UK Gov't May Track All Facebook Traffic 204
Jack Spine writes "The UK government, which is becoming increasingly Orwellian, has said that it is considering snooping on all social networking traffic including Facebook, MySpace, and bebo. This supposedly anti-terrorist measure may be proposed as part of the Intercept Modernisation Programme according to minister Vernon Coaker, and is exactly the sort of deep packet inspection web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee warned about last week. The measure would get around the inconvenience for the government of not being able to snoop on all UK web traffic."
What if Facebook forced encryption? (Score:5, Interesting)
What if Facebook and other sites enforced encryption? Sure, it would slow things down and increase their cost, but if they did, it would be "chic" to encrypt, and a generation of users would start demanding end-to-end encryption everywhere.
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Hell, what if they just offered encryption? To be fair, it would cost facebook a not-inconsequential amount of CPU time (with repercussions for power consumption and heat production) to implement, even if they needed no additional hardware (heh heh)
You just don't use CPUs for that kind of scale (Score:3, Informative)
They'd have to go for hardware encryption/decryption.
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They'd have to go for hardware encryption/decryption.
What kind of scale? I said offer it. It's not clear what percentage of facebook's membership would use https:/// [https] if they didn't offer any links and you had to alter the URL manually (oh, the humanity!) If their front-end servers had CPU to spare (e.g. the front-end was I/O bound) they might be able to serve the actual demand without any additional hardware.
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Re:What if Facebook forced encryption? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, what if they just offered encryption?
What's the point of encrypting data that you are uploading to a social networking site for public consumption? And how effective would it really be at keeping the Government out anyway? What's to stop them getting a subpoena to pull the data directly off Facebook's servers?
Re:What if Facebook forced encryption? (Score:5, Interesting)
Content on Facebook (and any other social networking site with privacy controls) isn't for public consumption - it's for consumption by those whom you've marked as friends.
Encryption would prevent packet sniffing, and as Facebook is owned and operated in the US, I don't see how the UK government could subpoena the data successfully*. That whole jurisdiction thing - ya know.
*Unless they have servers located in the UK. With 200m or so users, they probably do Of course, Facebook could just threaten to block UK users, posting the contact info of various government officials so you can complain to them for forcing FB into such a situation. Facebook is easily large enough for that kind of stunt to actually work.
Re:What if Facebook forced encryption? (Score:4, Interesting)
Content on Facebook (and any other social networking site with privacy controls) isn't for public consumption
At a job interview (relatively high clearance required) my potential employer presented me with, among other things, questions about blog posts I had written. The odd thing? I never mentioned the account and I had never published any articles from it. They were just sitting on a well-known company's server in draft mode.
People have no idea how much is being collected and how many companies have been compromised, knowingly or not.
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People have no idea, because the government wants to keep them in the dark. If the public found out, we would have riot on a new scale.
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How was your name linked to these?
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If it's shared among your 5,000 closest friends, I'd call that pretty public. :p
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If it's shared among your 5,000 closest friends, I'd call that pretty public.
5,000 closest friends? Even if I included all of my friends and acquaintences, and maybe also all of my enemies, I still might not reach 5,000. And I've lived in numerous locations on both sides of the Atlantic in the last 5 decades.
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*Unless they have servers located in the UK. With 200m or so users, they probably do
An increasing number of companies in Europe are explicitly requiring all the personal information they hold also to be hosted within Europe, to be sure they comply with data protection legislation. They're screwed if the hosting government decide to be abusive, but at least this way they're covered against claims they allowed other governments (such as the US, where privacy and data protection laws seem to be even looser than they are here) to be abusive.
Re:What if Facebook forced encryption? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What if Facebook forced encryption? (Score:4, Informative)
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"Sure, it would slow things down and increase their cost, but if they did, it would be "chic" to encrypt"
From what I can tell, kids hate pretty much every change facebook ever makes. Sure, it's uncool to not use facebook nowadays, but loving everything about facebook is probably even less cool. Everyone knows it's a site run by suits.
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I swear I thought the idea of these sites was to have your info publicly available so you could amass more and more online "friends." After all, isn't that the most important thing for teens, to be "popular?"
I really don't see how encryption could do anything but hurt a social networking site.
It would destroy their business model (Score:2)
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It's bad enough that facebook results in more lost productivity than hangovers and the flu combined.. and the hundreds of megawatt hours of juice they burn. Lets not ADD to their leaching of vitality from the human race and the planet by burning more power to AES:
"Snooky Socks wrote on your wall: "lolz, last night was sooo fun! Check out this pic of Jeremy dancing with Jenn!!!11 :)"
Really.. encryption tools are plentiful and free for anyone that is planning an insurrection.
Re:What if Facebook forced encryption? (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.K. snooping is probably going to be done with Facebook's support, knowledge, and help...
Possibly. If not, it probably won't take much pressure to make them cave in. They'll be shamed into doing it by a claim that doing otherwise would be unpatriotic or would support the evil terrorists. Or they'll be threatened into doing it by a law that requires it, and won't have the courage to respond to that by refusing to service users in the UK. Some form of manipulative pressure will be used. Most people respond to pressure this way because it appears to relieve the pressure. What they don't know is that anytime you cave in to pressure, the relief is quite temporary -- by doing so, you teach others that this is the way to "reach" you and you invite more of the same. Bullies are cowards but they won't appear that way if you are even more cowardly than they are and are unwilling to take a risk to stand up to them.
Incidentally, I salute the accuracy of the summary:
If that doesn't describe the freedom-destroying mentality, few things can. It never seems to occur to that mentality that the loss of freedom and privacy might be just the sort of destruction that our enemies wish to visit upon us. It makes sense, since they know they stand no real chance of winning a conventional military battle against the very-well-armed Western nations. If they're "street-wise" at all, and to avoid hubris you should always assume that your enemy is, then they have probably realized that they only need to attack us a few times and we will do all of the rest of the work of destroying what is good about our civilization on our own. It will, of course, be in the name of safety and security. When all of this started, I bet the terrorists never imagined it would be so easy -- just scare us a bit and we'll give up all of the things that we used to fight for. This, by the way, is why physical armaments cannot be your only source of strength. If they are, your enemy will merely attack you on a different front. All of this is quite predictable and easy to understand.
Perhaps the USA and the UK aren't so different after all.
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@causality: "Perhaps the USA and the UK aren't so different after all."
Nope. We get our common law system from them, and since WWII (really, since the Cold War, but who's counting?) GB has been "Airstrip 1" to the US in all but name. The only real cultural difference between GB and the US is GB doesn't have as strong a sense of privacy and individualism as we do, so they seem to think nothing of handing over their freedom so that Big Brother can "...save us from the wrath of the Viking Hordes!" (Read your m
Re:What if Facebook forced encryption? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm frequently amazed, however, at how little regard the average EU citizen has for recent history. Every time something like Al Quaeda comes along they try to send a diplomat to "work it out" and they come home like Chamberlain waving a piece paper and yell "Peace in our time!"
Then Al Qaueda bombs one of their train stations.
What's that about???
Maybe we have more knowledge of recent history than you give us credit for. Chamberlain came back waving his "piece of paper" -- and promptly put the UK onto a war footing. He introduced conscription (first time we'd ever had that in peacetime) and massively ramped up military production. He sacrificed his career and reputation to buy the UK the time that it desperately needed, so we didn't enter the war until we were in a position to hold off the nazis. I reckon Chamberlain should be considered one of the great heroes of WWII. Were it not for his shrewdness and self-sacrifice we would have been under Nazi occupation before Churchill got a sniff at Number 10.
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As all naysayers regarding civil liberty chant; "What good is your freedom if you're dead?" seems to be the prevailing wisdom in Europe. Can't fault them too much, poor bastards, they have a legacy of subservience, caving, and generally attempting to wheel and deal their way out of disaster.
I'm frequently amazed, however, at how little regard the average EU citizen has for recent history. Every time something like Al Quaeda comes along they try to send a diplomat to "work it out" and they come home like Chamberlain waving a piece paper and yell "Peace in our time!"
Then Al Qaueda bombs one of their train stations.
What's that about???
Motorists in Britain alone kill, every single year, more people than Al Quaeda have ever killed, world wide, in any single year. On the general scale of things, Al Quaeda are an incredibly minor threat. You are less likely to be killed by Al Quaeda than you are to be killed by falling down and bumping your head [guardian.co.uk].
Yes, we are destroying all the things which made our civilisation worth living in, but we're not doing it because Al Quaeda are a serious threat. We're doing it because our politicians think they can
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Perhaps the USA and the UK aren't so different after all.
Well, it seems that our system has more checks and balances than the UK does. We have 50 individual sovereign states that are still willing to flip Washington off [cnet.com] every now and then. We have the Supreme Court which has shot down or at least severely constrained many attempts by the Executive and Legislature to violate our founding documents. The Upper House of our Legislature isn't toothless and actually has the power to stop legislation. We also (yeah I couldn't resist) have guns ;)
I'm hard pressed to
Re:What if Facebook forced encryption? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the USA and the UK aren't so different after all.
Well, it seems that our system has more checks and balances than the UK does. We have 50 individual sovereign states that are still willing to flip Washington off [cnet.com] every now and then. We have the Supreme Court which has shot down or at least severely constrained many attempts by the Executive and Legislature to violate our founding documents. The Upper House of our Legislature isn't toothless and actually has the power to stop legislation. We also (yeah I couldn't resist) have guns ;)
I'm hard pressed to think of what checks and balances remain under the British system. The House of Lords was defanged a long time ago and if the Monarchy ever refused Royal Assent I'm sure that would be end of it as an institution. Hopefully our friends across the pond will wake up before it's too late.....
Those checks and balances are largely useless if most of the population honestly believes in the "safety is more important than freedom" type of fear-mongering. Pragmatically, this means only that those who would like to transform the USA into a totalitarian state just need to be more patient. Or they just need to remain underground.
What do I mean by underground? Look at how long the warrantless-wiretapping was going on, illegally, before it was exposed. Then look at how the Bush administration retroactively granted the telcos immunity from prosecution for assisting this illegal program (if that isn't a violation of "no ex post facto" then it should be). So, how many such illegal activities are happening right now that we don't know about?
It might be tempting to look at the UK and think we're so much better off. That's your ego talking because it wants to feel like a part of something greater than itself, namely, the national ego. But let's say that you are correct, that the USA really is better off than the UK. We're certainly walking down the same path. So, perhaps the UK is a little ahead of us and has already travelled farther down that path. That means that If we don't change soon, the UK is merely providing a vision of our immediate future. How about if we travel a completely different path that doesn't lead to the same destination before we make comparisons? I prefer not to be on a sinking ship at all. I like that much better than wondering whether the ship I'm on is sinking more slowly than the adjacent ships.
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We have the Human Rights Act which is enshrined a the highest law in the land. It grants things like a positive right to free speech as opposed to your first amendment which simply prohibits congress from abridging the right to free speech. This means you can't get sacked for your political beliefs like you potentially can in the USA.
The HRA is ironic considering it was this Labour government that passed it during its first couple of years. I reckon we can thank Cherie Blair for that as she's a barrister fo
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What I find puzzling and V. annoying is the UK Gov's apparent need to make so many new laws focusing on the minutae - Why not just "Incitement to hatred"? Why specifically racial and/or religious? Is it OK, then, to incite hated against women or even (think of the) children? Short or overly tall people, don'tcha just hate them eh? Ginger people, though god knows they've got it coming! Regional differences, 'cos those easy to get on with and otherwise outwardly
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Possibly.
Definitely. They have to under the terms of the Regulatory of Investigatory Powers act. That act allows local councils to spy on you for almost any reason, of course it allows central government to spy on you on Facebook. Under the terms of that act if you fail to provide your private encryption keys then they can put you in prison: you have to show that you've deleted them.
If you work for an ISP, communications provider or some other organisation providing a service to a target you have to assist them in s
stupid (Score:2, Funny)
Besides being intrusive its not going to be very useful. I mean, how many terrorists are going to schedule their next bombing as a Facebook event and then say this is an open even you can also invite friends.
Re:stupid (Score:5, Funny)
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Someone make a note, that's probably the first (and last) time a Facebook link will ever appear on Slashdot. And even it's a 404. Heh.
Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees. (Score:5, Funny)
Terrorists? On MySpace? What, are they going to attack the train stations in their horned-rim glasses, striped shirts, excessive mascara, and tight girl pants? Unless they have the Perspective Gun (HHGTTG) that won't do a lot of damage. Really, even if they have razorblades they're just going to use them on themselves.
And Facebook. I can see it now...
11:15am - Jihad has been called! We are all so very excited, yes-m.
11:27am - is feeling very blue (they left to go get mcdonald's without me)
11:52am - Achmed didn't bring all the parts to build the bomb. We're watching House instead
12:56pm - Cutty really is a bitch! We must issue fatwa on her.
02:45pm - took nap. Unemployment called, they say I get free dollars. woo woo!
05:17pm - Achmed returns with rest of parts to build bomb, but comcast triple play package more fun
08:59pm - Got call from head of cell. Wants to know about bomb. What bomb? We lost bomb.
11:36pm - Go to bed. Really loving these american TV dinners.
Or not. Seriously -- we're just going to encrypt the crap out of everything in a few more years anyway, and the UK and other governments and piss off. Or we'll go back to having pseudonyms and fake identities online and only our friends will know the truth. *shrug* Terrorists... christ. I wish they would come and blow something up, just so we had the reminder they weren't entirely a figment of our imagination. In another 10 years, nobody will believe 09/11 happened because of all this screaming by politicians about 'teh terrorists' will have gotten so old people will start subconsciously rejecting anything to do with it.
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Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees. (Score:5, Funny)
05:17pm - Achmed returns with rest of parts to build bomb, but comcast triple play package more fun, when it works
05:30pm - Comcast down again. Fifth time today. Achmed suggests using bomb on them instead.
Fixed that for you.
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No, it's *Ahmed*.
PS. I kill you.
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Sorry, all the Ahmeds I have known have been Ahmed, but this one is in fact Achmed [youtube.com]. Must be the American spelling.
Re:Wow, you're even bigger liars than us yankees. (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean you stopped doing this for some reason!?!?!?!
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You wanted Myspace ? You have to take all of it!
You are forgetting something. (Score:5, Insightful)
Any form of communication might be used for nefarious purposes.
touch, sight, taste, smell. These could all be used to transfer information. Unless you plug into our brains directly you might miss something. Just give up.
Western society has forgotten what it means to stand up to oppressive leadership. We would rather stay comfortable and placated with our modern opiate.
Break the chains that bind you. Turn off your TV's, read books they don't want you to read, think for yourself.
One of the users on this board has a sig that is very significant:
There are 4 boxes to be used in the defence of liberty: Soap, Jury, Ballot, and Ammo. Use in that order.
I am a non-violent person (as are most of us). I believe more can be resolved with intelligent, logical discussion then could ever be resolved with violence, but I also believe that when the system is broken you cannot work within it.
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We would rather stay comfortable and placated with our modern opiate.
Says the person posting on /.
Yeah, I agree with what you said, but it just had to be pointed out ;)
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hehe, I did say _we_.
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Any form of communication might be used for nefarious purposes. touch, sight, taste, smell.
What does "bomb X tomorrow?" taste like?
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What's tragic is that people like you are laughed at where I live.
"You're saying we don't live in a free society? That's ridiculous!"
But it's not a ridiculous statement at all. The past 15 years has taken both the US and the EU much closer to totalitarian superpowers run by an elite of politicians rather than by the people.
People don't want this kind of monitoring everywhere, it's an agenda pushed by the ruling elite (which shouldn't even be "ruling" in the first place). Of course, saying this to any averag
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I am a non-violent person (as are most of us). I believe more can be resolved with intelligent, logical discussion then could ever be resolved with violence, but I also believe that when the system is broken you cannot work within it.
Yeah, quite a while ago someone said we were in a time where it's too late to work from within the system but too early to just shoot the bastards. I fear we have moved on a bit since then.
Just be honest (Score:3, Interesting)
Apologies for my last status update, UK government (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Apologies for my last status update, UK governm (Score:4, Funny)
You take that back! We have some of the finest Indian cuisine in the world.
I say, (Score:2, Funny)
This isn't really new. (Score:2, Insightful)
While Facebook stuff is already public, and you're utterly retarded if you post anything genuinely incriminating on it, there is still a danger -- now and in the future -- that the definition of "incriminating" may change.
The way The People's Republic of (formerly Great) Britain is going, it's only a question of time before your opinions (such as mine expressed here) will get you a visit from the State Sec
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the fact remains that the UK is now so controlled and monitored, that in the event of a dictator choosing to seize power, the UK population would be unable to fight back
And whose fault is that? The idiots in Government passing the stupid policies or the population that has allowed (even encouraged in some instances) them to do so?
Re:This isn't really new. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is ultimately the people who are the problem. Not just those who voted Labour, but those who are police officers, civil servants, people who work in ISPs, those who sit and watch through security cameras, anyone involved with the E-Borders scheme, anyone in Customs and Excise, and many, many more.
"befehl ist befehl" was proven not to be a defence at Nuremberg. Anyone co-operating with these totalitarian schemes is just guilty as the oppressors that are most surely coming, if not already here.
It is too late. The E-Borders scheme controls entry and exits more surely than the Berlin Wall. The Security camera network means they know where you are while you are in the country. The internet monitoring means they watch what you are doing and know who your friends are, the phone call logging means they know what you are saying, the ability to detain you without charge for longer than anywhere only helps. The population is fat, drunk and broke, and ever more geared towards hating "immigrants", as today's BBC "have your say" only proves. The tripartite excuse of "terrorism", "paedophiles" and "knife crime" are perfect covers for any eventuality.
What more does any dictator actually need? The tools are all there, cheerfully implemented by willing members of the population. These tools will eventually be used.
Can you imagine the reports? (Score:4, Funny)
At 15:43 terror suspect Lishmaki Alibababran tweeted "Whazup man?" to Obama Balali who proceeded to set his status to "Obama is watching 'UK today'. We believe this is part of a terrorist plot to stay informed about domestic and world news. Furthermore we may be able to use TV licensing laws against Obama as we have no record of him owning a TV license. This is further proof that piracy aids terrorism. In other news Beth Smith sent a private facebook message to Sally Tallman about Bill Wade that said: "He's soooooo hot". Sally was not impressed and replied "Stay away biatch, he's mine". Our operatives believe this may lead to violence and much bitchslapping at the Trinity school for girls on Monday morning and recommends that we send in a team of operatives.
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At 15:43 terror suspect Lishmaki Alibababran tweeted "Whazup man?" to Obama Balali who proceeded to set his status to "Obama is watching 'UK today'. We believe this is part of a terrorist plot to stay informed about domestic and world news. Furthermore we may be able to use TV licensing laws against Obama as we have no record of him owning a TV license. This is further proof that piracy aids terrorism. In other news Beth Smith sent a private facebook message to Sally Tallman about Bill Wade that said: "He's soooooo hot". Sally was not impressed and replied "Stay away biatch, he's mine". Our operatives believe this may lead to violence and much bitchslapping at the Trinity school for girls on Monday morning and recommends that we send in a team of operatives.
Sally is a lieing tramp.
Beth would never cheat on me.
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recommends that we send in a team of operatives.
Repeat: This is a purely observational mission. Do not intervene unless targets spot the multi-spectral cameras.
Oh come on (Score:5, Insightful)
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PS you Godwinned yourself
idiots (Score:2, Insightful)
In other news, terrorist groups who aren't fucking morons have long since switched all their communication to encrypted e-mail.
Seriously, Facebook?
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Hint: They aren't really after terrorists
Usenet (Score:2)
How Long? (Score:2)
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That's one of the reason I'm tagging ALL of the stories about the UK with
"crazykingdom"
Because I've read not a single post on /. that did not report on sheer lunacy and absolute mayhem thriving in the kingdom of the mentally insane.
And it's not just /., but all news site I ever read in several months, yes, this includes those of British newspapers. Great Britain is either on the brink of self-destruction or only n weeks before revolution, I don't know yet.
There's a way... (Score:2)
If the government wants to snoop Facebook, the pure volume of communications means they'll have to use some kind of filtering process. Take a page from the spammers' book. If enough people lard their communications with UK relatives and e-friends with buzzwords like "bomb" and "nuclear" and "nitrate", the cost to go through them and decide that they're all crap would be huge.
Time to have some fun, and invite these fascist pricks to honk on BoBo.
UK snoops bored to death (Score:2)
As government jobs which don't require being shot at or handling NBC waste go, the job of Facebook snoop is pretty lousy. Most of it is content-free chatter, but at least it's chatter by people you know. Having to monitor the content-free chatter of tons of strangers must be incredibly mind-numbing.
Not Orwellian (Score:2)
Orwell was distinctly against this kind of activity.
What I think you mean is Stalinist.
Terrorists now leaving Facebook in droves! (Score:2)
Either that or they're starting to post some wildly misleading info on their Facebook and other social networking site pages.
I remember around late 2001 or 2002, it was reported that "the terrorists" were using porn chatrooms to communicate, at least until that news was reported to the press, then they moved on to some other clandestine way to communicate.
With all the web forums, Usenet, email IRC and other Internet traffic, the government really will have to snoop everything to track terrorists.
for what reason (Score:2, Interesting)
New mod category... (Score:2)
The UK government, which is becoming increasingly Orwellian...
We need a new mod category: "understatement." I'm thinking more and more that Orwell was an optimist...
Nope, it's mislabelled (Score:3, Interesting)
Orwell's approach took too much manpower (in principle you still need to trust a few people to do the monitoring).
What the UK Government is doing is imprisonment of innocent people: it is creating a Panopticon [wikipedia.org] out of a whole country.
The signs are all there:
- continuous, seemingly unbroken coverage of the people watching you (the idea is to make you feel you're always being watched)
- penalties of minor infringements (also easier than solve the odd murder*)
- pretty much random justice ("We're the state, we ha
Solution... (Score:2)
Good, because terrorists regularly use Facebook (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, terrorists love Facebook so much! they always announce their plans in Facebook, in order to have their friends comment on them.
The terrorists also put the pictures of the terror act (you know, big-a$$ explosions and sh1t) on Facebook.
Someone in the UK gov has become paranoid...
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, yeah, but no. What goes on Facebook is public, but the real problem here is the expansion of the government (in this case, the UK) into areas that they do not belong for reasons that are, arguably, pretty stupid.
Additionally, some parts of Facebook are "private." IM conversations between friends, and the messages that pass between people on Facebook are two things I can think of. Those are not available to the general public (at least not via normal means).
But, again, the growth of the government into citizens private lives is the more important issue. Aren't any of the UK citizens concerned?
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I better clarify.
I didn't for one moment want to downplay the threat of mass surveillance and totalitarianism in the UK right now.
BUT, it's facebook. My expectation of privacy on the medium would be lower than unencrypted email.
Which is already very low.
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But FB contains 'privacy settings' allowing you to set varying levels for different items/data/movies/images you post. You can allow them to be viewed publicly by anyone, or just by your 'circle' of friends (including people not on your friends list who are merely 'friends of your friends'), or just by people directly on your friends list, or by you alone.
So what you post on FB isn't necessarily any more public than the files you hold on your local machine connected to the tubes. If you proactively restrict
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When I send someone an email through Facebook, I EXPECT it to be somewhat private. Is it wrong to expect your email to be private? You can bet your ass I'd sue if I emailed a friend and told them I was flying to (location) this weekend and the FBI showed up at my door wanting to play 20 questions about my legal and in no way suspicious trip.
If I didn't want it to be private, I might write a comment on their 'wall' or comments section or whatever.
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Interesting)
These days, there's been one real attack (and at the time, the UK was actually taking military action in the Middle East, as it is still doing), and the NuLabour overlords take that as affirmation that they can barcode, DNA tag, and record every single thing you do (attempts to monitor phone traffic, email, network, have mandatory trackers in your cars, they already have sensors in the waste bins you put your rubbish in to be collected by the bin men to record what you dispose of, CCTV that's used to spot people who take their kids to a school that they may not be in the official catchment area of, and other completely outrageous examples of totalitarianism that would have Orwell penning new chapters in 1984 over).
Actually, the register [theregister.co.uk] has a nice little snippet from our current overlords. I suspect they're ever so slightly slanting what was said, but hey, it says what a lot of us think anyway..
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"he government we've had for the last 12 years, near enough, has overseen a huge erosion in the English Civil Liberties. Hell, it's architected them."
From what I can tell from over hear accross the pond is that the economic crisis might be the lever that get's them tossed out.
Best wishes.
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-1 Troll
I appreciated the poster's response, and I'm glad he cares about what his government is doing. The problem is, not enough people do care about things bigger than, "OMG!!!11! WHO'S WINNING AMERICAN IDOL!!11!!" There are so many more important things to be involved with in this world and the snarky kind of comment that you just made is not necessary, not appreciated, and pretty much shows what's wrong with the way our world is currently being run (where only a few people have power because everybody
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There are two real options.
One is you attempt to use force, and then get gunned down in a blaze of stupidity by the military protecting the politicians, and be branded a terrorist yourself, and have your ideals associated with extremism, and thus debunked before sane debate can start.
Secondly, you pen a note to the representatives of your government expressing, as eloquently as you can, exactly why you think it's a terrible idea what they're doing.
Then you pen the media with the same.
And if you have a few s
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Re:Who cares (Score:4, Informative)
Concerned? Nah, not really.
The current incumbents are so fekking incapable they would struggle to work out which end of a USB stick goes where. The chances of them implementing *any* form of large scale IT system is zero. Zip . Nada. Not gonna happen.
They'll be out of office in a year or so anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming one's enemy is incompetent is a good way to end up dead or enslaved.
Point well taken, but in this case the enemy has repeatedly shown that if the magic word "technology" is uttered, there is truly no start to their competence.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Funny)
yeah, but no
but yea but no but yea but no but the government cant look at my page coz im not friends with them but that slag shelly who i hate has a crush on that fat brown and i cant block her cos then kelly will like, totally hate my guts!
not really (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Forced to choose, I'd rather they wasted my taxes by (not) spying on me incompetently than used them more "efficiently" to track me and every other damn person in the UK in the name of counter-terrorism.
Of course, the terrorists have already won- because the UK government's actions were exactly what all terrorists want, to disrupt and alter the behaviour of an entire nation on the basis of a small number of attacks. Remember that the next time you vote.
This assumes that the government didn't *want* to do th
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You have it right there. The reason is so that they can take your tax money.
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private messages? Who you look at? etc
You can't photograph the cops in the UK?? (Score:2)
When and why did this happen?
I know in the US, if the cops see you filming them, they will often try to harass you, but, I've never heard that it was downright illegal to photograph the police in action in a western nation like the US
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Re:Hmmm... you mean the CIA doesn't run it now? (Score:5, Funny)
I thought facebook was an intelligence gathering operation run by the CIA.
It might be good for gathering stupid, but hardly intelligence.
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