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Henry Bremridge wrote: > On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 10:31:16AM +0100, Simon Williams wrote: >> Neil Stone wrote: >>> http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/10/15/2222209.shtml >>> >>> "The Communications Data Bill (2008) will lead to the creation of a >>> single, centralized database containing records of all e-mails sent, >>> websites visited and mobile phones used by UK citizens. In a >>> carnivore-on-steroids programme, as all vestiges of communication >>> privacy are stripped away, The BBC reports that Home Secretary Jacqui >>> Smith says this is a 'necessity.'" >> How exactly are they planning to do this? People encrypt mail. So they >> don't just need every ISP, they need all mail providers- and not just >> major mail providers like gmail, etc, they need all private mail servers >> as well. Even *I* have a mail server. >> > 1/ Most people do not send mail using secure smtp / secure imap, so even if the > content is encrypted the sender and recipient addresses are not > > Similarly most non- voip phone calls are made to a landline. (I have only seen one > retail provider so far offering pgpfone with voip: www.tivi.com.) > > And finally most people browse the web from either their home or office > > 2/ This is what the Bill creates: a database of who communicates with who. Not > what they are saying. ie if you send a lot of emails to a particular person who is > then deemed to be a terrorist then you will be of interest to the anti-terrorist > police as well. At that point then presumably the police will then look more > carefully at you. > > 3/ Problems: > - a terrorist who is otherwise normal but plans and communicates with other > terrorists on a secure link > - a terrorist group who buys access to a bot-net and communicates that way. > > ie this Bill will weed out the stupid wannabe terrorists but not touch the more > dangerous ones > > Presumably the stupid terrorists will be caught/blow themselves up while the dangerous ones are too smart to be caught. Whatever you think of the government it isn't stupid. So what is the Bill really for? Keith -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html