• Tag Archives internet

  • Surveillance bill includes internet records storage

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Police and intelligence officers will be able to access suspects’ “internet connection records”.
    But new safeguards, including allowing judges to block spying operations, will be introduced to prevent abuses.

    The home secretary said the powers in the draft Investigatory Powers Bill were needed to fight crime and terror.

    The large and complex draft bill also contains proposals covering how the state can hack devices and run operations to sweep up large amounts of data as it flows through the internet, enshrining in law the previously covert activities of GCHQ, as uncovered by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

    The draft bill’s measures include:

    • A new criminal offence of “knowingly or recklessly obtaining communications data from a telecommunications operator without lawful authority”, carrying a prison sentence of up to two years
    • Local councils to retain some investigatory powers, such as surveillance of benefit cheats, but they will not be able to access online data stored by internet firms
    • The Wilson doctrine – preventing surveillance of Parliamentarians’ communications – to be written into law
    • Police will not be able to access journalistic sources without the authorisation of a judge
    • A legal duty on British companies to help law enforcement agencies hack devices to acquire information if it is reasonably practical to do so

    Mrs May told MPs the draft bill was a “significant departure” from previous plans, dubbed the “snooper’s charter” by critics, which were blocked by the Lib Dems, and will “provide some of the strongest protections and safeguards anywhere in the democratic world and an approach that sets new standards for openness, transparency and oversight”.

    The legislation brings together a variety of existing powers that cover how the home secretary and other ministers can authorise operations to intercept communications – such as telephone taps and other surveillance.

    But it also proposes to order communications companies, such as broadband firms, to hold basic details of the services that someone has accessed online – something that has been repeatedly proposed but never enacted.

    This duty would include forcing firms to hold a schedule of which websites someone visits and the apps they connect to through computers, smartphones, tablets and other devices.

    Police and other agencies would be then able to access these records in pursuit of criminals – but also seek to retrieve data in a wider range of inquiries, such as missing people.

    Mrs May stressed that the authorities would not be able to access to everyone’s browsing history, just basic data, which was the “modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill”.

    Source: Surveillance bill includes internet records storage – BBC News


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  • Theresa May unveils UK surveillance measures in wake of Snowden claims

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    New surveillance powers will be given to the police and security services, allowing them to access records tracking every UK citizen’s use of the internet without any need for any judicial check, under the provisions of the draft investigatory powers bill unveiled by Theresa May.

    It includes new powers requiring internet and phone companies to keep “internet connection records” – tracking every website visited but not every page – for a maximum of 12 months but will not require a warrant for the police, security services or other bodies to access the data. Local authorities will be banned from accessing internet records.
    The proposed legislation will also introduce a “double-lock” on the ministerial approval of interception warrants with a new panel of seven judicial commissioners – probably retired judges – given a veto before they can come into force.

    But the details of the bill make clear that this new safeguard for the most intrusive powers to spy on the content of people’s conversations and messages will not apply in “urgent cases” – defined as up to five days – where judicial approval is not possible.

    The draft investigatory powers bill published on Wednesday by the home secretary aims to provide a “comprehensive and comprehensible” overhaul of Britain’s fragmented surveillance laws. It comes two-and-a-half years after the disclosures by the whistleblower Edward Snowden of the scale of secret mass surveillance of the global traffic in confidential personal data carried out by Britain’s GCHQ and the US’s National Security Agency (NSA).

    It will replace the current system of three separate commissioners with a senior judge as a single investigatory powers commissioner.

    May told MPs that the introduction of the most controversial power – the storage of everyone’s internet connection records tracking the websites they have visited, which is banned as too intrusive in the US and every European country including Britain – was “simply the modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill”.

    Her recommendations were broadly welcomed by the shadow home secretary, Andy Burnham, but received a more cautious welcome from the former Conservative shadow home secretary David Davis, the former shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper and Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister.

    Source: Theresa May unveils UK surveillance measures in wake of Snowden claims


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  • Elon Musk’s plan to put the Internet in space moves to launch pad

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Last month, Musk petitioned the government to launch up to eight prototype satellites into space. They would be equipped with antennas that would send an Internet signal back down to the earth’s surface.

    SpaceX said it wants to start testing out the technology in 2016. The FCC declined to comment on the application because it is currently under review.

    You can already get an Internet signal from above. But it requires special hardware. It’s spotty, slow and ludicrously expensive.

    SpaceX’s equipment would be closer to the ground than typical satellites, orbiting at around 750 miles above the surface. That allows for tighter light beams and faster Internet than geosynchronous satellites. The downside is a much smaller coverage area.

    Eventually, Musk & Co. plan to launch 4,000 satellites in order to serve a meaningful number of customers. To keep costs down, the satellites will be tiny, cheap and disposable.

    The relatively close proximity to Earth means the satellites will have to combat gravitational forces with fuel, and when they run out in six months to a year, they’ll have to be replaced. But SpaceX sees that as an opportunity to frequently update the technology it hopes to use to deploy its Internet service.

    Source: Elon Musk’s plan to put the Internet in space moves to launch pad


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