Be Excellent To Each Other

Another large, expensive database? What could possibly go wrong?

As with all these things, it won't actually help matters. With all that information, the level of noise becomes far too great to be of any practical, targeted use. Besides, wouldn't Mr Manoflowmoralfibre be using encryption or, perhaps, tunnelling through non-UK servers? On the plus side, it could become the national resource for unfunny forwarded jokes.

I would write to my MP for the umpteenth time but I've got bored of receiving forwarded Home Office form letters that do not address any of the points (especially when I take the time to painfully detail the flaws in the first one I receive).

Why are we storing all emails but not all paper letters.

Is this all an elaborate scam to shore up the Royal Mail?

Heh, maybe.

The counter-argument might be 'why do you trust Mr Google with your private correspondence', which handily omits the fact that you can withdraw your custom from them if they get annoying*

Probably just a floating balloon so the voters in the by-election think the governmet are Doing Something - I'm pretty sure there are existing surveillance networks that would be officially denied if pushed.

* I was on Sinister Facebook before it went crap

Well my answer to the first question there is "I don't", although of course that supports your point even more.

I would just ask one question about this:
What is the point?

What a waste of money.

More evidence if any were needed that the Labour party have gone completely bonkers. Can't believe we have to wait two years to kick the bastards out.

Mmm. To be honest, they can do what they like with my email. I make the choice to send out my thoughts in completely plain text unencrypted on the internet. Phone calls have an expectation of privacy though, so that's another matter.

Er. Why would phone calls have an expectation of privacy that e-mails don't? Because they've been here for longer?

I don't really know. I just feel that there is.

Perhaps because you know email is already in text, and is already stored all over the place (on an essentially public network) in the normal course of things.
If you use Gmail to store mailing lists you know how easy it is to immediately find something that you (or anyone) said several years ago.

It's a lot harder to mass-eavesdrop on phonecalls so traditionally it hasn't been possible, so people haven't even entertained the prospect.

So, who's going to be first to write software* that listens to line-in, compresses and encrypts the audio, inserts it steganographically into a pre-recorded conversation, and plays it out the headphone socket into a phone handset. And vice versa at the other end.

* ...and publicise it. I'm sure at least one government agency will have developed something along these lines already.

Can't you already do encrypted VOIP? That would seem more straightforward and potentially less suspicious

Slight topic swerve, where did I read about the police routinely Googling you, if they arrest you on suspicion of something?

Stories pop in the news every now and then about people getting caught because they've been boasting on their myspace page or facebook account. But if you're dumb enough to do that, you deserve everything you get.

That's why you should have the name of a famous person... You should try googling for me (Malcolm Macdonald) and eliminating all the references to the 70s footballer.

Malc

The current political landscape is fascinating to watch. This has to be one of the biggest implosions of a government in recent British history, and the most amazing thing is that there's nothing to fill the gap. At least when the Tories sank in the 1990s, Labour looked like a bloody good bet to get Britain going again. Now, however, I don't think anyone really thinks Cameron and co. are anything special, and yet Labour's polling only a few points above the Liberal Democrats, and has somehow managed to convince a huge chunk of the electorate to hold their nose, swallow hard and vote Tory.



The funny thing is, with FPTP, Labour might still be able to sneak in, and so Clegg's talking about getting the Tories into power via coalition might not be as stupid as it initially seemed, if (and that's a very big if) it can push through massive electoral reform as a matter of urgency in the UK.

What bliss it was that dawn to be alive...

(Thank you, Mr Blair, for pissing all over my youthful idealism and turning me into a misanthropic cynic)

Deliberately masking your electronical what-are-obviously-conversations versus apparently normal, trivial, unmasked phone chats?

Unless you're expecting a CCTV camera in every room some time soon with which the government can spy your contraptions.

Yes, I am expecting that.

This is terrible.

I wrote about this (and the shopping centres that record every move you make from your mobile, and the 4 million CCTV cameras that have reduced crime 3%) here.

Main crux of my post though, is that instead of arguing on line about it. We should be moaning at our MPs. Use Write to them to send of an email.

It'll only take a few minutes.

And say what?

That recording every phonecall, email and internet session makes this country a surveillance state and as my MP you should represent me by doing all in your power to turn this bill down, and make the Data Protection Act forbid such ideas in the future.

Thats why this was released early, to try and get it killed before it starts. If MPs get a bunch of emails now, they'll not want to face this issue with the election coming up.

You have one? Or is it some joke that I've failed dismally to get?

AceAceBaby's notability > RevStu's notability. OFFICAL TRUFAX.

You have a wikipedia entry then? Cool

Especially if AAB turns out to be the Stuart Campbell that's a murderer.

My surname is a recognised political 'ism' that is considered integral to a somewhat offbeat religion. Trufax.

Dhal?

Malc

ism, not sim.

I know that, the 13 year old (or whenever it was) didn't

Malc

God Damn it guys, if this was in place, then maybe we could stop stuff like this from happening:

Radical (mental) Muslim Blows up Exeter

Malc

'Radicalised' is my new favourite word. I will use it in place of 'excellent' for the next month.

Be Radicalised To Each Other?

Least blown up restaurant ever.

Can you blow the picture up please, I can't really see it.

Edit - Ignore this, I should've read the article.

He didn't even blow himself up. Why are we still under attack from the Keystone Jihad?

Radicalised, huh?

Better watch out then, he'll be mighty reactive.

Do not want.

ON a similar note, I was reading in the Law Gazette (yeah, I know, slow days) about the council using RIPA to spy on a family to ascertain if their child qualified for a certain school. They got bitchslapped over that.

Well, I guess that's my begrudging support for the coalition gone then.

Fuckers. Absolute fuckers.

It'll never fly, have they not got any idea about the amount of information they will need to store, even if just capturing the envelope information for each message over a period of 12 months.

Its more than will fit on my hard disk at home, that's for certain...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/26 ... ice_price/