h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anyone care to share their views on the latest attempt of the government to spy on its citizens?

It reminds me of the opening scenes of the "Prisoner" show back in the 60's....

Prisoner: What do you want?
Two: Information.
Prisoner: Whose side are you on?
Two: That would be telling.... We want information...
Prisoner: You won't get it!
Two: By hook or by crook, we will.

I have already seen a comment on another site - you know, the worn out "Well, if you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to worry about" AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!

And yes - I am not in favour of it!!

I don't like it either, but there are ways around it so I'll probably end up routing my internet activity through a VPN or something else

Personally, I think that by the time any authorities get that interested in me that they decide to dig through all my internet history to try and find something incriminating, I'll have more important things to worry about... (Like the fact the men in dark suits will be hammering on my door)

Don't do it on the web unless you want the world to know about it!

All this surveillance shenanigans just gives me the urge to start every email with durka durka jihad (Team America ftw) or put random phrases like "kill them all" in the text

Actually, I've just read through the guardian's piece on it http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jun/14/snoopers-charte-proposal-tory-row ... And one thing really does frighten me...

The fact the government are being quite so free-and-easy with how much they're willing to pay for the data... The various ISPs must be rubbing their hands together in glee...

It'll be like getting a quotation from a plumber...
ISP owner rubs his hands together, purses his lips, whistles, and says..."Hmmm... You want us to save ALL this data?... It ain't going to be cheap... It's gonna need at least 100 gazillion new 1TB hard drives to save the data on, and each drive is going to cost....", starts taping away furiously at a calculator, ".... let's say about £1500 a piece... Then there's labour at (mutters) per hour... Tell you what though, I'll knock off the VAT if you're paying cash".

It will be a total waste of tax payers/government money, I'm sure I heard on hte wireless it was estimated at 1.5 billion pounds... But, I guess its not like we're in a recession or anything, err...
It'll be inadaquate to do waht they believe it might or oughta be able to do, and those who want to will just bipass it, as said above... But then again, the UK governments never seem to be able to cope with handling policy on the net or technology in general... Maybe, I don't know, given the economic situation, they might like to think instead of investing this money in technology and technology/internet capicity, in the UK, as a means to help boost the economy, rather than using it to help further hold back development...

Don't most major countries do this to one extent or another? It seems to be a given in an age when there are some really scary people plotting monstrous acts. Unfortunately, sometimes it's the government officials themselves who are plotting. Oh, well....

Last night as I lay sleeping, I woke to that insidious
sound (the Windows tune) of my computer turning on.

I had disconnected from my in-house wireless network
and left the machine in hibernate mode before going
to bed.

I sat up to see the desktop image on my screen glowing
and all the activity lights flashing green and orange.
It was 4am, I must be dreaming. I rolled over and went
back to sleep.

When I got up this morning it was in sleep mode but when
I touched the mouse to re-activate the screen there was
a message in a box just above the tool bar:
"Your computer was restarted to install new updates,
click here to view updates."
I hadn't dreamt it.

But no way was I clicking that!



I am simply flabbergasted that even with the wireless
connection turned off and the computer in hibernate mode
someone can turn it on and remotely access it.

I did note the time as 4am local which means it was 8am,
the start of the work day in the UK.

But I am not panicking.
Yet.


~jwf~

Control Panel > Windows Update > Modify Parameters... (exact wording may vary depending on version of windows and how well I've translated from the French version of windows I'm using on this computer)

It's not someone 'accessing' your computer... It's your windows update settings... It'll probably be set up to automatically turn on and go searching for Windows security updates - there are all sorts of possiblities, from disabling this feature completely, having it tell you when you should download security patches, downloading updates but not installing them until you say so or doing the whole lot automatically...

DON'T turn the thing off completely - and only have it set to the minimum if you can ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE you're going to install the security patches yourself as soon as they come out... Having an out of date version of windows is a guaranteed way of making yourself vulnerable to all sorts of nasty stuff (and no - an antivirus won't always help you)

Paul:
<<Don't most major countries do this to one extent or another? It seems to be a given in an age when there are some really scary people plotting monstrous acts. Unfortunately, sometimes it's the government officials themselves who are plotting. Oh, well.... <<<

Recently, the goverment passed a law so that people who make calls to street demostrations using social networks and similar could be fined and get 2 years of prison. They say "violent calls".
lawers of the 15M movement are dealing with that now.

This is just a way to scare people, just like Putin is doing in Russia. They don´t want people in the street shouting, protesting...

I have no idea what is the aim of the British goverment (haven´t read that article either) but to be able to control the web as much as possible by the goverments is something very "useful" in these times where social networks are getting an increasing protagonist role in REAL life. It´s very easy to label as criminal any action that doesn´t go "according to plan"

Thanks for the clarification, Maria. After I wrote my post, it occurred to me that it's possible your government is not actually snooping, but wants people to *think* it is doing so. If people think they are being monitored, maybe they will think twice about what they do.

But, as someone from another country, I have *no* idea what the UK government is really doing. It's bad enough that I'm not sure what my *own* government is doing.

If it helps operations like the one that arrested nearly a hundred paedophiles over the last two days, I'm all in favour.

B

The figure has gone up already, 1.8 billion was mentioned on the news earlier.

I rather think if they wanted to do anything serious about child protection, they might like to first have a look at undoing the cuts in front line child protection serives, and local social services.

Most of those arrests today are only happening as the agency responsible for them, is facing cuts/closure, its an attmept for their survival... and the views on this I've heard on the wireless seem to be very good at merely re-spouting some very dubious stats about child porn and its relationship to pedophiles... but of course one can't really criticise such things or you get acoused of being 'on side' with child abuse..

I agree with 2legs. I'd much rather see that money being invested into child protection, where it would be put to better use than this joke project.

The UK government really has no clue about how to handle the internet and all its foibles (surprise surprise); when you ignore Tim Berners-Lee to do your own thing, that just smacks of pig-headed stupidity to me.

So, given the UK government's history with privacy and personal information, would you trust them with *your* data? Hands up, please.

TRiG.

No... as in, no... not at all...

It is said that when Leonard Bernstein read the file that the FBI had compiled regarding his activities, Bernstein laughed.