As picked up by Mr Eugenides and Longrider (and no doubt many more to follow), the government has plans to read all your emails:
Ministers are considering spending up to £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.Yes, you read that right - £12 billion!
And we all know how successful government databases are, don't we...?
But I'm sure the Tories will seize on this as the perfect issue on which to sweep to power, backed by a nation that has finally had enough.
Oh:
Ministers are braced for a backlash similar to the one caused by their ID cards programme. Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “Any suggestion of the government using existing powers to intercept communications data without public discussion is going to sound extremely sinister.”Not exactly the forthright condemnation you'd expect, is it?
Let's all dig out PGP and give the finger to this f*ing government.
ReplyDeleteIt may well come to that...
ReplyDeleteNicely put, Julia. I think Dominic might be getting an extra piece of mail tomorrow....
ReplyDeleteThe MI5 security chiefs must surely be cursing the politicians over this. Establishing this huge database will give them an amazingly good record of all the spam, junk and viral email sent in the UK, whilst at the same time convincing all the criminals, would-be terrorists and pretty much everyone else to armour-up and use strong encryption.
ReplyDeleteWhen this system finally shakes down, the security services will be in a worse position than where they started since almost everybody will be convinced that Big Brother is out to get them and that foiling this with encryption is the best option.
What it will do is give the internet systems of Norway and Finland a tremendous economic boost, since using VPN software to export a link to a neutral country is about the only way of remaining unmolested by these morons.
O/T
ReplyDeleteDumb Britain
Eye No. 1220
Anne Robinson: The twelfth century map of the world in Hereford Cathedral is known as the Mappa - what?
Contestant: The World?
"..almost everybody will be convinced that Big Brother is out to get them and that foiling this with encryption is the best option.."
ReplyDeleteProblem is, it won't be everybody. The vast majoity of people will go on doing what they are currently doing, secure in the knowledge that Big Nanny is looking for 'bad guys' and not for them.
In short, they'll act like dumb sheep, which leads us to:
"Anne Robinson: The twelfth century map of the world in Hereford Cathedral is known as the Mappa - what?
Contestant: The World?"
The ignorance! It burns...! ;)