Private firm may track all email and calls

[Power Lunch Club]

Article appeared in today's Guardian newspaper, pointing out that a proposal in being put forward to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, outling the fact that a private firm may track all email and telephone calls.

Private firm may track all email and calls | UK news | The Guardian

 

[Brian McIntosh]

I remember reading a book a few years back called Net Spies. It was about all the ways we are tracked when we are online and how all our emails are sent through a listening station at Menwith Hill (try Googling it) which filters each and every one for certain keywords. This is nothing new, it's just the fact that a private company will be doing it. It's because of this that programs like PGP were born. Although the book is a few years old now, if anyone would like a read, let me know and I'll post it on.

 

[Power Lunch Club]

Thanks Brian,

I googled Net Spies and Menwith Hill and read some interesting and scary stuff. The more I read the more I am begining to think that privacy is nearly extinct in this country.

Put a couple of dodgy words on these forums and could we have our phones tapped and dossiers built up against us. Who knows? :w00t:

 

[Adventurelife]

It is already done and has been for years by the security services. Only difference is this is a private company. I can live with it when it is being done by the security services but you just know when it is done by companies earning profit that the data will be mined for new money making routes.

Peter

 

[Brian McIntosh]

Just join the police. It's a free for all there now.

New powers for police to hack into UK computers | News | TechRadar UK

 

[Power Lunch Club]

That is seriously scary....I mean where does it stop?

 

[Murdoch Websites]

The US military were found to have purchased a whole load of 'counterfeit' Cisco routers which apparantly made their systems quite vulnerable to attacks by baddies. From this link: FBI Looks Into Counterfeit Cisco Equipment | CyberInsecure.com

'Last month, researcher Samuel King demonstrated how it was possible to alter a computer chip to give attackers virtually undetectable back-door access to a computer system.'

There's a nice write-up on slashdot: Slashdot | FBI Says Military Had Counterfeit Cisco Routers

New York Times did a good spread on it too: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/technology/09cisco.html

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What we're dealing with here are called 'Hardware Trojan Horses' - here's a scientific paper on the subject IEEE Xplore - Login

Just who is behind all of this is anyone's guess. Russia? Al Qaeda? Dick Cheney and the NeoCons? You might as well not worry about it though cos we're all going to be sucked into a black hole in a wee while when the Large Hadron Collider gets switched back on ho humm.....