Goverment Oversight of communication

[aramoro]

I'm not a total networking geek, but I am fairly sure an ISP needs to store a customer's IP address for normal provision of service.

Yes, they do this for it they get any abuse reports about the IP, be it spamming, report of illegal activity, detected as part of a botnet as well as general capacity planning and traffic shaping strategies.

So capability to react to technical and legal requests, as well as technical operations.

I know that they do store all this just now for Traffic shaping etc, but what they do now is not really the question. It's what do you want to happen and with that how would you police things which happen on the internet under that policy.

Azrael suggests that storing things for more than a few seconds in the example of email routing is an invasion of privacy. So email becomes essentially untraceable (Headers accepted). Presumably Bittorrent would be completely untraceable for anyone on a dynamic IP address. Access to websites untraceable as well etc etc

So you're not recording any of this information, what's the parties policy and ideas on investigating Cyber Crime in that world.

[Roken]

It's all likely to academic once the impact of censoring of filesharing sites dawns on the current administration. I reproduce here a post I made in another forum to explain why:

"There's a bigger problem than TPB and filesharing being created by the Governments willingness to bow to corporate pressure of filesharing sites, as far as I see it, and I'm surprised no-one in Government has cottoned on to it yet (well, that's a lie, I'm not in the least bit surprised).

The censoring has led to a generally increased awareness of privacy when using the internet, and where for most people it was technically beyond their scope, has directly resulted in more and more ordinary people subscribing to more advanced methods such as anonymous VPNs and proxies. Such has been the impact of the censoring that even the most uneducated teenagers around Europe are not only familiar with the technology, but are using it.

Government has, as you are all aware, also been looking at introducing additional legislation allowing the monitoring of web habits, email etc. under the guise of anti-terror laws, and more worryingly (in the context of this post), in order to locate and catch paedophiles and paedophile rings, such as the group in Rochdale last week.

The heightened awareness of how to fully anonymise oneself on the web isn't now, of course, restricted to teenagers sharing a few mp3s or the odd movie. It has filtered throughout society, including to those with more nefarious activities to hide on the web, and who would have previously been wide open to identification via the monitoring proposed by Gvt. Censoring filesharing is likely to significantly impact the effectiveness of any future policy on web monitoring in order to catch the "real" criminals out there, probably to the point that the proposals and legislation are so ineffective as to being completely redundant. Blocking TPB has just given the most evil paedophiles the knowledge to pursue their chosen path with next to no risk whatsoever of ever being caught.

Well done, UK courts :doh:"

[blazingskies]

I dunno if you know about this already, but Julian Huppert from the Lib Dems is currently collecting information from witnesses and experts on networking and state surveillance in order to argue against the Draft Communications Bill as it currently stands. I've emailed him at a Pirate Party member with ten years of experience in the networking sector - including a stint of work for an ISP, outlining my concerns.

Perhaps it would be worth some more of us doing the same?

Please, if you choose to email him, be police and helpful. I think he is trying to change this bill for the better, and if we can do that, we ought to.

Further information (and the email address) can be found here:
http://www.libdemvoice.org/julian-huppe ... 29250.html

Skyblaze

[tomgraddon89]

As I see it, allowing agencies to monitor communications is not the problem per se, but who is monitored and when. Allowing the police or any other public agency to monitor us all indiscriminately is a serious attack on our right to privacy, but if the police were able to show good reason for needing to monitor one or a group of people's online activities then it should be a judge who grants permission.

The question is when the police should be able to apply for this warrant, and if I were drafting this legislation I would lay out clear guidelines for the police and the judiciary defining a burden of proof to satisfy a judge that a warrant is necessary. For example, before surveillance could be authorised a judge would need to have good reason to believe a crime was being committed, that the surveillance would be proportionate (so the police would need to declare what information they intend to gather, how and for how long) and that the number of people being monitored wasn't excessive (so the police couldn't watch legitimate groups like trade unions or political organisations arbitrarily). When seeking a warrant the police would need to request a precise period in days to monitor their suspect, and the period of surveillance would be capped so a person can't be watched indefinitely. If the police seek a renewal, the extension period would be fixed and the number of extensions would be limited.

These guidelines would make sure that surveillance would be limited and subject to judicial oversight, and ensures the police are thorough in their planning and investigation before being permitted to gather any evidence direct from internet monitoring.

[tomgraddon89]

members might be interested in this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19887765