Govt. To track personal internet use?

[OkToBeTakei]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013 ... ive-letter

The five biggest internet companies in the world, including Google and Facebook, have privately delivered a thinly veiled warning to the home secretary, Theresa May, that they will not voluntarily co-operate with the "snooper's charter".

In a leaked letter to the home secretary that is also signed by Twitter, Microsoft and Yahoo!, the web's "big five" say that May's rewritten proposals to track everybody's email, internet and social media use remain "expensive to implement and highly contentious".

Indeed.

The companies also detail an alternative approach to extend existing arrangements for them to meet the requests for personal data from the police and security services, including a new UK-US bilateral initiative to make the process faster and more efficient.

They argue that this would be more effective and reduce the need for new primary legislation that would be both expensive to implement and highly contentious.

Home Office ministers have always said they hoped to rely on voluntary collaboration with the main internet companies, such as Facebook and Google, on handing over sensitive personal data about British users to make the "snooper's charter" work.

They have so far declined to spell out how they would force them to hand over data but officials have confirmed that, in extreme circumstances, they would consider using probes, also known as "black boxes", to intercept such data from overseas-based services as it passed through British communications networks.

The home secretary said at the weekend that access to communications data was essential for the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to do their job and they must be given the "tools they need" to fight crime, including paedophiles and terrorists.

A Home Office statement issued earlier this week said: "The government is continuing to look at ways of addressing this issue with communication service providers. This may involve legislation."

It's a hot topic on the news in the UK following the trial of Mark Bridger convicted of killing 5yr old April Jones yesterday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/3 ... rk-bridger

For the likes of Google and Facebook, the accessibility of child abuse images online is a toxic issue for consumer internet giants who are legally, ethically and reputationally obliged to make it as difficult as possible for material to be distributed. Yet while the internet giants and major web publishers work to ban indecent images of children through the Internet Watch Foundation, critics are warning that the situation is getting worse.

Google, in particular, is reluctant to be publicly drawn into the debate in the wake of the Bridger and Hazell verdicts. The Internet Service Providers Association would say suggestions to block internet access completely from convicted abusers would be unworkable because of cheap, internet-ready mobile devices, and more granular monitoring of the billions of pieces of material online would be impossible, logistically and financially.

But there are examples when the major US social networks do act: Facebook is still smarting from a campaign led by women's groups who demanded — successfully — that the site remove offensive and hateful material that appeared to celebrate violence against women, including a photograph of a woman in a pool of blood with the caption "I like her for her brains".

I'm conflicted over this. On one hand I would have no issue being tracked online by the government as I am a law-abiding individual so why should I mind if it was to prevent even just one child being sadistically abused and exploited online?

On the other hand it would be so open to misinterpretation, error, and abuse by over zealous law/political bodies I suspect.

Never mind civil liberties, freedoms. Shit storm that one.

The big 5 though. I'm not convinced that some 'workable' compromise could not be met. I just don't think the British govt. pushing the issue in this manner is going to work.

Thoughts Fj- ers around the world?

Big Brother is watching :mouse-shock:

[AVENues]

I pity them. I have tons of memes that I receive from the kids, atrocious cartoons that I have to pretend I've never even heard of, I hate porn so no porn, longskirt travel and group pics at the end of each 3 month courses, assignments, teacher's materials, BBC english and some conspiracy I got from youtube or soulseek. Normally, next week they are in the mainstream news. I also have relaxation music, zumba videos, Montessori stuff, downloadables. I pity them. I soooo... pity them.

[Guest Anonymous]

I don't like the idea of the Snoopers' Charter. The "If you've got nothing to hide..." argument seems like a cheap trick. It makes people want to prove their innocence, to show just how above-board they are, as a way of tricking them into supporting something wildly invasive.

Also, I think my Internet history would make me look like a psychopath. Quiver Full of Snark is like a portal to the blogs of child beaters, rape apologists, American secessionists, racists, gun nuts, and all manner of other creeps and bigots. We've even snarked on a blog that defended the use of child pornography. Would the snoopers know that I was visiting those blogs for snark purposes only?

I quite like Liberty's 'Snoopers' Charter Mythbuster':

liberty-human-rights.org.uk/campaigns/no-snoopers-charter/snoopers-charter-mythbuster.php

[August]

I assume that we're already monitored to at least some degree. Doesn't the NSA use keywords to search your emails?

[miffy]

I wouldn't have a problem with it. Because my internet usage goes like this: gmail, facebook, freejinger, ebay, ozbargain, facebook, wikipedia & so on. :lol:

Any kind of government censorship of the internet other than blocking known child porn sites is not okay at all. The Australian government tried it. It was so pointless, expensive & everybody would just VPN their way around it. If it takes 2 mins to trick Sony & Netflix into thinking my (Euro/AUS region locked) PS3 is located in the USA, a government created great firewall would be so simple to get around.

[debrand]

I don't like the idea of the Snoopers' Charter. The "If you've got nothing to hide..." argument seems like a cheap trick. It makes people want to prove their innocence, to show just how above-board they are, as a way of tricking them into supporting something wildly invasive.

Also, I think my Internet history would make me look like a psychopath. Quiver Full of Snark is like a portal to the blogs of child beaters, rape apologists, American secessionists, racists, gun nuts, and all manner of other creeps and bigots. We've even snarked on a blog that defended the use of child pornography. Would the snoopers know that I was visiting those blogs for snark purposes only?

I quite like Liberty's 'Snoopers' Charter Mythbuster':

liberty-human-rights.org.uk/campaigns/no-snoopers-charter/snoopers-charter-mythbuster.php

Mine would be worse. Not only do I have sites from here but I like to write. Some of my writing has violence and in order that the violence not be cartoony I sometimes do online searches that lead me to some dark sites. I try to stay on medical sites but occasionally I will accidentally wonder into something that I shouldn't. I click off the site immediately but it is still in my history.

[uber frau]

TBH, I'm even more uncomfortable with the likes of Google tracking my information. Most governments at least pretend to abide by a framework of human rights, but corporations can sell it on to whoever they please.

But then, I grew up in fundiedom so I have huge issues with privacy and imbalances of power.

[Dollypeeps]

Big brother has been watching us for years now it's even easier to be watched.

Don't think they'll want to watch me my life is pretty boring really but they can go ahead if they want

[Rescinded and Mended]

Mine would be worse. Not only do I have sites from here but I like to write. Some of my writing has violence and in order that the violence not be cartoony I sometimes do online searches that lead me to some dark sites. I try to stay on medical sites but occasionally I will accidentally wonder into something that I shouldn't. I click off the site immediately but it is still in my history.

I think this right here is part of the rub. Who among us hasn't been browsing what we thought was a perfectly harmless website or forum, only to stumble into something wildly inappropriate?

I was once reading about a game on a forum. A bunch of us were having a lovely, harmless discussion about the game characters, when some fool decided to post fan-made pics of the game's single underage character. She was naked, tied up, and being tortured in a sexual manner. My guess is that the troll snuck it in and the mods pounced on it quickly, but my immediate thought was, "Holy crap, I don't want this in my search history, I've done nothing wrong!" I closed the window to the site and have not been back since.

There's also the problem of what others here have stated about doing research for writing. If I'm penning a fictional book about a terrorist that wants bomb a building, I don't want to be tracked and arrested because I Googled bomb components to diagram a scene.

[formergothardite]

My cat killed a rat and drug it's body up to the patio leaving blood stains. So my search on how to get blood off concrete is probably not going to reflect well on me if anyone close to me is ever murdered.

[Rescinded and Mended]

My cat killed a rat and drug it's body up to the patio leaving blood stains. So my search on how to get blood off concrete is probably not going to reflect well on me if anyone close to me is ever murdered.

Bleach works pretty well. Also, have you tried hydrogen peroxide? Well that one might be better for blood stains in clothing.

[OkToBeTakei]

Bleach works pretty well. Also, have you tried hydrogen peroxide? Well that one might be better for blood stains in clothing.

Bloody hell it's like CSI here :lol:

[Coconut Flan]

If you still have the stains, Oxyclean is another one that works even on old stains.

[formergothardite]

Bleach works pretty well. Also, have you tried hydrogen peroxide? Well that one might be better for blood stains in clothing.

I did get them out, but before I started dousing things with bleach I wanted to make sure I wouldn't ruin the concrete. But I can see myself now in court trying to convince people I was only doing that search so that I would know how to get rat blood off. :lol:

[moonbeam59]

Eek. I google some truly weird shit (and usually regret it).

[lizziesmom]

Ever since 9/11 our fourth amendment rights have been eroding by the day. Too bad there isn't some powerful lobby to fight for the 4th like there is for the second.

[snarkykitty]

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I am under no illusion that the government doesn't track our internet usage. Nor our phone usage, or anything else readily trackable (is that not a word?). The technology exists. I am pretty sure it's being used, and probably more liberally than we might know or imagine.

I, too do internet searches that lead me to some crazy places. I love to research things. I often look for the origins of words, phrases, acronyms, theories, etc. As a former journalist, or perhaps why I was interested in becoming a journalist, it's still in my nature to want to know. But, yeah, I sometimes wonder if some day someone will show up at my door asking me why I looked up X, Y or Z.

[Rescinded and Mended]

I did get them out, but before I started dousing things with bleach I wanted to make sure I wouldn't ruin the concrete. But I can see myself now in court trying to convince people I was only doing that search so that I would know how to get rat blood off. :lol:

:lol: Yeah, I had to google the hydrogen peroxide thing after trying to hide the body and getting blood on my clothes. Granted, it was a bird body, but gah! So much blood! (How my cat managed to tear the wing off of a fairly large bird, I'll never know...)

[OkToBeTakei]

More on the same story.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/disagreement-r ... ml#1TKHAe7

The revelation that Mark Bridger used search engines Bing and Google to try and find images of child abuse has led to predictable calls for "more to be done".

While it's not immediately apparent that any of the images the killer of April Jones had on his mobile phone were directly sourced through search engines, neither Google nor Microsoft (who run Bing) would be so bold as to argue that child pornography cannot be obtained in this way.

Both companies maintain that whenever they are made aware of illegal content they act immediately to delist it and inform the police. And they themselves are actively looking for this material in an attempt to limit its spread.

There are also jurisdictional issues. Child pornography is, in general, not hosted on servers based in the UK – and although it would almost certainly be illegal no matter where in the world it is to be found, in other countries the process of shutting down websites can be rather more protracted than here.

Internet Service Providers find themselves in almost exactly the same position as the search engines, fighting a rolling, losing battle to try and stem the flow of illegal material.

But there is perhaps an even greater problem, and one not widely understood – that users cannot access the entirety of the internet through search engines.

Huge swathes of data, sometimes referred to as the deep web, are not indexed by Google and Bing and are often only accessible through fairly esoteric methods.

The deep web came to wider attention recently as the Bitcoin phenomenon spread, and more and more people became aware of the existence of online marketplaces like Silk Road where every flavour of narcotic can be purchased.

Having one government agency take the lead in tackling child pornography would undoubtedly help. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) will shortly be subsumed by the National Crime Agency, and companies like Google and Microsoft are being advised by any number of Whitehall departments leading to crossed-wires and confusion.

Yet it is a simple truth that the only way to end access to this material would be to switch off the internet – if such a thing were even possible.

Yup. I'm not seeing how they can stop it, to be honest. I agree that they probably can see what we all do should they want anyway, but wish there was a way to isolate the aspects of the web which are dangerous from the overwhelming good it brings.

(sorry to interrupt the two MURDERERS with bodies under their patios :shhh: )

[doggie]

Even if big brother is watching us it is like one person watching every ant hill in the world at the same time.

[Green Glass]

The internet and the way it works and changes is fascinating to me. But of course, it's not all good... I agree that it seems that it would be difficult (and most likely extremely expensive) to be able to separate out the people who are really getting into trouble from those who stumble upon something accidentally. I am sure that they are capable of tracking an individual who is known to possibly be a "problem," but as for having data on millions of users and trying to discover which of those are accessing truly bad stuff on purpose seems much more difficult.

And as for "you learn something new everyday," today I learned what a "bitcoin" is. I had never heard of such a thing.