I joke about Porn with all the time. Imagine if it the establishment knew, what they could do to me officially.

There is no comparing the potential of this with what came before.

Veloce150

Permabear wrote: »

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Yes, we've had a mass survellaince regime here for over a decade. Initially this was conducted via secret informal agreements with the ISPs, but it's since been made a law. The government used a now-discrdited EU directive to justify this.

Despite the ECJ declaring the original EU directive to be a disproportionate measure which subjected all citizens to monitoring of their location, phone call data and Internet activity, even if they were not suspected of a crime, the government has declined to repeal the law here.

There's a legal challange led by Digital Rights Ireland.

Veloce150

Eleanor Steep Underclothing wrote: »

T Currently I enjoy an unsavory form of (completely legal) Chinese pornography.

....as far as you know...

Widdershins

Eleanor Steep Underclothing wrote: »

The difference being that they have probably enacted many of their fantasies in real life. Currently I enjoy an unsavory form of (completely legal) Chinese pornography. I would never allow it to become part of my daily life or impact my judgement on issues in reality. Porn is fantasy. If it became publicly known that I enjoy it, my entire existence would be a farce framed around this one thing I get off to. And I have really nice friends who I joke about Porn with all the time. Imagine if it the establishment knew, what they could do to me officially.

There is no comparing the potential of this with what came before.

It's the risk you take.

Capt'n Midnight

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

LOL

you're just painting a target on your back


If they don't have the resources to target everyone then using a VPN will push you closer to the top of the list.

Anything short of End to End encryption isn't that useful. Also there's a good chance that at least one end is already comprised. And lots of things can be inferred from Metadata without knowing the specifics. Like you get a call from your doctor at 11:15 and then you ring an AIDS charity at 11:20. But no one will know what your doctor said because the conversations wasn't recorded :rolleyes:


BTW regarding recording phone calls
Total voice traffic for Q2 2016 was 4,167,248,682 minutes.
Storing those minutes at full rate GSM (13.2Kbits/s ,99KBytes a minute.) would only take 412GB. So well within the budget of the average conspiracy theorists.

Using tricks like dropping silences and using Codec2 would drop much further.

JJJJNR

NIMAN wrote: »

Who was that?

Cant remember her name, but she was on the late late.