The Internet: Systems Of Censorship And Control

January 30, 2008 · Filed Under International · Comment 

If you thought the internet was that thing which was all about freedom and liberty for all, think again. Your government, in collusion with business, will change all that, as they seek to control what you are allowed to see.

This from Michael Geist:

As digital technologies and the Internet began to emerge in the mid-1990s, many content companies responded by betting on the ability of technological protection measures to re-assert the control that was rapidly slipping from their grasp.  The vision of control through technology required considerable coordination - the insertion of encryption on content distributed to consumers, cooperation from electronics makers to respect the technological limitations within their products, and new legal provisions to prohibit attempts to pick the new digital locks.

A decade later, the strategy lies in tatters.  Many content owners have dropped digital locks after alienating disgruntled consumers fed up with their inability to freely use their personal property.  Electronics manufacturers have similarly rebelled, frustrated at the imposition of artificial limitations that constrain their products and profitability.  To top it off, the U.S architect of the legal strategy last year acknowledged that the legislative initiatives to support the digital lock approach have failed.

In recent months, a new strategy has begun to emerge.  With the industry gradually admitting that locking down content does not work, it has now dangerously shifted toward locking down the Internet.

The Internet locks approach envisions requiring Internet service providers to install filtering and content monitoring technologies within their networks. ISPs would then become private network police, actively monitoring for content that might infringe copyright and stopping it from reaching subscribers’ computers.

The support for locking down the Internet revives an old debate - the appropriate role and responsibility of ISPs for the activities that take place on their networks.  As the content owners were promoting legal protection for digital locks in the 1990s, the ISPs were supporting legal frameworks that treated them as the equivalent of common carriers that transferred data across their networks without regard for the content itself.

While that approach ensured that ISPs did not take an active role in monitoring or filtering Internet-based activity, the recent move toward a two-tiered Internet - one in which the ISPs themselves dream of distinguishing between different content as a new revenue source - revived the notion that ISPs could be called upon to play a more active role in monitoring and blocking content.

With content owners frustrated at the failure of digital locks, last year they seized on this by renewing their focus on the role of the ISP.  This movement has been most prominent in Europe, where last summer a Belgian court ordered an ISP to block access to a site alleged to contain copyright infringing materials.  

More recently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a plan that would mandate country-wide ISP filtering of copyright infringing content.  Although a similar pan-European proposal was defeated earlier this month, few believe that the issue is dead, particularly given the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s claim last Thursday that 2008 will be the year of greater ISP responsibility.

Content filtering plans have also begun to emerge in North America. Large U.S. ISPs such as AT&T have inexplicably promised to develop new content filters on their networks and are discussing an implementation plan with content owners.

Could a similar content blocking approach wind its way north?

Late last week, the Canadian Recording Industry Association stated that it presently is not seeking provisions “related to content filtering or termination of repeat offenders.”  That provides a measure of reassurance, yet some cultural groups are openly eyeing content filters as a mechanism to adapt Canadian content rules to the online environment, while others have expressed strong support for legal rules that force ISPs to accept heightened “responsibility” for the conduct of their subscribers.

In light of this pressure, some fear that mandatory content blocking could sneak into forthcoming legislation, despite the likelihood that such laws would face constitutional challenges and run the risk of tarring Canada as the home of a censored Internet.

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at [email protected] or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.

Reproduced under Creative Commons licence:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ca/

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Bottler Brown Drops UK ID Cards

January 23, 2008 · Filed Under News · Comment 

Does anyone still remember “Capability” Brown? No, he was another incarnation of the slippery Brown personae, which includes “Prudence” Brown and “Gormless” Gordon.

Now, it seems, Gordon Brown knows that the introduction of compulsory ID cards would be the equivalent of writing his own political suicide note, so he his hoping to lose them down the back of the sofa, along with the data of every man, woman and child of New Britain.

The problem is that he cannot be seen to be abandoning the scheme, as that would make him look weak, vacillating, incompetent and not even possessing a loose grasp of events.

It would also be a bit of a problem telling all the companies which are banking on making a killing on the back of UK taxpayers and might mean that the revolving door for those who want to get sinecures in IT business when they are voted out of office could get jammed.

The Guardian has this:

A compulsory identity card system for British citizens looks as if it will be deferred beyond the next election, according to documents leaked to the Conservatives.

As recently as December the Home Office said the ID card system for UK citizens would be phased-in on a voluntary basis from 2009, but a national identity strategy paper, marked restricted, clearly shows the UK-citizens phase of the scheme will now not start until 2012. A voluntary scheme is due be introduced for those renewing passports from 2009.

Gordon Brown has appeared evasive in recent weeks as to whether he supports a compulsory identity card scheme for British citizens, saying it is a matter for parliament to decide in a future vote.

On BBC News:

Whatever ministers say about their support for the principle of ID cards, this is one idea whose time looks increasingly to have gone.

The leaked papers suggesting the crunch introduction of cards for Britons might be kicked into the post-election long grass may be the clearest indication of that, but it is certainly not the first.

There have been regular claims in parliament and the media that Gordon Brown is less than committed to the policy, and certainly less so than his predecessor, Tony Blair, whose brainchild it was. [...]

On the existing timetable, there was the real prospect that the issue would erupt just at general election time, with the possibility of a campaign of civil disobedience, with Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg already pledged to join such a move.

So, if the leaked documents are accurate - and there is every indication they are - the process of making the issue less of an election pressure point may have started.

Downing Street insists that “nothing has changed” but it seems Labour could be moving towards going into the next election saying they will see how ID cards work for foreign nationals, before deciding whether/when to extend them to Britons if all goes well.

As a thought on this, the idea of Tony Blair’s brain having a child is rightly repugnant. Fortunately, there has never been any evidence that he has a functioning brain, so the chances of it having a child are slim.

As for the “possibility of a campaign of civil disobedience” if ID cards are made compulsory, it would probably be safer to mark that one down as an absolute cast-iron, copper-bottomed certainty.

In The Independent:

The identity card scheme was said to be in “intensive care” as leaked Whitehall documents showed it faced a new delay of two years.

The cards were set to be issued to Britons from 2010, when they apply to renew their passports, but private Home Office documents show the introduction is set to be put off until 2012.

The likely postponement follows a series of fiascos over the security of personal data held by the Government. Gordon Brown is also widely believed not to share the enthusiasm of his predecessor for the scheme.

Nobody in government needs to carry an ID card in order to be identified as a mendacious, lickspittle, moneygrubbing buffoon.

However, maybe Tony Blair will still have the last laugh. When he becomes Emperor of Europe, perhaps he will force us all to have ID cards, even if Gordon Brown no longer wants them.

Of course, the fact that Gordon Brown is preventing a referendum on Europe means that the public cannot protect him from his old boss and possible future nemesis.

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UK ID Cards: The Catastrophe Waiting To Happen

January 21, 2008 · Filed Under Politics · Comment 

Whatever the reasons for New Labour thinking that it would be a good idea to have a central government database containing all the information on everyone in the country and a compulsory identification card to go with it, the excuse is always that it will protect the citizen.

This excuse, of course, could also be more honestly described as a massive and deliberate lie.

The government has proved that both it and any department, agency or institution within New Britain’s leviathan establishment treats all data collected and stored regarding the people of the dis-United Kingdom with utter contempt. Most of it is also available to be sold to any commercial enterprise from this country or any other, which is prepared to grease the necessary palms.

Jackie Ashley writing in The Guardian highlights the fact that all or any of this data will leak and slop into the hands of criminals and terrorists as a matter of course and that we will all be placed under great danger because of this.

The government is making all of us less secure and more prone to attacks from identity-theft fraudsters, common or garden criminals or, yes, hardened terrorists and this is being forced upon a population which is very aware of the dangers and does not want the scheme under any guise.

Once the IT spivs have trousered the billions which this will cost and proved that they cannot manage to keep the data even slightly secure, they will be off and leave some incapable minister to bluff and bamboozle about how things are going to be mended, when he cannot even turn his own laptop on or send an email because he is too technically inept.

Jackie Ashley says:

We know that millions of sensitive details will be lost. We know that material of huge use to criminals will be sent in the post, stolen, mislaid, dropped in car parks, will fall off the back of lorries and will be sent by accident to radio talkshow hosts. We know this because whatever the system, whatever the rules, from Tyne and Wear to Iowa City, they are operated by humans. And people get bored, tired, drunk, have bad days, think they’re about to be fired, are greedy and, in general, make mistakes.

The government is going to introduce a single system for all our identities. And I promise, you can’t trust it. First, it will leak like a battered old bucket. Oh yes, there will be ministerial statements. Apologies. Inquiries. Expensive new IT consultants will be brought in. Tough and unbreakable procedures will arrive. And still it will leak like a battered old bucket - except that it will be the most expensive battered old bucket in the history of the world, and we will keep pouring in money to the IT industry in the years to come.

Within the comments which follow, CaptainNemo says:

Quite agree. And whats more all this data will be passed to the Amerikan dept of homeland security, or whoever it is:
This is all driven by Amerika and its phony war on terror.
Our Government is enthusiastically going along with this. Of course they reckon, as we see from other recent events, that they will be above these repressive schemes, but the rest of us wont.
Any time I wish to send money abroad, via bank transfer, and within the EU, the transaction details are passed to the Amerikans. And if I wish to get on a ferry from John o groats to the Orkney Islands I will,from may this year,have to show my passport.

Remember all those WWII films where the plucky escapees are on the train and here come the gestapo checking everyones ID? It is already happening here. Roadblocks, ID checks on internal flights, passports to go to the Isle of Wight.

Anyone who thinks this stuff is somehow for our benefit is deluded. This is the State going for total control, and the end of this road is an implanted ID chip linked to the mobile network and/or GPS which will track our movements and doings 24/7.

Paranoid? Realistic more like.

Welcome to Orwells dystopia.

Alisdaircameron (though probably not that one) says:

The ID cards scheme as proposed by NuLab is almost certain to wreck the country on an unimaginable scale: financially, an open cheque is being offered to favoured corporate consortia who by now are hugely experienced in gouging the UK taxpayer for every penny, then coming back for more; politically the already fragile ties between the individual and the state will be severed, as a confrontational relationship between the two is established by statute; constitutionally, the nationalists will have a field day, as wily foxes like Salmond can use the issue to further emphasise the remoteness and callous disregard of centralising Whitehall/London; in security terms, we will be less safe (9/11 bombers HAD legitimate ID)thanks to a false sense of security in an utterly fallible and breakable system; no impact will be felt by the relatively small number of benefits cheats as their deceptions don’t involve identity, but black market working, while too many deserving claimants will miss out as “Computer says no”;community cohesion will suffer as those with certain disabilities and from certain ethnic minorities can not be reliably recognised by biometrics technology (again too many “Computer says No”s)
http://www.idtrail.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=689

I could go on, as the list of major flaws in the proposal, both ethically and technically is enormous (oh, and those who say other states have ID cards, well they don’t, at least nothing like the ones proposed for the UK).

This issue is a bellwether for NuLab and indeed the whole of the self-serving political classes as they sit separately and (in their eyes) above the mere plebs of the general population: back ID cards and show themselves to be undemocratic,idiotic power-crazed tin-pot despots, incapable of reason, decency or morality, or back down. Gordon Brown does not have an enviable record for responsibly backing down when plainly wrong, or for ever acknowledging he is wrong, let alone apologising or taking the rap for mistakes.
Glad you’ve seen the light Jackie, but too many of your colleagues haven’t.

Charliezulu:

I retired last year as an information security manager, and I make 2 points:

1. No laptop is ever 100% secure. There is statistically a 10% chance each year that it will be stolen or left on the train. Therefore sensitive or personal data should NEVER be on a laptop. Encryption is available, and can be effective, and if the MOD laptop had no whole disc encryption then heads must roll, ((my organisation installed whole disc encryption 10 years ago. It is cheap, easy and effective). Effective - BUT - many of our users, and I’m sure they are typical, were so stupid they taped the password to the laptop. When token based security is used (smart cards, SecureID cards etc) then I have seen these kept with the laptop too;

2. ID cards will reduce security, not enhance it. How so? Public and officials will place great reliance on the cards. There is rubbish talked by Brown about being protected by biometrics. Rubbish! How many biometric readers will be scattered around for all those pernicious occasions when the card will demanded? THEY WILL BE FORGED. PERIOD. And fingerprint readers can be tricked easily and cheaply. I have no doubt that other biometric devices will also be cracked in the future.

Blair and Brown have turned New Labour (spit) into the Nazi Party of Great Britain. It comes to something when we turn to the House of Lords for our civil liberties - for there at least is an honest debate, unencumbered by the payroll vote.

Stygian has this to say:

What we are seeing is part of the bigger nulabor agenda of social re-engineering. For this to work, not least to prevent opposition, target objectors, suppress evidence of nulabor wrongdoing, and neutralise whistleblowers, it is necessary to have every detail of every citizen in the land. This is consistent with the nulabor policy of Control or Destroy. It has already been documented how our personal data will be shared by a myriad of government departments, quangos and local government groups, right down to the so-called ‘community’ ( aka nulabor social control mechanisms ) groups such as forums. As well as using this personal data as a protective means for nulabor, it can also be used as a weapon, i.e. not only to exploit information already within the database on any individual, but, AS IS ALREADY HAPPENING, to fabricate material upon individuals arbitrarily deemed to be a potential threat to nulabor. What nulabor are doing is far in excess of the worst Orwellian nightmare, and entirely in keeping with what is expected of a government where the corruption is absolute, lead from the top down, and out of control.

Go and read the original page from the links above. There are many, many similar comments about the dangers of this pernicious system which is being foisted on New Britain by New Labour.

We cannot, as citizens, deploy a national database with information about our political masters with ease, but we can each observe and track what politicians do at every opportunity and declare their corruption and ineptness whenever we see it.

It comes down to whether you want to live in a free country or whether you are stupid enough to believe New Labour lies.

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