Further expansion of Big Brother state and Pilots

[Pace]

Plans for a massive expansion of ‘Big Brother’ state surveillance to cover every phone call, email, text message and internet visit in Britain were unveiled yesterday.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claimed
that storing details of individuals’ communications was vital to prevent further terrorist atrocities.
Activities which will be subject to snooping for the first time include visits
to social networking sites such as Facebook, auction sites such as eBay, gaming websites and chatrooms.

Yet another madness and interferance with our civil liberties by a government hell bent on turning the UK into a Big Brother State where every part of your personal life will be open to scrutiny and data held on your every breath.

Apart from the cost of creating this Spy society how would pilots suffer more than the average guy/girl in the street.

This as usual is being carried out in the name of terrorism prevention and Pilots of all types must be high on the list of potential targets for this sort of spying.
Ie we will be a special case for having all our phone calls, E mails, text messages internet access examined.

How do you all feel about this latest madness by a mad government who are hell bent on controlling our lives to a greater extent than any communist country?

Pace nb we will even have to watch what we put in pprune. Not sure whether this should be in Rumours and News as it has Civil liberty implications for All pilots ATPLs to PPLs

[ChampChump]

It's already a public forum.

With its proven level of competence in data collection and storage, HMG doesn't really present that much of a threat IMO. It's not as if there's going to be hundreds of people wearing headsets - more likely some expensive, useless software that no one has time to interrogate properly, I'd have thought.

That said, I agree about the principle. This is one for the Rant Thread on JB.

[gpn01]

HM Government, via the NHS, has already invested £12Bn in developing a system that provides the ability to 'track' somebody (in this case a patient and their interactions with the NHS). That project continues to escalate in cost and fail to deliver, so what chance is their of having a master database of everybody in the UK along with all their SMS messages, emails and website hits ? If GCHQ achieves it then I think they should get their team to get the other government IT systems to start working1

The whole issue of communication monitoring is nothing new. The Echelon Project became public in 1999 (BBC NEWS | World | Echelon spy network revealed (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/503224.stm)). There's other, well documented examples of communication interception in earlier years....only need to look at the aerials at Capenhurst that used to monitor phone lines between UK and Ireland.

Bringing back the aviation theme, what potential is there to develop airborne surveillance above and beyond what's already happening ? That's where UAV's as ELINT platforms start to need more controlled airspace (happening already)......and you thought Mode-S was all about improving safety ? When "interoperability" is mentioned, they don't just mean Cessnas and Boeings sharing airspace you know!

[BigEndBob]

Why do governments tell us they are going to do such things. Why not just do it and say nothing? They probably do.

Or is this just a poor attempt to try and frighten off terrorists from using such.
And then lose what intelligence they may gather.

[Fuji Abound]

There was a very good series of articles in New Scientist within the last month or so on this topic - or at least the problems associated with this type of surveillance. If you are seriously interested the articles are well worth a read.

These articles certainly make you appreciate how difficult effective surveillance in these areas is - the more so if you have something to hide and are aware that you might be subject to surveillance.

You would come away convinced that if you didn’t wish your emails etc to be deciphered this wouldn’t be too difficult to achieve.

Modern cipher based encryption techniques render communications of this sort almost impossible (if not impossible) to decipher even with access to the most powerful computers we have available. I suspect there is a reasonable flow of traffic of this type already - commercial espionage is a real concern for many, who are not about to allow trade secrets to be disseminated by anyone soon.

Of course they might catch those who are completely illiterate in such techniques if they are lucky.

So far as us pilots are concerned the pile of anti terrorism forms I saw recently waiting for some one to collect them months later is enough to make me wonder whether the authorities are able to deal with the sources of information already in place without adding to it.

All that said, pilots are in a privileged position having the ability as we do to so quickly cross international boundaries. I am not so sure we should be too concerned about safe guards to protect those privileges so long as they are proportionate. Whether or not monitoring of this type meets that criteria is a moot point.

[LH2]

There is a fundamental problem with the UK government's way of thinking:

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claimed
that storing details of individuals’ communications was vital to prevent further terrorist atrocities.

Well, I for one would be quite happy with the odd atrocity now and then, as long as I can otherwise get about my business unimpeded. If that was good enough in the 80's, why can't it be good enough now?

Plus what is it with all this trying to have the entire population under surveillance? If they can't tell the good from the bad, either their intelligence services are incompetent, or the politicians and bureaucrats don't trust them. I hope it's not the latter, else all is lost.


With its proven level of competence in data collection and storage, HMG doesn't really present that much of a threat

Oh, they're bound to get better eventually if they try hard enough... maybe :E

[IO540]

Modern cipher based encryption techniques render communications of this sort almost impossible (if not impossible) to decipher even with access to the most powerful computers we have available. I suspect there is a reasonable flow of traffic of this type already - commercial espionage is a real concern for many, who are not about to allow trade secrets to be disseminated by anyone soon.

Very true - I doubt GCHQ can crack 1024 bit RSA, etc. But they don't really need to (although they would certainly like it if they could). They can do unlimited traffic analysis. Who is emailing who, who is calling who, who is texting who, etc.

And most of the stuff will be in clear because it is trivially easy to identify encrypted emails, faxes, texts, etc. If you really want to draw attention to yourself, start using encryption...

A lot of surveillance works because the target is unaware he is under suspicion. So he goes about his usual business, emailing his usual contacts, travelling to meet his usual associates... and of course filing the GAR form every time :)

[englishal]

That is the beauty of Skype type communications - it is encrypted and so can't be intercepted easily.

The NSA could crack most encrypted messages in minutes using brute force and super computers. When you have thousands of processors running in parallel, even all the1024 bit encryption combinations can be tried pretty quickly.

What worries me though is the number of "average speed check" numberplate recognition cameras popping up on Britains motorways. I wonder if that is all they are used for......?

[Fuji Abound]

The NSA could crack most encrypted messages in minutes using brute force and super computers. When you have thousands of processors running in parallel, even all the1024 bit encryption combinations can be tried pretty quickly.
Are you sure?

Most better encryption software these days use 2048-bit RSA, 4096 is common place. The largest RSA key on record as being cracked is 663 bit which took over 50 years of 2.2 Ghz Opteron time. In fact if you can do better you could earn some money - even if the initial prices are no longer available.

MathWorld News: RSA-200 Factored (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/news/2005-05-10/rsa-200/)

With the debts our government has if they can do it, even they might have been tempted by the top prize!

If you really want to draw attention to yourself, start using encryption...

I am not sure that is so. Corporations are commonly using encryption. I work with a number of companies who encrypted everything to do with their financial communications. Indeed the tighter corporate governance legislation becomes the more encryption will be used. I suspect that profiling is more likely the preferred route to identifying suspect material.

.. .. .. And does all this affect us pilots - probably not a lot.

[englishal]

The company I used to work for had a cluster capable of carrying out 70 trillion calculations per second - 70 teraFlops. I think it was one of the fastest in Europe when it came out and was equivalent to 20,000 PC's. So it could reduce the time to crack the 663 bit code to 333 days. By contrast Los Alamos has a 1375 Teraflop computer, which could crack it in 16 days......Give it a few years......

I reckon the NSA has something more powerful ;)

[Fuji Abound]

Englishal

I suspect you are right - I wonder what power they really have at their disposal.

However as you point out even with that level of power it falls a long way short of RSA-4096 code cracking doesnt it? Do you think anyone has the power to really tackle this?

['Chuffer' Dandridge]

It's probably already being done anyway..........

That's why I always sign off on Facebook as saying that Gordon Brown is a useless C**t, and his party of Champagne socialists are just a bunch of Guardian reading, lentil eating, sandal wearers :ok:

Bugger, I've just admitted i'm on facebook:eek:

[Pace]

Chuffer

The point I was trying to make is not about the government checking up on the population of the UK which is what this article was about.

More likely E mails, Telephone calls, text messages will be monitored by what the government/authorities consider as target groups to monitor.

Without going into what constitutes a target group ie suspected terrorists or high threat races an obvious target group are PILOTS.

They have licence details on every pilot in the country and I have no doubt that the numbers of licenced pilots are tiny compared to the population.

What would we as PILOTS feel about having our phone calls monitored, our E mails read our internet access watched etc etc etc.

That to me stinks of infringing our civil liberties?

Pace

['Chuffer' Dandridge]

I agree it certainly does infringe civil liberties, but no more than being monitored when i drive (ANPR cameras), walk (CCTV cameras), or use my mobile phone every day. Even if i get flashed by a speed camera, I am automatically guilty unless I can prove my innocence. The days of 'ordinary' people being given the benefit of the doubt has long gone.... and in the Government and Police eyes, we are all guilty..

My point is that surveillance of this type is almost certainly being carried out already. Maybe not to all of the population, but certainly I'm sure that in the name of 'terrorism', the Government and security services have a free hand to do just as they please to monitor and track individuals whenever they please.

[Fuji Abound]

What would we as PILOTS feel about having our phone calls monitored, our E mails read our internet access watched etc etc etc.

I have to say I am unclear what the present situation is and how this will change.

Is it currently legal to:

1. Monitor telephone calls, mobile or otherwise, without court consent - I had understood it is not,

2. Is it legal to monitor emails and other internet traffic. I understood it is, but if you wish to identify the subject by reference to their ISP then again a court order was required.


By implication, if this correct, it would be internet taffic that you attribute to yourself (by identifying the person or people by name in the email) that is of concern to you, or instances where court orders are obtained ex parte.

Subject to the afore, I have a degree of symphathy. You mention chat rooms and face book, however if you choose to identify yourself on these forums, you have already placed yourself in the public domain. After all by definition they are public domain media. If you do not choose to identify yourself then I suspect it would be difficult for the authorites to establish who you are without resort to the Courts - and in the case where a pilot posts video on uTube showing himself involved in an illegal act why should the authorities not seek to establish who was the culprit? (bikers "proudly" showing themselves riding along a country lane at 150 mph is a classic and common case in point). So far as eBay is concerned it is well known the site is used both to trade in items that infringe copyright, trademarks, are stolen or the trader does not declare VAT or tax. I am not suggesting that is eBays fault (who have taken conisderable steps to curtail these activities) but for these reasons HMRC have had a special team involved in monitoring traders on eBay for some time - is that either a surprise or wrong that they shoudl do so?

[Sir George Cayley]

The lads and lasses at GCHQ must be monstrously bored by all this prattling.

Lets give them a wake up call.

BOMB FACTORY, COVERT CELL, PLOT, 5TH NOVEMBER, PARLIAMENT,

GUY FAWKES.

Uh huh, gotta go there's a coupla blacked out people carriers pulling up outs..

[robin]

Oh goodie

That means Emilia Fox will be on the scene shortly - (lust, lust, dribble, dribble)...:mad:

[bjornhall]

an obvious target group are PILOTS

The thread might have some relevance to this forum if you could motivate why that is.

[Pace]

The thread might have some relevance to this forum if you could motivate why that is.

Bjornhall

Simple really because to the government aircraft = terrorism and terrorism= aircraft. Pilots flew aircraft into the twin towers so keep a special eye on pilots in case it happens again?

Not rocket science to work that one out :)

Pace

[bjornhall]

Not rocket science to work that one out

Right, it would take something else entirely...

The world is full of real problems, too. Such as how the proposed actions affects everyone; not especially pilots.