New database for the UK: *every* phone call and email logged
- Thread starter editor
- Start date
Prince Rhyus
Spokesman of King Antonio
"Government" and "Database" in the same sentence...given the fun and games of the data disks.
Govt considering creating a database of every phone call and email sent from the UK
1984?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7409593.stm
1984?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7409593.stm
Get out of this big brother state, mate!!
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
i for one am looking forward to seeing the size of the server rooms which they are going to need presumably they will have to be multi floored things which means actually the UK will be the first ever country to have a serveroom in space, cos there's fuck all chance of finding enough land here in the UK to build something to house this...
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
not really think about it... the level of data generated merely to contain every single phone and email sent in one year is beyond the capabilites of any server farm we have in the UK even if we only stored the email headers and the to and from phone numbers.
If they want to store more than that we are going to have to build a floating island the size of begium or a massive space server farm...
The Black Hand
Unclean
True.
We've got to fuk up this security state and fast, we are living the Orwellian nightmare and the rulers do not give a toss
If you think about it for more than 5 mins its:
(a) Completely unworkable. Data capture and storage requirements would be huge.
(b) Would be impossible to search effectively even if criminals/terrorists are only moderately bright. It becomes useless if you have intelligent criminals/terrorists.
(c) duplicates existing work by telcos. But does it the hard way. (Ie, telcos capture phone records at source)
Its just another unworkable proposal which will be dropped once its decided it election suicide and completely unworkable. (But the chattering classes will have their usual George Orwell / 1984 tizzy)
DJ Squelch
King Of Insides
I wonder if you could get them to send you copies of past phone calls you had made in the same way you can request CCTV images of yourself under the data protection act?
Fuchs66
Ring a ding
Well the yanks scan internet, e-mail and phone traffic for keywords anyway so just another interested party playing with our private matters.
BTW just so you guys (not Urbanites) have some other crap to read from me Tabun, Sarin, Soman, VX and dirty bomb there you go that might have wasted some more of your time
BTW just so you guys (not Urbanites) have some other crap to read from me Tabun, Sarin, Soman, VX and dirty bomb there you go that might have wasted some more of your time
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
I thought they were already doing it? 
Go on then. Share your plans on how you would capture every email sent in the UK. And then store it somewhere where for at least (say) five years. Even if you strip out the body you still need a gazillion gb's to store it... Even if they did manage to implement it you could get around in a trice by using encrypted tunnels to offshore email servers. (And they wouldn't need to encrypted. There would be a legal nightmare if you recorded a visiting diplomats emails. But then, how do you decide an email originated "in" the UK...)
And for afters, please flesh out how they'll capture all the phone calls happening in the UK. And store those records afterwards. And then you have to make the whole thing searchable. But how do you deal with Pay-as-you-go phones, or phones bought on Ebay..?. And that's even after they manage to legitimise the legislation to enact all this data gathering.
You may as well include plans for a FTL starship as an afternote. If they get this working, it'll be possible to escape on one...!
The whole things a side-show so that people don't notice how shite this Govt's become and focus on the real issues + (non) policies...
Well, the good points
* Big money pit for developers. IT folk can spend years on this and never actually show anything for it in the end.
* Makes life easier for criminals/terrorists as there's a single system to avoid, and the cops will think it works and not bother expanding their IT skills.
* Easier to show which people are bit simple because they think it will work/its a good idea. If someone supports it, don't vote for them...!
editor
hiraethified
Several years ago I did some work for a data warehousing company using 'tera scale' technology to store, analyse and organise vast amounts of daily user/stock/business data from the likes of Vodafone and Lloyds.
Even then, the abilities of the data capture and analysis technologies were awesome. And a tad worrying.
I've also been involved in Data Warehousing systems. And I still see this as a huge white elephant. Not only is the problem with storing all the data, you're trying to capture data that isn't either well formed (you'd be surprised at how crap some mail servers are), or authoritative.
I'm amazed that this has gotten to this stage. What's next...? Cat herding competitions proposed for the Olympics...
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
Kim Il Sung could only have dreamed of having a system like this. Now, thanks to technology, Kim's dream can be a reality. 
lights.out.london
Black Flag
I'll go along with this. The fact that it's even being discussed and, perhaps considered, is definitely worrying. And to what end? For what purposes?
I take the point (well) made about the technical challenges.
Now pass me my ID card...
It's this type of reply that really shits me:
A Home Office spokesman said the data was a "crucial tool" for protecting national security and preventing crime.
Pack of fucking lies more like. Give me strength...
A Home Office spokesman said the data was a "crucial tool" for protecting national security and preventing crime.
Pack of fucking lies more like. Give me strength...
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
Kim Il Sung could only have dreamed of having a system like this. Now, thanks to technology, Kim's dream can now be a reality.
Similar threads
