General Discussion

[ArsenalMark]

UK Govt: ISPs must use 'black boxes' issued by government that decrypts gmail SSLs and store communications history for 1 year.

http://www.channel4.com/news/black-boxes-to-monitor-all-internet-and-phone-data

Oh dear. Woohoo, invasion of privacy!

[Mike939]

People have too much privacy these days, they're always up to no good.

[EdwCarnby]

I can see a lot of people moving to 3G and 4G internet if this move happens.

[PatC_PSN]

I don't know what to be more concerned about - the fact that the government thinks this is an important issue as the country falls apart, or the fact that they are stupid enough to believe it will serve any purpose, and can't be circumvented.

I'll go with both for the time being.

[Reaper190]

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EdwCarnby wrote:
I can see a lot of people moving to 3G and 4G internet if this move happens.

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I believe that is why the government is meeting with the biggest mobile networks as well... (Unfortunatly)

[fenian]

When you ask for an encrypted webpage, you basically go through several steps that are called a handshake, messages are sent back and forth and encryption keys shared.

In order for the government to decrypt the signal they need to set up massive transparent tsl/ssl proxy servers.

There are ways around it, different domain name servers, vpns, sharing encryption keys offline, etc etc, meaning it cant be used to stop criminals really.

The real issue for the UK would be tech savvy companies up and leaving because they cant trust the encryption system in place. With Ireland across the water hosting google, intel, microsoft, facebook, and not having such issues, there could be loss of jobs. It could also mean companies set up their cloud servers outside of the UK etc etc.

anyway, i think it wont catch any serious criminal, its laughable that they think they sit around on gmail planning serious crimes anyway, and it can only hurt jobs and privacy.

[EdwCarnby]

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Reaper190 wrote:

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EdwCarnby wrote:
I can see a lot of people moving to 3G and 4G internet if this move happens.

---

I believe that is why the government is meeting with the biggest mobile networks as well... (Unfortunatly)

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Oh come on!!!!!!!

[fenian]

You cant blame the government alone, the British companies are doing it.

The highest court in Europe has already ruled on the issue, no ISP in europe can be forced to spy on their customers without a warrant.

If any of the British ISP companies wanted to refuse, they could, there is a european ban on "imposing a general monitoring obligation".

Of course they may monitor customers, but they can not be forced to, so they are doing it of their own free will.