The rosy picture painted by these great principles is an ideal that has been eroded by legislation over the years.
In particular the idea that "the police are the public and that the public are the police" does not survive a glance at the Police And Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_and_Criminal_Evidence_Act_1984) which lays out the special powers of a constable that members of the public do not have.
That the police are in a different category to the public was made clear by counter-terrorism legislation that gathering information about members of the armed forces *or a constable* could be classed as "offending material" (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/28/schedule/8).
"Of course, you also have to assume that this original deal was not one-sided."
You should not assume any such thing. The UK has a history of rolling over and letting the Septics have whatever they want with nothing asked in return.
Check the 2003 Extradition Treaty for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK%E2%80%93US_extradition_treaty_of_2003
"It was built in a bottom up manner, mainly by engineers, not bureaucrats"
This is the view trotted out by all Americans who want the US to retain control of the internet.
I don't support the ITU's attempt to gain more control, but please don't portray the internet as an engineer-led project.
The US Dept of Commerce, DARPA, ICANN and other bureaucracies have consistently thwarted engineers' vision of what the internet could be since it was invented.
Just because the ITU is bad doesn't mean the status quo is good.
"Letters, telephone calls, email and the Web -- this is a level of total surveillance that countries like China, North Korea or Iran can only dream of."
This is misleading. The countries you mention regularly inspect the content of communications.
The UK is asking for sweeping powers to inspect the envelope of communications - who you communicate with and when.
It will still require court intervention to carry out wiretapping.
People prepared to jump through the hoops you describe are not the target. They already know how to evade surveillance.
This bill is bringing the internet and postal service into line with what the security services can already do with your phone line.
Your local council, for instance, can already ask the police to request your telephone records (who you called, when and for how long). Now they will be able to ask who sent you mail or email and which websites you visited.
None of this enables people to inspect your mail, or email, or your transactions with websites any more than they can eavesdrop on your phone calls.
They will still need a court order to do that.
I don't agree with this bill but we should fight it with facts, not FUD.
Charles Farr's remark probably means they have penetrated (or come to an arrangement with) the Certificate Authorities.
In other words, the secure channel you think you've established with a web site is in fact a channel to the black box, which records the content and passes on the requests and responses from a central point.
(I am not a security analyst, but I think major corporates already do this when you're inside their firewall)
For US users, Flickr has always restored the picture as it was.
This crazy policy has only affected non-US users. It was first raised 3 years ago, but Flickr refused to change their policy until a well-known journalist and a celeb got involved and started creating bad publicity for them.
Unfortunately legislation has eroded these principles
The rosy picture painted by these great principles is an ideal that has been eroded by legislation over the years.
In particular the idea that "the police are the public and that the public are the police" does not survive a glance at the Police And Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_and_Criminal_Evidence_Act_1984) which lays out the special powers of a constable that members of the public do not have.
That the police are in a different category to the public was made clear by counter-terrorism legislation that gathering information about members of the armed forces *or a constable* could be classed as "offending material" (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/28/schedule/8).
Do not assume anything of the sort
"Of course, you also have to assume that this original deal was not one-sided."
You should not assume any such thing. The UK has a history of rolling over and letting the Septics have whatever they want with nothing asked in return.
Check the 2003 Extradition Treaty for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK%E2%80%93US_extradition_treaty_of_2003
Better the devil you know
"It was built in a bottom up manner, mainly by engineers, not bureaucrats"
This is the view trotted out by all Americans who want the US to retain control of the internet.
I don't support the ITU's attempt to gain more control, but please don't portray the internet as an engineer-led project.
The US Dept of Commerce, DARPA, ICANN and other bureaucracies have consistently thwarted engineers' vision of what the internet could be since it was invented.
Just because the ITU is bad doesn't mean the status quo is good.
DNS blocking
Fourteen countries. You forgot the United Kingdom: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/05/the-pirate-bay-to-be-blocked-i.html
Packet inspection? No, just envelope inspection
"Letters, telephone calls, email and the Web -- this is a level of total surveillance that countries like China, North Korea or Iran can only dream of."
This is misleading. The countries you mention regularly inspect the content of communications.
The UK is asking for sweeping powers to inspect the envelope of communications - who you communicate with and when.
It will still require court intervention to carry out wiretapping.
Re: Payment
Not exactly a paper trail, but I know what you mean.
Beware of thinking BitCoin is anonymous. It isn't unless you take appropriate steps.
Re:
So we can look forward to the government publishing the NHS Risk Register? :-)
Re: Private communication
People prepared to jump through the hoops you describe are not the target. They already know how to evade surveillance.
This bill is bringing the internet and postal service into line with what the security services can already do with your phone line.
Your local council, for instance, can already ask the police to request your telephone records (who you called, when and for how long). Now they will be able to ask who sent you mail or email and which websites you visited.
None of this enables people to inspect your mail, or email, or your transactions with websites any more than they can eavesdrop on your phone calls.
They will still need a court order to do that.
I don't agree with this bill but we should fight it with facts, not FUD.
HTTPS decryption
Charles Farr's remark probably means they have penetrated (or come to an arrangement with) the Certificate Authorities.
In other words, the secure channel you think you've established with a web site is in fact a channel to the black box, which records the content and passes on the requests and responses from a central point.
(I am not a security analyst, but I think major corporates already do this when you're inside their firewall)
This just affects non-US users of Flickr
For US users, Flickr has always restored the picture as it was.
This crazy policy has only affected non-US users. It was first raised 3 years ago, but Flickr refused to change their policy until a well-known journalist and a celeb got involved and started creating bad publicity for them.
Copyright killing innovation
If this furore, however groundless, harms Pinterest then it's a good example of repressive copyright law killing innovation.
The effect may be indirect but the root cause is clear.
Replacement for Jon Postel
The nearest thing we have as a replacement for Jon Postel is the Internet Society.
In a sane world, IANA would be run by the Internet Society from tomorrow.
http://www.internetsociety.org/
Of course we don't live in a sane world, but one dominated by macho politics. IANA will remain with ICANN.
Re: Re: Collateral damage
Please don't delete your Flickr account or you make any inbound links to your photos invalid, which is the problem Dave Gorman is complaining about.
By all means abandon it and use another site, but leave the existing content where it is.
hypothes.is
The world wide web is the repository. That was Tim Berners-Lee's vision.
You may be interested in hypothes.is which aims to provide open, web-based peer review for pretty much anything.
Felix Salmon is a yank?
I think he's actually a subject of your Queen.
Fourth Amendment to what?
Some of your readers may not be as familiar with the American Constitution as, well, Americans.
Perhaps some of your readers might have appreciated this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution