Police condone covert Internet surveillance

I am in shock.

The City of London police have recently dropped their inquiries into secret BT trials of a web spying technology developed by Phorm. The technology, known as Webwise, allows the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to track and monitor every website that its customers visit.

Corporate Watch

So we are being spied on - which I knew about anyway, even despite the whole 'phorm' farce - and the Police don't care?

Is this not a breach of privacy?
Is this not a breach of data protection laws?

There is no lack of criminal intent? So you need a mens rea to commit any crime now do you? I was always of the view that ignorance of the law was no excuse for breaking it.

How can they possibly say that BT customers are giving implied consent?

If people new that every website they looked at was being recorded they would NEVER agree to it.

This will seriously alter many people's browsing habits I think. Perhaps that is part of the plan.


Big Brother is watching us more and more.

This is a big steaming pile of bull poo and people should be up in arms about this.

I am.

Peace,

MGGG

I believe that your ISP's server already logs every site that your IP address has requested a page for, and all the police have to do is get a warrant to search those logs. You have never had any privacy on the Internet, anymore then you do on a public street.

reply to post by defcon5


Yes there no expectation of 'privacy' in public, but there's a big difference between that, and having someone follow you around everywhere, jotting down your every movement in a little notebook.

With regard to BT and Phorm, this story has been on 'slow release' for the last six months or so. Where was the outcry? I assume the British people demanded their legislature address this issue. Did that not work?

Sorry for the sarcasm. But really, a country that installs 10s of thousands of CCTV cameras in major cities shouldn't be surprised at stuff like this. If the police are looking for 'potential criminals', who exactly does that exclude from their scrutiny?

All Inter net serice providers record witch web sites you goto, just as in what web sites you visit can spark another person interest in you and monitor what you do. Every computer has a back door. If some one where to post there IP address, any one could attack//access there system, your hard drive even has a ghost drive which compresses all files and saves them for all time. A way to block ISP's hold on you is to connect through proxie servers. the Inter net is an evil place, If you don't have anti spy ware programs installed , I strongly suggest to go download spybotsearchanddestroy full version from a #W RZ# site. Norton is crap. Also , Microsoft has virus programmed into all there software that activate when dates and times are reached , so in theory , with the push of a button , all computers that use Microsoft programs could easily be controlled and internet be censored. Just always remember the computer is not as friendly as you think.

When I was younger, was blessed with a high performance computer for that time period , got a game, lead to hacking and stealing other accounts , getting highly illegal programs from the source, and hacking and what not kept going from there. Anyways , my ISP was not happy at all and called my house and found out I was only 14, and said if I continue , they will report me to the FBI.
from there point of view, 10,000 connections were appearing at my house and all connecting to a website.

reply to post by Ian McLean


The server does this by default though. When you put a URL in your Browser, it forwards that, along with your IP address to the ISP. The ISP server logs that, then attempts to connect to the content on Internet, download it, and pass it back to the IP that requested it. Al of these actions are very specifically logged in the server. All that is required to track that information down is a warrant, and a search of the server logs for your IP address. If I had access to your ISP's server log I could easily list all your actions for the day, in as many keys as it takes to type in “select ###.###.###.### from IPAddress”.

reply to post by LetsPlayFeedTheGater


That sounds more like you were sharing something, like running a web page of downloads or using a file sharing program.

reply to post by LetsPlayFeedTheGater


Proxies do not block your ISP, your ISP MUST have your IP or it cannot return the content to your computer. Without your IP the ISP has no idea who asked for the sent information to send it back to the computer. A proxy will only block your IP from the server that you are making the request to.

Originally posted by defcon5
reply to post by LetsPlayFeedTheGater

 

Proxies do not block your ISP, your ISP MUST have your IP or it cannot return the content to your computer. Without your IP the ISP has no idea who asked for the sent information to send it back to the computer. A proxy will only block your IP from the server that you are making the request to.

It was to my understanding that Tor was a way around this exact thing, and that as long as you did not transmit private data it was in a word anonymous?

reply to post by Bringer


TOR looks like it bounces you around before going to the URL of the site that you want to get to. However, in my understanding, it still has to go from your computer, to the ISP, then to the first TOR server. Information coming back has to come back to your ISP then be routed back to your computer to receive it. There is only one way I know of to skip this ISP step.

Tor is a software project that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.

Originally posted by defcon5
reply to post by Bringer

 

TOR looks like it bounces you around before going to the URL of the site that you want to get to. However, in my understanding, it still has to go from your computer, to the ISP, then to the first TOR server. Information coming back has to come back to your ISP then be routed back to your computer to receive it. There is only one way I know of to skip this ISP step.

Tor is a software project that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.

I see your point pretty clear, But what if the information coming from the Tor server to your isp then to you was encrypted. that would allow anonymity. Wouldn't it

New age of Industrial Espionage and Government Surveillance

Ian Appleyard

The internet is proving a fertile ground for the passing of coded information under the guise of innocent and often “geeky” posting on a variety of public forums. The need for secret coded radio broadcasts conveying messages to operatives in the field is increasingly a thing of the past. The latest example concerns a group of quasi Government operatives with covert roles obscured by perfectly plain and unsensational occupations and interests to the casual on-looker. However, closer inspection can reveal numerous inconsistencies between the public persona of these individuals and facts about these individuals that may be discovered by more detailed analysis.

In a recent case an individual named Mike Channon was inadvertantly exposed via a Government Select committee report in which his name was left un-anonomised (hardly a surprise given recent data protection breeches). Further investigation shows that the operative was using the internet alias Mike Channon BA Lic. IPD and various forums to establish a persona as a “geeky” expert on mobile phones. Ostensibly, nothing appears untoward and indeed he does have some expertise in this field; three e-mails to the email address given on his website www.mikechannon.net , were responded to with relevant and useful responses. However, a question regarding some relatively basic software coding was met with the response “I do not have expertise in this area, I suggest you contact coders on www.xda-developers.com” XDA-Developers is one of forum sites on which Channon is active. Of course this is only note-worthy because we know Channon to have been a prolific and active programmer as recently as three years ago; although never to our knowledge, publically and under his own name. This of course may have been the reason he became involved with the more seemy world of covert operations. His very anonymity and the fact that there are no internet records prior to 2005 on the existence of this man, suggest the ideal candidate for a public role as a nerdy yet entertainingly funny figure who hides a more manipulative behind the scenes function.

Channon is easily found, in fact surprisingly easily found on the net, with sparse and even innacurate Google searches. He should not be confused with Mick Channon a former footballer and other people of the same name.
The one with which we are concerned uses the letters BA Lic. IPD after his name. “BA” proves to be a degree from Robert Gordons Institute of Technology in Aberdeen, Scotland (now the Rober Gordon University) gained in 1985. No records have been traced for “Lic. IPD”. As internet search engines “crawl” and therefore list forums very rapidly, his listings are updated daily. This provides an excellent means of covert communication with his colleagues.

It is not possible for us to detect what aspect of his posting is used for less than obvious communication, although it seems many forums employ an “off-topic” section that he uses, if anything, more frequently than regular technical forums. It may be the case that his entry on is the kind of post we should be examining with more care. Other sites link to Channon’s website including the famous Wikipedia. We could not ascertain whether such links are provided by innocent “techies” , hackers or Channon himself. The referenced Wikipedia entry is shown on the “Wikipedia edits page” as having been entered by a Prof. Iain Scott for whom no revealing information seems available.

It is almost impossible to know the exact nature of Channon’s funtion in the wider context, or indeed whether he has one, following the revelation of his identity. It is certainly not possible to reveal the sources of our information and for legal reasons we cannot confirm the voracity of our information that he is instrumental in methods to deploy the surveillance technology for spying on email and telephone calls as outlined by The Times newspaper on October 5 As stated in the article,

“GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project.”

The article goes on to say

“Hundreds of clandestine probes will be installed to monitor customers live on two of the country’s biggest internet and mobile phone providers - thought to be BT and Vodafone. BT has nearly 5m internet customers.”

Other projects with which Channon is allegedly concerned (though not revealed to the Select Committee) are the protection and security lapses within Government itself, including means of communicating sensitive material in ways that avoid recent serious breeches of security (Li nk) and again in relation to breeches of the Official Secrets Act

The role of Channon and his ilk would not normally be exposed to the general public gaze without leaks and careless breeches by the very Departments created to spy on the rest of us. In the normal course of events Channon’s identity is protected under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000

It is further rumoured, though evidence is lacking, that Mike Channon has been involved at some level in the development of the latest Microsoft Office Spy software.

The implications of these activities may be scant for most of us, in as much as it represents no more than a new variant on the ways in which Government operatives communicate covertly. As such it does not indicate an increased level of such activity in itself. Of much greater concern however is the nature and level of Government surveillance on the general public, rather than as formerly, focused on the activities of criminals and foreign nationals. It may be of course, of some concern to many, that the websites they view, may be rather more than meets the eye!


[edit on 9-11-2008 by IanAppleyard]

Hell of a first post, Welcome to ATS.

Give me some time to reread your post and consider the implications of what you are saying.

Hope you enjoy your time here.

Peace,

MGGG

Wish I could say more, but that could be a bit tricky!!.

This forum seems a bit finicky about links than my more regular sites. Having problems getting the links to work - they work in edit preview and then disappear when I save the edit. Oh well I'll keep trying. Also when I try to delete one letter whole paragraphs vanish - then it works normally - strange.

Ian

[edit on 9-11-2008 by IanAppleyard]

reply to post by IanAppleyard


It looks like you're putting quote marks around the URL= portion of your links, which is causing them to not work. Also, the 'edit preview' function of ATS is broken -- it will revert the text in the edit box when you use it. To preview an edit, press Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C to copy all the text to the clipboard, then press 'preview', then press Ctrl+V to paste the modified text back into the editor. Otherwise you will preview okay but lose the changes when you post.

Thanks for the infos.

Thank you -I'll digest that info and investigate the quote marks you mention.

Thanks again

Ian

EDIT: You were absolutely correct about the quotes - removed them and links are now working - Cheers

[edit on 9-11-2008 by IanAppleyard]

Well folks more on the Mike Channon stroy above.

It looks like following my post above he (or someone) has suddenly removed several thousand of his posts from various places.

For example - I found a thread started on xda-Developers Off-Topic section on 27 October. It was congratulating Mike on reaching 4000 posts.
forum.xda-developers.com...

BUT over the past couple of weeks hundreds have been disappearing and when I llast ooked his post count is down to around 2980.

To anyone who knows about forums, they'll know it's not at all easy to delete thousands of posts without causing utter chaos and upsetting other forum members. How was it done? ... and why has nobody there noticed?... a high profile guy suddenly drops thousands of posts and no comment is made!!

It's a shame 'cos some mates of mine were going to spend some time trying to pick out the underlying messages i his posts, or at least try to find out how he was doing it. Stupidly, I did not copy them before they disappeared. I do notice some still exist where they are quoted by other members at xda-Developers.com, so might get something from those.



[edit on 23-11-2008 by IanAppleyard]

Thanks for the interesting update, Ian.

Are you a journalist by chance?

Peace,

MGGG