Engineering News

Their excuse for this invasion of privacy is to fight terrorism and child porn but it seems like that has been an excuse for anything lately.

A new software tool by an Australian company will scan every website, image or document that you view online to make sure you aren't "breaking the law"

I can understand why European people are protesting against their invasion of privacy.

Just out of curiosity...

If you submit yourself for the same security clearance that anyone running for political office must pass, then why shouldn't you also be able to stroll into Evesdropping HQ and examine any (and I do mean any) such records that you darn well please?

Aren't technically "we" the Government? If "they" can watch "us" for any unethical behavior then why can't we watch them or ourselves? Since "they" are just "us", yes? In theory they're just as unlikley to use any information against either us or them as we are. And if any of us is found misusing it then they can sue us or conversely we them.

Hang on...who am I again?

Evesdropping HQ and examine any (and I do mean any) such records that you darn well please?

Back in the 70's a think tank can't remember which one or even if it matters now, proposed in opening up the security and let all and I mean ALL information public. and let the russians go backrupt trying to sift through and verify it.

If "they" can watch "us" for any unethical behavior then why can't we watch them or ourselves?

sounds like the fox watching the hen house, any other way it would be unfair to them, they just want to know what you know about them.........can't we all just get along, oh wait then they would have no advantage

If you think about it, scanning EVERY e-mail for suspicious or illegal content is going to quickly overload the system...It is unlikely that the Governement is going to be able to effectively violate your privacy, because they aren't going to have the time and the resources to read all this stuff. I have a hard time some days just keeping up with my own e-mail! Meanwhile, because the Government has announced their intentions, the really bad guys are going to have work-arounds. The real danger comes when I am deemed evil because some evil person randomly sent me some child porn via e-mail because they found my e-mail address on some mailing list that I inadvertently "joined" by clicking on the wrong icon. I may not even open that e-mail, once it appears in my in-box, but I wind up on someone's "bad-guy" list, and then I have no means of getting my name removed from that list. So I am forever a suspect. But, not to worry. With this program, eventually EVERYONE becomes suspect. And the government can eventually go out and arrest those that do not appear on any suspect list, because they obviously have been very effective at covering the trail of their nasty habits, indicating they have something to hide...

they probably have keywords that flag the email, keywords such as terrorist, bombing, explosives, infiltrate, del the cat, pest and things like that.

I find it to be quite an impossibility to do this with any real effectiveness. There is simply too much information there to process. I work at a facility with roughly 1200 employees, there are roughly 1000 of us that have e-mail accounts. I checked our e-mail filter recently and last month alone, the amount of incoming e-mails only was over 1.1 million with less than 3% being legitimate. That doesn't count any going out or in-house e-mails. The amount of e-mails at a small facility like this is piddly compared to a large organization, much less an entire country.

All I've got to say is, UK watch out for Big Brother

Now the British might get it after over two hundred years, why we rebelled against your s#%t for brains government and threw your crappy tea overboard!

What are you Brits? a bunch of sheep?! If so, then move to New Zealand! at least you'll get well treated there until it's lamb-chop time! When are you going to get the guts to amend whatever that piece of paper that members of Parliament wipe their "arses" on, and take back your own damn lives!!!

Of course, you know an awful lot about crochet and kittens... Surly that should suffice!

They say the data stored will only be used 'when required during the course of an ongoing enquiry'. the problem we have is that it doesn't matter what the original reason for the legislation is, when it's on the books it can be used for whatever the gov.com see fit. A recent example is the the Icelandic banks that have just had their UK assets frozen, using anti terror legislation. Don't let them take an inch, they'll take the whole rope manufacturing industry!

(This post was encrypted using the talking gibberish method)

Lets see a show of hands for how many think the patriot act had anything to do with Terrorism.

Ok now how many for the Bank controlled gov. to wipe out any parts left of the constitution that were still active.

For those who raised their hands to the first can I interest you in some lunar section deeds?

About as much as the "bailout" has to do with saving the free market capitalism that made our economy strong. We have far too many Demicans and Republicrats who are really "Spread the wealth" socialists with strong Marxist tendencies. The Republicans have been infiltrated and the Democrats almost completely taken over by the far Left.

The banks do not control the government now, the government controls the banks, The people do not control the government, the government controls the people. I think if we don't wake up and vote, we could easily end up with one-party rule.

If my income ever went up to $240,000 I would make sure my business didn't grow and didn't hire more employees. I would never want to work hard enough to be considered "rich" under that "Spread the wealth" type of government. I would avoid any hard questions for the rulers for fear my TV/radio station would be punished or lose it's license. A newspaper would avoid printing anything in opposition to the ruling party lest it be "investigated" to the point it would have to go out of business.

You really don't understand "high politics"

This type of thing just divide the people into two main classes: those under suspicion and those who think they must supervise suspicious minds (I recall Elvis).

There are other very important thing: they really want to fight unemployment in those crisis times and to supervise all this (even not in real time) needs a really huge man force to understand all and to follow all e-mails, cell phone conversations, etc in which any suspicious word appears.

The only problem is how to pay for such a task force!!!

Kind regards

A Diogenes disciple.

needs a really huge man force to understand all and to follow all e-mails

No. Their intention is to get the IP's to do the work for them, and when they feel like it, just say 'OK, we will have that info now.'

So the unemployment problem in the UK has just been solved - in fact, they'll have to import a lot of Pakistanis, Indians, Afghanis, Turks, and Filipinos to come up with a labor force large enough to monitor all of the emails. Even if it's just a matter of the ISPs keeping records, to do anything with that information, it will have to be sorted, sifted, ordered, and completely read from end-to-end to make use of it. What an unenforceable, foolish law - kind of like our "Patriot" Act! More like a "Suppress the Patriots" Act in all reality...

It is time to start using encryption. There are quite a few good ones available. Businesses should already be using it for privacy concerns.

Another issue I see is that some people will add "key words" in their standard mail to spoof the system If enough people put these words/phrases in their everyday email it will require too much time for the system to work at all.

Knowing how I think I would put something like: "this bomb is going to go off" in the footer of every email with a second line referring to a stage play or something along that line.

I agree!

But I'm just thinking that in my mother language (Spanish) ,we use the same word for pump and for bomb (bomba). We have a joke about a man who carries a "pump" in a bag and is stopped by policemen who ask him "What do you carry there" and the poor man answer:Water.The policemen say :You can't carry water in a textile bag! and they open the bag and say: It's a pump (bomba) and the poor man says,yes you're right it's a water pump (bomba) but if I say the word Bomb (bomba) surely I couldn't finish the phrase!!!

I think they just want to compile alot of porn in a way that takes alot less time and effort!

Imagine that, a whole department of corrupted pervs!!

I don't have to imagine, I've had to deal with several gov.dept. that are corrupted pervs. What was surprising was that the sex offender prisoner's yards were the most civil of the Prison yards.

And we are stupid enough to ELECT these twits and believe that by giving up our freedom for security we will be better off and not slaves to the State. Is there no political group with enough guts to say NO! If not then all hope is lost. It will be impossible to be free.

It is time to start the ... Ooops! They're listening and reading everything. We can't even start a new party, they control all that too. Orwell was ahead of his time, he thought it would come in 1984.

To: "Scanning every email will overload the system"

Echelon has been doing this for a while now, scanning all forms digital communication. Its sounds like an incredible feat, but it employs ALOT of people and uses ALOT of money. First of all, it puts all the information through software that screens out keywords or keycode. After a bunch of these steps it stores what may seem important, and eventually if enough hits go to a source it is actually investigated. This does take alot of recievers and processing power, but it is already being done by all the countries that participate in funding (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States). How isn't everybody already aware of Echelon??? The systems have been around for 20 years, are expanding, and has even been spoken of publicly multiple times. Post-911 a lot of its resources were being used to track terrorists by screening 90% of the global cellphone traffic. A major weakness is that as long as you talk in code you can get through screening processes. Just read alot about Echelon. It employs a lot of people, so its not that hard to find people in the military that know of its capabilities. By employing a lot of people they have tons of leaks... just reach out and meet people.

"Tell all the secrets, and there will be a true understanding" - probably some proverb somewhere

The difference is spying on another countries people is, well, spying, spying on your own countrymen without approval of the Judicial system and the public is illegal and a form of treason. They are making it legal to preform blanket treason without the will of the people or the case by case consent of the judicial branch of the government.

Echelon is said to be tied into every ISP. I can't talk about the UK but The US government officials personal rap sheets looks like a prison cross section. What do you expect from crooks? The public has been taught to feed at the trough so they don't complain as long as the noose tightens slowly so they don't get to uncomfortable from changing all at once.

Brad

The governments job is to protect us, but this is overbearing. If the UK is gonna be the mother that doesn't let the kid go outside for fear of germs, its the people's responsibility to rise up, sneak out, and say "screw you mom" and what not. If the people are going to give into this fear, they are weak and deserve to be slaves. People have the right to rise up against unfair government and if this angers enough people they should make it apparent. Of course, next time a terrorist attack happens, don't put all the blame on the government. People other than CIA can make a difference in preventing terrorism, not necessarily hunting people down, but by simply communicating and trying to resolve misunderstandings on both sides. If you put all the weight on government, they will have to use these drastic measures to accomplish the goal. Eitherway, freedom isn't free and what not.

If it'll help cut taxes, I'm perfectly willing to keep me and mine safe, so the Dept. of Motherland Security can be disbanded (well, the part responsible for me, anyway...). Why does that particular department's name always make me think of prison guards?

Homeland Security does sound very Fascist/Communist to me too. Since we do need some central coordinating office for all our security why not give it at least a less threatening name, like Joint Protective Office, Central Informational Services or Uncle Sam Knows Best. LOL

The method of screening used needs to include every known language or all you have to do is teach your organization to use Tocharic or some such nearly unknown language and then plot with impunity. Another method which comes to my devious mind is using lists of innocuous words which mean something different in code. "A flash in the Royal Opera would hurt a lot of the peoples eyes." could mean "A bomb in Buckingham Palace would kill much of the government." This kind of double-speaking code is impossible to stop.

As for consistently using the suspect words in e-mails to overload the system, it would likely wind up getting people fined for using them, or worse. Certain words would be banned and so goes freedom of speech. Perfect security is slavery and total freedom is dangerous, the problem is deciding on the balance and not losing it.

Hello Taganan,

Perfect security is slavery and total freedom is dangerous, the problem is deciding on the balance and not losing it.

To True, This country has always had the Centralist's trying to control everyone and the Sovereigns for self rule. The problem is the balance swings from one extreme to the other extreme. None seem to have the sense to realise that Mean say 25% out of the middle is realistic. Our government is out of control so I'm for Sovereign individuals because I don't believe, from their actions, that the government has the people's best interests at heart.

Brad