drat01 Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Well, you're an IT bod, but Assange has thought about this quite carefully and says in this recent interview I agree with him to certain degree about the ability to get any info and that was the basis of my arguments about "big brother" previously in that a lot of info about anyone is out there readily available and is used day to day many organisations not just some central Gvmt. There is a lot of BS in the media and the "outraged of Surbiton" about how Gvmt will watch anything and everything and that was the point in that while it's possible its is not eally viable to do that for everyone and anyone. The data and the sources of the info alone make that a pipe dream. There was a lot of BS about data being "lost" on discs previously which followed the same line of "outrage" when the reality of it is what that the data was never n some some Textpad format that anyone could just load onto their Tesco PC and get the full credit history and raid the bank accounts etc. There is a lot of work that goes on now to project such as Analytics which is effectively looking at data sources and using that for "business" reasons, a lot of IT companies do it in terms of selling solutions that many many organisations then use. Gvmt's and "powers that be" as said have to jump through certain hoops to actually get at the data sources and what I believe is being proposed is the removal of a lot of the hoops and make it a lot easier to target certain individuals and organisations. But I still maintain that this would never be a blanket monitoring of all emails and sms and similar data, the logistics are something that even the largest IT companies could not facilitate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 There was a lot of BS about data being "lost" on discs previously which followed the same line of "outrage" when the reality of it is what that the data was never n some some Textpad format that anyone could just load onto their Tesco PC and get the full credit history and raid the bank accounts etc. T well some of it appears to be just that , PA Consulting lost an unencrypted memory stick containing details high risk, prolific and other offenders. it was only 84,000 people though so nothing to worry about ( PA consulting specifically decoded previously encrypted information from the PNC and placed it on the memory stick !!) full list here some specifically mention the word "encrypted " some don't so hard to say the full extent of it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrackpotForeigner Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 I still maintain that this would never be a blanket monitoring of all emails and sms and similar data, the logistics are something that even the largest IT companies could not facilitate I very much want to believe you're right, Drat, but I think you're losing sight of two things: 1) Data storage is getting exponentially cheaper and easier all the time. It will soon be possible to store not just every email and every visit to every website, but everything ever recorded by CCTV cameras. (And face recognition tech now means they can work out who everyone in the CCTV footage is, if they choose to.) 2) It is very much in the interests of the State to collect everything they can. Everyone has secrets. Not necessarily anything heinous, just stuff you don't want everyone to know, and enough to turn public sympathy against you, should this be required. As Sir Tim B-L has pointed out, monitoring individual internet use gives the State enormous control over the individual. If I somehow developed a talent for political activism, I would certainly be nervous about what might be dug up, and I'm relatively law-abiding. I know you're saying that there won't be BLANKET storage of everyone's email, but even if that's true for now it seems a very slippery slope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drat01 Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 I very much want to believe you're right, Drat, but I think you're losing sight of two things: 1) Data storage is getting exponentially cheaper and easier all the time. It will soon be possible to store not just every email and every visit to every website, but everything ever recorded by CCTV cameras. (And face recognition tech now means they can work out who everyone in the CCTV footage is, if they choose to.) 2) It is very much in the interests of the State to collect everything they can. Everyone has secrets. Not necessarily anything heinous, just stuff you don't want everyone to know, and enough to turn public sympathy against you, should this be required. As Sir Tim B-L has pointed out, monitoring individual internet use gives the State enormous control over the individual. If I somehow developed a talent for political activism, I would certainly be nervous about what might be dug up, and I'm relatively law-abiding. I know you're saying that there won't be BLANKET storage of everyone's email, but even if that's true for now it seems a very slippery slope. Appreciate what you are saying but I am not sure you are correct, IMO. I work in the Data Storage / Recovery whole area for one of the, if not the biggest IT companies in the world. The physical size vs capacity and speed of access is improving at a rate that is needed to keep up with the massive increase in data year on year and to cater for requirements for differing types of media. Cost is not an issue here re ability to store the data that would be required its the whole infrastructure that would surround it, access it, secure it, capture it etc. Trust me to do what you are talking about there re every email, every CCTV footage etc, is not anywhere near possible at this moment nor will it be in your lifetime. There are some incredible things that are about to hit the streets in the next couple of years that will radically change the storage media, I have seen some of where we are now and its pretty impressive. Add to that things such as processing power and intelligence within the processors again are wow!, but to achieve what you are suggesting is not on the horizon In terms of why data is being kept there is a lot of fud that spouted out as to why data is kept and how "we should not let this happen" etc. Data profiling / Analytics / Intelligent Decision making etc etc is out there now and is used by many many organisations, commercial, Gvmt, charitable etc - basically you name it. That is done for many reasons that you can argue for good and for bad and that will never change and will in fact increase as people utilise what is effectively a key resource, i.e. data. Gvmt's of all political persuasions want to know what their people are doing that is a fact, but that does not mean that headlines from places like the Daily Mail etc are going to happen. There is a big difference between monitoring data and acting on it, again for good or bad whichever you think. What the Gvmt want to do here is remove a lot of the checks and balances needed for them to target and obtain data on certain individuals and / or organisations. The need for approval etc needs careful consideration before just removing it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drat01 Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 well some of it appears to be just that , PA Consulting lost an unencrypted memory stick containing details high risk, prolific and other offenders. it was only 84,000 people though so nothing to worry about ( PA consulting specifically decoded previously encrypted information from the PNC and placed it on the memory stick !!) full list here some specifically mention the word "encrypted " some don't so hard to say the full extent of it Not sure of your point at all here Tony. Just because a memory stick or whatever media is unencrypted does not mean a great deal. There are numerous encryption types and obviously their counterparts to unencrypt them. What format was the data in? What information was within these file(s) etc? How was it produced and what O/S was used etc etc etc, the list is endless. That list on Wiki is another one that really does paint the wrong picture. Look at the EDS loss for example. From what I know of that the "disk" was to be used in a mainframe environment. How many people have "spare" mainframes in their garage? - and yes I know you can run M/F on machines physically the size of desktops now, but not many do :-) I think very often that people start to relate their home computing experiences to that what happens in IT industries and in a lot of cases there is a apples and orange (see what I did there? :-) ) scenario. Similar in a lot of ways but not the same. Think how many laptops are lost and / or stolen each day, its a high figure. A lot of the data that people have on there is readily accessible for anyone to read, but still people will not secure it in any way. What about the usage of things such as "the cloud" to store data? What about the data that people offer to the world on a daily basis via Facebook, Twitter etc? Look at VT, people are happy to post pics of themselves basically telling anyone and everyone what they look like. Add to that a few comments about location, family status that many put in various threads and already the amount of data that is easily available re the individual is enough for a lot of things to happen. Someone wrote an article the other day about Pandora's box being opened if we allow data to be accessed and used. The problem is Pandora's box was nothing more than a lid and all of the data within it has been oozing out anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrackpotForeigner Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Appreciate what you are saying but I am not sure you are correct, IMO. I work in the Data Storage / Recovery whole area for one of the, if not the biggest IT companies in the world. The physical size vs capacity and speed of access is improving at a rate that is needed to keep up with the massive increase in data year on year and to cater for requirements for differing types of media. Cost is not an issue here re ability to store the data that would be required its the whole infrastructure that would surround it, access it, secure it, capture it etc. Trust me to do what you are talking about there re every email, every CCTV footage etc, is not anywhere near possible at this moment nor will it be in your lifetime. There are some incredible things that are about to hit the streets in the next couple of years that will radically change the storage media, I have seen some of where we are now and its pretty impressive. Add to that things such as processing power and intelligence within the processors again are wow!, but to achieve what you are suggesting is not on the horizon In terms of why data is being kept there is a lot of fud that spouted out as to why data is kept and how "we should not let this happen" etc. Data profiling / Analytics / Intelligent Decision making etc etc is out there now and is used by many many organisations, commercial, Gvmt, charitable etc - basically you name it. That is done for many reasons that you can argue for good and for bad and that will never change and will in fact increase as people utilise what is effectively a key resource, i.e. data. Gvmt's of all political persuasions want to know what their people are doing that is a fact, but that does not mean that headlines from places like the Daily Mail etc are going to happen. There is a big difference between monitoring data and acting on it, again for good or bad whichever you think. What the Gvmt want to do here is remove a lot of the checks and balances needed for them to target and obtain data on certain individuals and / or organisations. The need for approval etc needs careful consideration before just removing it I really hope you're right on all counts. I'm much less confident than you seem to be about several things, though, such as the ability of governments to prevent the data from being stolen, and the wisdom of setting a precedent which may be generally okay for a healthy democracy like the UK's, but very dangerous in the hands of rogue governments elsewhere. I also have major trouble with the idea of giving some faceless and unworthy government security operator the power to monitor random people's lives for any reason whatsoever. (For anyone wondering what a damned foreigner is doing caring about a seemingly UK issue: Similar things are being planned by the govt. of Australia and govts worldwide.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 I really hope you're right on all counts. I'm much less confident than you seem to be about several things, though, such as the ability of governments to prevent the data from being stolen It seems to be commonplace that vast amounts of personal data which we were assured was completely safe gets lost, stolen, leaked or otherwise compromised. Companies, governments, security services - none of them can be trusted to live up to their assurances on this. I also have major trouble with the idea of giving some faceless and unworthy government security operator the power to monitor random people's lives for any reason whatsoever. The US is now planning to introduce technology on public buses to record conversations, with the ability to strip out background noise, and co-ordinate with facial recognition software. But why stop there? Why not have every one of us followed by our own personal drone, to record everything we say and do? Or possibly some kind of implant would be simpler, like a black box for humans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drat01 Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 .......? Or possibly some kind of implant would be simpler, like a black box for humans. Must not make the obvious comment re women :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrackpotForeigner Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Why not have every one of us followed by our own personal drone, to record everything we say and do? Or possibly some kind of implant would be simpler, like a black box for humans. That's such a great idea. We'd have, like, no terrorism or paedophilia at all, ever ever. As an added bonus, governments would be able to go to war with anyone, any time, whenever they needed to boost their re-election hopes (assuming elections would still be a necessary evil). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colhint Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 but didn't we have all this stuff back in 1984 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted December 13, 2012 Moderator Share Posted December 13, 2012 Gvmt's of all political persuasions want to know what their people are doing that is a fact, but that does not mean that headlines from places like the Daily Mail etc are going to happen. There is a big difference between monitoring data and acting on it, again for good or bad whichever you think. What the Gvmt want to do here is remove a lot of the checks and balances needed for them to target and obtain data on certain individuals and / or organisations. The need for approval etc needs careful consideration before just removing it Dunno if that's a freudian slip, Ian, but it's utterly the wrong way round - it's not Gov'ts monitoring "their" people. The people own the Government, and any Government wanting to own, control, monitor "its" people is already in the wrong. They serve us. We are their masters. Politicians and governments always seem to work on the opposite basis as soon as they get in. It's that philosophical difference, minor as it may seem, which is at the heart of why all political parties (currently the Gov't) but before them Labour, are so wrong to go down this "gather everything" route. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Not sure of your point at all here Tony. Just because a memory stick or whatever media is unencrypted does not mean a great deal. There are numerous encryption types and obviously their counterparts to unencrypt them. What format was the data in? What information was within these file(s) etc? How was it produced and what O/S was used etc etc etc, the list is endless. That list on Wiki is another one that really does paint the wrong picture. Look at the EDS loss for example. From what I know of that the "disk" was to be used in a mainframe environment. How many people have "spare" mainframes in their garage? - and yes I know you can run M/F on machines physically the size of desktops now, but not many do :-) I think very often that people start to relate their home computing experiences to that what happens in IT industries and in a lot of cases there is a apples and orange (see what I did there? :-) ) scenario. Similar in a lot of ways but not the same. Think how many laptops are lost and / or stolen each day, its a high figure. A lot of the data that people have on there is readily accessible for anyone to read, but still people will not secure it in any way. What about the usage of things such as "the cloud" to store data? What about the data that people offer to the world on a daily basis via Facebook, Twitter etc? Look at VT, people are happy to post pics of themselves basically telling anyone and everyone what they look like. Add to that a few comments about location, family status that many put in various threads and already the amount of data that is easily available re the individual is enough for a lot of things to happen. Someone wrote an article the other day about Pandora's box being opened if we allow data to be accessed and used. The problem is Pandora's box was nothing more than a lid and all of the data within it has been oozing out anyway. i guess my point was that data leaks no matter what ..... and there are plenty of people out there who are capable of doing some damage with a tesco laptop ...probably more than you suggest sorta OT , but I'm reminded now of the time years back in my Field engineer days , where i used to do work for the MOD at Whitehall ... i had to have security clearance and all that and it was quite strict , arguably they took every precaution to ensure they had no leaks .... One of their Macs had the notorious sticking hard drive fault , whereby you could free the drive head by giving it a delicate tap in the right place and get it working long enough to back the data up off it before it went wrong again and replace the hard drive ... the MOD being clever people that they are then took the old faulty hard drive got a big hammer and we smashed it into thousands of pieces , all great fun and all very secure .. and thus security wasn't compromised ..... I then walked out their building with my backup drive , which was full of the data that I had backed up from the faulty hard drive .. presumably they thought I used witchcraft to transfer the data over !!! We had great fun with it back at the office , none of it was encrypted , we got to a point where some of the data may have got us into trouble ( we had all Thatchers security arrangements on it) .. we decided in the end it was best to wipe the drive at that point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Listening to bits of the shale gas discussion on the Daily Politics earlier and Caroline Lucas brought up the idea of whether the increased supply (were it to come to fruition) would have the effect on the price of gas in this country that the government believe. She was pooh-poohed by Hayes (and Neil) when she was talking about some of any increase in supply being exported and thus having less of a dampening effect upon prices than believed. I'd have thought that shale gas would just be feeding in to the existing gas transmission system (and the sale/supply in to existing gas markets) and that might suggest that Lucas had a point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Maria Miller on her expenses claims: ...We turned to her expenses. At issue are claims totalling £90,718 between 2005 and 2009 for a property in Wimbledon where her parents also lived — an arrangement that some say broke parliamentary rules. “Those expenses have been audited twice independently so I think everything’s in order,” said Mrs Miller. Who were these independent auditors? One, she said, was Sir Thomas Legg, the former civil servant who ordered 389 MPs to repay sums wrongly claimed in 2009. Did Sir Thomas know her parents lived there? Mrs Miller was unclear. “I obviously spoke to the Fees Office about my claims and they were happy that everything was in order,” she said. And who was the second “independent auditor”? The Culture Secretary replied that it was the Conservative Party which “audited all Conservative MPs’ expenses”. Her definition of independent may raise some eyebrows as the Tory panel was headed by the then Chief Whip and David Cameron’s chief of staff. I suggested that some members of the public might simply think it doesn’t smell right that Mrs Miller, who treats the Wimbledon property as her family home, listed it as a second home for expenses purposes, and a rented house in Basingstoke as her main home. “MPs live in two places and that’s what the rules reflected,” she responded. “And as I said, my expenses have been looked at in detail twice by two separate organisations and have been found to be entirely in order.” But whether inside the rules or not, might it not look to outsiders like a dodge to claim expenses on the privately owned property? “No,” she insisted. “As I said, all of my expenses have been audited in full and have been found to be entirely consistent with the rules.” Could not the same have been said by ex-MP Denis MacShane and others who quit after expenses anomalies that were missed by Legg? “I think they were found to have not adhered to the rules,” argued Mrs Miller. “That’s why they are no longer MPs.” So why, then, did she suddenly stop claiming on the Wimbledon home in 2009 — just as the expenses scandal erupted. “Because I think there was a lot of concern about the rules and, er, a lot of concern about, you know, the whole issue, and it’s something I felt that I didn’t want to be, sort of, mixed up in, the fact that I ...” Mrs Miller finally stopped trying to explain herself, and simply said: “I just made that decision.” Did she feel perhaps her expenses did not look right? “No.”So why stop claiming? “I’ve just said.”... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drat01 Posted December 14, 2012 Share Posted December 14, 2012 Dunno if that's a freudian slip, Ian, but it's utterly the wrong way round - it's not Gov'ts monitoring "their" people. The people own the Government, and any Government wanting to own, control, monitor "its" people is already in the wrong. They serve us. We are their masters. Politicians and governments always seem to work on the opposite basis as soon as they get in. It's that philosophical difference, minor as it may seem, which is at the heart of why all political parties (currently the Gov't) but before them Labour, are so wrong to go down this "gather everything" route. :-) not had much sleep recently Pete so mistake on my part in the way that was worded. You are right in context, but seeing how some politicians act both in Gvmt and at Council level you do see a lot of them who do think that we are their subservient ("Don't you know who I am" :-) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted December 14, 2012 Share Posted December 14, 2012 The people own the Government, and any Government wanting to own, control, monitor "its" people is already in the wrong. They serve us. We are their masters. That's certainly how it should be, but when we learn in the space of 24 hours that people acting with the resources and power of the state have conspired to have a civil rights lawyer shot dead in front of his own children, and other families kidnapped and sent to be tortured by Gadaffi's thugs, then covering up their crimes for many years, it seems we are quite some way from that state of affairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted December 14, 2012 Moderator Share Posted December 14, 2012 :-) not had much sleep recently Pete so mistake on my part in the way that was worded. You are right in context, but seeing how some politicians act both in Gvmt and at Council level you do see a lot of them who do think that we are their subservient ("Don't you know who I am" :-) ) The whole Andrew Mitchell thing, and numerous other examples, is more a case, I feel of individuals getting all fluffed up by self importance, and it's not limited to politicians, either. Film actors "stars" (that in itself is revealing). Anyway, while you're right, I kind of think it's actually a subtly different thing. My major concern is not individuals being arses, but an ingrained belief by elected politicians that we are their subjects, and they need to control us. That's certainly how it should be, but when we learn in the space of 24 hours that people acting with the resources and power of the state have conspired to have a civil rights lawyer shot dead in front of his own children, and other families kidnapped and sent to be tortured by Gadaffi's thugs, then covering up their crimes for many years, it seems we are quite some way from that state of affairs. Exactly - that's how bad it can get. It's why I think all attempts to corral us or what we do or say should be resisted. Yes, if we are subject to criminal investigation, then gathering information on our texts to people could be valid means of gathering evidence to prosecute, but just collecting, collating and filtering all data is to my eyes the wrong balance. And that's before you get into concerns about private bodies doing it, either for themselves, or under contract from the "authorities", or the general security of our personal and private data to which no Gov't has any right, and never should, without our individual consent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Breakfast. Sets you up for the day. Some people swear by it. Never eat it myself, except on the rare occasions I stay in a hotel. But do you know anyone who has ever, anywhere, paid £42.50 for breakfast? You should know that this obnoxious quente, who lives in a £2m Tudor farmhouse on the estate of his daddy-in-law, with tennis courts and swimming pool, and who wishes to cut benefits for people who can't find work, thinks it fit to charge you £42,50 for his breakfast. And yes, you did pay for this. Among oh so many other things, to maintain the fat oaf in the lifestyle to which he believes himself entitled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drat01 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 The man is a disgrace on so many levels but i do not expect cameron or osborne to even bat an eyelid at things like that. So many reports over the weekend from numerous sources showing how the poor are being targetted for the biggest cuts. The nasty party with their long held idealogical attacks on those who are the poorest in society are alive and well supported by clegg and his desire for 5 minutes of shame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted December 17, 2012 Moderator Share Posted December 17, 2012 I've stayed in Hotels where the Brekky has been that kind of price. I would always baulk at paying that price, even if it was on expenses, but on rare occasion, where there's been no alternative, and I know there's no chance of another feed till maybe the evening, I have had the breakfast. Our company now doesn't have people stay in that kind of hotel, but as a single claim, where we don't know the circs, it's OK, I guess. If he was doing it repeatedly, then you'd have to ask whether it was right. It's so easy to criticise without knowing all the circs. As Drat says, it's not eating an overpriced kipper that's the problem, but the policies the Gov't is following. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts