New database for the UK: *every* phone call and email logged

[poster342002]

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...

They'll go to any lengths. Ceasescu of Romania had entire underground vaults the size of warehouses which held cassette tapes of all the recorded telephone conversations made by the populace.

 

[gnoriac]

Well the yanks scan internet, e-mail and phone traffic for keywords anyway so just another interested party playing with our private matters.

GCHQ do too.

I'm guessing it's just to generate tough-on-terrorism headlines in the tabloids and before too long someone will clue the govt up on the scale of the task. They'll probably have given EDS or someone vast amounts of money to produce precious little of any use to man or beast before the plug gets pulled though.

 

[jæd]

Well the yanks scan internet, e-mail and phone traffic for keywords anyway so just another interested party playing with our private matters.

There's already a scary, non-Govt, trans-national cabel that does this already. They even scan emails...

 

[SpookyFrank]

I shall just have to remember to end every phone call with the phrase 'fuck of you snivelling fascist cunts'

I reckon you could draw a graph based on how much data is recorded about people, how many people are required to interpret and monitor this data, population growth and the steady increase in state snooping over time. By simple extrapolation you would then be able to estimate the date when it will be necessary for everyone in the country to be employed by the state to spy on everyone else. I give it about 25 years.

 

[Crispy]

merged

 

[WouldBe]

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.

Phone companies already store 'to and from phone numbers' for all calls. That's how they produce your phone bill.

Well, the good points
* 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.

It's going to be so hard for criminals/terrorists to switch to letter writing or even meeting in person to discuss plans. Then the governments idea is completely useless.

 

[Barking_Mad]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_Environment_for_Analysis_and_Simulations

 

[Fidel]

More food for the conspiracy theorists, though most probably assume that this is already happening.

Why do they want so much control over us and who are they?

 

[girasol]

As long as my g/f can't access it I'm golden

that's hilarious hahahaha And if she can access it, what will you do: sack her?



I wouldn't worry too much though, the government is so incompetent when it comes to databases the worse that'll happen is that lots of famous people's conversations will get leaked to newspapers...

 

[jæd]

Phone companies already store 'to and from phone numbers' for all calls. That's how they produce your phone bill.

Yep, but you're going to have to have storage equal to all the telcos in the UK put together. Why can't they just leave the data where it is...

It's going to be so hard for criminals/terrorists to switch to letter writing or even meeting in person to discuss plans. Then the governments idea is completely useless.

How are you going to associate a criminal with an email address...? When the criminal uses yahoo.com, with his user details registered to Los Angeles, 90210...? And he's using a cyber-cafe in Central London, paying cash...?

 

[weltweit]

Phone companies already store 'to and from phone numbers' for all calls. That's how they produce your phone bill.

To and from and day / time of call and duration I would expect, certainly for BT!

 

[weltweit]

Of course there is that argument that given the signal strength from the three mobile masts closest to us the mobile companies can estimate (triangulate) our location, as long as our phones are switched on.

Perhaps this is really what the government are after, our approximate movements for the previous twelve months on a database in their hands.

 

[danny la rouge]

Saw this in this morning's Times. My first reaction was to wonder what we're being softened up for, because this is unworkable (much as they'd love to try), so what is there that won't seem as bad as this now, which they hope to get away with?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Welcome to Big Brother:

They seem to miss the point that every terrorist wannabe and his uncle will be familiar with the concepts of codes and dead letter drops.

 

[brasicritique]

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)

i thought the same thing was said about ID cards

 

[WouldBe]

Yep, but you're going to have to have storage equal to all the telcos in the UK put together. Why can't they just leave the data where it is...

Exactly.

How are you going to associate a criminal with an email address...? When the criminal uses yahoo.com, with his user details registered to Los Angeles, 90210...? And he's using a cyber-cafe in Central London, paying cash...?

But if you were planning something using e-mail the proposed system would catch it. It might not know who is involved though.

With using letters there would be no way at all of knowing what's being planned.

 

[WouldBe]

They seem to miss the point that every terrorist wannabe and his uncle will be familiar with the concepts of codes and dead letter drops.

or instead of a simple e-mail that might occupy a few hundred at most bytes when recorded by the system you could photoshop your e-mails and send them as a picture of several megabytes in size. Let's see how such a system would cope with that.

 

[gentlegreen]

someone the other day was explaining the concept of the "dead letter box" - where there's only actually one email account and messages are left in the "drafts" folder ....

 

[krow]

What if we all organize and send them photos of us having a shit and showing them the bog roll after the first wipe with a note saying "KEEP YOUR NOSE OUT".