Category Archives: Internet

Phorm For Phones 2: EE & Ipsos Mori Updated

May 12, 2013 4:02 pm \ 2 Comments \

An article in today’s Sunday Times, highlighted by SpyBlog and Ben Goldacre has revealed what the Sunday Times describes as the “discreet monitoring” or “snoop(ing) on the habits of millions of EE phone customers” as they came out of London’s Oxford Circus station. In other words, EE were monitoring and recording the actions of their customers and giving the data to Ipsos Mori in what is, no doubt a potentially very profitable enterprise.

Ipsos Mori was delighted with the results. In a deal with EE — Britain’s biggest mobile phone company, formed in 2010 from a merger between Orange and T-Mobile — the polling firm had purchased the exclusive use of the phone data and the test run in central London had shown its potential.

There are some serious echoes of Phorm here.

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Posted in: ethics, Internet, privacy \ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Snoopers’ Charter Dead? Updated

April 25, 2013 10:30 am \ Leave a Comment \

Twitter is lively with reports that Nick Clegg has confirmed the Snoopers’ Charter will not be in the Queen’s Speech.  Furthermore Clegg himself has blocked the Communications Data Bill.

Big Brother Watch carries a report here.

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Posted in: Abuse Of The Law, bad government ideas, censorship, freedom of speech, Internet, lack of Clue, parliamentary, privacy, social media, surveillance state \ Tagged: , , , ,

Cameron Told To Drop Snooping On Web Users

April 22, 2013 12:10 pm \ Leave a Comment \

Today’s Times carries a very interesting front page with the same headline as this post’s title.

Liberal Democrat Stephen Tall’s blog has an analysis of the article and names three of the nine cybersecurity experts who have reportedly challenged the Coalition “government” to drop this cock eyed and illiberal scheme.

VFPJ has been against any kind of state monitoring of the internet since the Labour “government” first mooted the idea.  In 2009 I politely told the APCOMMS committee that Parliament is clueless in dealing with technical issues and should seek the advice of a committee of independent experts.  Given that they have not, I would dearly like to know the names and qualifications of those who have told the “government” that this monitoring scheme is a technically feasible and good idea.

Let’s see who the control freaks really are.  Let’s put their ideas out to peer analysis.

Update: Big Brother Watch has a report including the text of the letter sent to David Cameron.  You will see one of the points made is strikingly similar to those made in the campaign against Phorm.

Posted in: Abuse Of The Law, bad government ideas, censorship, freedom of speech, Internet, lack of Clue, parliamentary, surveillance state, telecommunications \ Tagged: , , , , ,

TechWeek: UK Police World’s Hungriest For Skype Users’ Private Data

March 24, 2013 1:23 pm \ Leave a Comment \

As the UK “government” tries to push forward its surveillance state agenda, Techweek Europe reports that the UK police are the world’s greediest for wanting access to Skype users’ personal data.  Here are a couple of snippets from the Techweek report:

In 2012, the UK was the source of 1,268 requests for Skype user information, while the whole of the US made only 1,154 requests, and German police made a paltry 685. The UK was looking for information on 2,720 different users in its requests.

If the Snoopers’ Charter is passed into law then this is just a small part of the kinds of information the police will be looking for on everyone.  Remember, in surveillance states everyone is a criminal. It’s just a case of finding the evidence to get them convicted.

More interestingly (or worryingly)

In 50 cases, UK police requests were rejected for not meeting legal requirements.

This shows a disregard for the law and due process by the police themselves.  Will those who authorised and submitted the flawed requests be taken to task?

I’m sure we all know the answer to that.

In the meantime, questions still persist about Skype and privacy.

Non-content data, such as SkypeIDs, names, email accounts, billing information and call detail records were handed over. Microsoft did not give figures for how much non-content information was passed on.

Make of that what you will.

Posted in: Abuse Of The Law, Internet, Policing, privacy, Skype, surveillance state \ Tagged: , , ,