[Gllug] Proxy awareness campaign

[Mike Brodbelt]

gllug at codex.net wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 19 Oct 2001, William Palfreman wrote:
> 
> > I can.  The government's latest insane pig-in-the-comms-room is that
> > every ISP keep every single bit of email, logs, all recorded traffic, for
> > 7 years, else your friendly sysadmin is jailed.  With no proxy there are
> > many fewer records to keep.  If you really have enough cash you could buy
> > a couple of satellite links to a third country, and keep all your servers
> > there.  No UK based servers = no logs[0], and no prison sentences for us
> > all just because a fire took out 4 year old tapes.
> >
> > Bill.
> >
> > [0] Switch off your router and switch logs too :-)
> 
> and if we're really lucky, maybe the nice people at the ISP's will start
> sending users bill's for new disks, to store all your data on.  I dont
> understand how anyone can be foolish enough to believe that such a system
> like this is ever going to work.  the actual physical requirements are
> going to be obscene.  maybe it;s just what the disk manufacturing corps
> want?

Some of this has been pushed for by the security services. I remain
unsure as to exactly who thinks what - those in the security services
must be more than aware that this data will be valueless for the puposes
that they claim it will be used. It is not beyond belief that the
security services have duped technically ignorant ministers into
believing this will help stop terrorism though. I can never make up my
mind as to whether Jack Straw is actually evil or just thick. The irony
is that this is a goverment which, prior to its election, claimed that
regulation of encryption was technically foolish and morally
reprehensible. It's just another one of those things that they changed
their views on once in power....

However, we're in a country that actively participates in the largest
spy network in the world (Echelon), and which uses dubios legal
loopholes to carry out illegal surveillance of its own citizens. That
intelligence is shared with our partners in Echelon, and is used for
commercial gain by the countries involved. There has been a lot of
effort put into ensuring that modern telephone switches have intercept
capability, and reverse engineering this into the internet is becoming
the order of the day. The EC report on Echelon recommends widespread use
of cryptography to counter the threat that the network represents, but
that viewpoint has been conveniently buried by government.
 
> I'm still attempting to fathom who's going to pay for all this.  you can
> be damn sure the govt wont be, which means the companies will, which means
> the cost gets pushed onto the consumer.  This whole system we live in
> stinks.

The "who will pay for this" has already been debated. Amongst the
discussion that went on over the RIP Act, there was talk of requiring
ISP's to retain 7 years of comms data. The costs would be borne in toto
by the ISP - the government, while stupid, is not prone to spending it's
tax revenue when it can impose more "taxes" indirectly, and blame them
on industry.
 
> The more and more dumb laws like this are used, the more and more people
> will get pissed off.  eventually *something* will happen.  precisely what,
> i dont know.

What indeed? There are precious few places left in the world that don't
have laws like this on the cards. The US has Carnivore and the DMCA, and
the European commission is likely to force all member states to enact
something RIP like. Short of a major change in our system of government,
I can't see what will stop it. The present system is basically a license
to abuse the electorate for 5 years, and then hope that they're too dumb
to have seen what you're doing.

For the interested, the freshly dug up proposals on data retention are
to be debated in Parliament next month, apparently. Now might be a good
time to start writing to MP's....

Mike.

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