6 ms·

I used to want to visit the UK, not so much anymore... when you find yourself mulling over how best to protect yourself in the same way you'd prep for attending

I used to want to visit the UK, not so much anymore... when you find yourself mulling over how best to protect yourself in the same way you'd prep for attending something like defcon, it sort of loses its zeal. Edit: wow, the downvotes are coming fast on this one, guess i found a nerve. needle

draugadrotten 11y ago
It won't matter if you visit the UK. The UK law extends the rights of surveillance world-wide, These laws comes in handy at times. As part of the "five eyes" spy agrement, UK and US are intentionally spying on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each other in order to circumvent restrictive domestic regulations on spying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
schoen 11y ago
It is a legitimate, practical concern whether visiting somewhere will increase your risk of attacks on your devices and data. I was struck by a New York Times article from 2012, before organized governmental hacking was the topic of the day, setting out some of the precautions that people took. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/technology/electronic-security-a-worry-in-an-age-of-digital-espionage.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/technology/electronic-secu... This was particularly focused on hacking by China (something we in English-speaking countries had learned to hate and fear over the years), and I found it sad to learn that the same precautions can be appropriate for visiting liberal democracies.
harkyns_ruins 11y ago
Seems to be a pretty common theme going on now, at least among the five eyes and any beholden countries. The one thing that makes me (grimace) laugh is that with this level of surveillance, they seem to be either a) incredibly incompetent because of all the corruption, paedophilia and so on that seems to go unpunished/uncaught, or b) a tool used by people higher up the chain for other purposes.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  Probably because the data is only used for intelligence / contra intelligence purposes and quiet rightly the plod (Police) are not allowed to go on fishing expeditions.
  - harkyns_ruins 11y ago
    Well the current laws passed in Australia mean a large array of government departments can see our metadata. That aside, we know the intelligence gathered has been used for parallel construction... perhaps just selectively I guess.
    - bediger4000 11y ago
      Dragnet surveillance data must be used selectively: you don't want to use it against your "confidential informants", after all. That would ruin their testimony in later cases, and give previously convicted "perps" grounds for appeal.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    Well the <sarcasm>good news</end sarcasm> is that the new laws being proposed in the UK will give the data to the police as well. Given the record of abuse of such data it won't be long before they are dragnetting the database.
    - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
      That's the worrying issue then the Police and the Home Secratery are not getting on at the moment - I can see the lords putting some amendments down to kill off general access by the plod.
mirimir 11y ago
But that's the thing. We're always attending something like Defcon ;) Surveillance is ubiquitous.
elthran 11y ago
I'm intrigued here, since I can't personally empathize with your viewpoint. What makes state security services monitoring communications (pretty much like all countries) outweigh the desire to visit another country, experience it's culture, sights etc? For me, this would always outweigh anything else, other than actual physical safety - I'm deliberately not taking my dream holiday to travel Egypt, and have been for years now. (FYI, UK citizen, in case anyone feels it's relevant)
- eru 11y ago
  Maybe he's zer0defex is equally torn on the margin between Britain and country x.
benevol 11y ago
> I used to want to visit the UK I used to want to move to London. Now I know I won't.
pjc50 11y ago
As a Brit, it's weird because unless you're one of a few kinds of activist or visit Northern Ireland, it's pretty much invisible and a largely theoretical threat compared to, say, regular malware or driveby hackers. It's a lot like refusing to go to the US because the risk of being shot by the police is far higher there: statistically true, but as a white tourist it's very unlikely to be a problem. The other weird thing is about how the war on terrorism is being carried out as invisibly as possible, including what it might claim as "victories": actual convictions of people for terrorist offences. They're not being paraded around in the papers. The concern lies at the political level: are the security services being deployed against Corbyn? After all the PM did call him a "threat to national security".
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- cmdkeen 11y ago
  MI5 have a very long, and proud, history of distinguishing between political enmity and "subversive" activity. The history of "entryism" during the Cold War is well documented, and MI5 have declassified information about what they did and did not do. Basically they helped protect the Labour party from infiltration from Communist sympathising individuals who wanted to overthrow Parliamentary democracy. They did not spy on merely left wing individuals. We're in an age of leaks, and there have been whistleblowers from the UK intelligence services. If MI5 were asked to spy on Corbyn you'd probably hear about it in the resignation letter of the head of the service... Personally I do think Corbyn is a threat to national security. Not in a sense which he is aiming to destroy the state or country, but that his naive and inconsistent world view would embolden our enemies and be more likely to cause conflict. His views are one which he is entitled to have without state surveillance, he's entitled to stand for public office and entitled to be brutalised by his political opponents for his previous positions, especially on foreign policy.
  - richmarr 11y ago
    > Personally I do think Corbyn is a threat to national security... his naive and inconsistent world view would embolden our enemies and be more likely to cause conflict. I agree with most of your comment, but this one point made me spit my tea all over my screen. 15 years after Tony Blair's 'sexed up' dodgy dossier pushed us into joining the US in the rediculous 'Gulf War 2', which (predictably) resulted in a huge power vacuum in the region, world-wide radicalisation, and further conflict (with no end in sight), it's a little funny that someone outside the usual 'war hawk' template gets accused of being a threat. Sure, he wants to get rid of Trident, the nuclear missile system that relies so heavily on US guidance infrastructure that the UK physically cannot fire it without US approval. Since it's not independent it has zero tactical value and exists solely as a way of subsidising the US nuclear stockpile while fluffing up our own feathers like a giant mind-numbingly-expensive peacock.
cmdkeen 11y ago
Seriously? Now you might be engaging in activities which mean you do need to engage in Defcon levels of preparation, perhaps you work in intelligence, perhaps you're a terrorist, or perhaps you're a journalist. But then you'd be engaging in Defcon levels of preparation all the time, including heading to any Western country. I suspect you're not and you're mistaking your desire for privacy with thinking the UK is in any way interested in you. This isn't a "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument I'm trying to be realistic. The UK has a strong history of an independent judiciary standing up to the state and of a government that has been legislating to increase scrutiny and safeguards for decades. This whole programme may have been under a "vague" law but it is covered under the law and the government is having a debate on making it clearer what is happening. In trying to update old laws to the modern age I think it is acceptable to discuss what the limits should be, but also accept that old concepts of where the state can intercept communications should change not just be written off as "oh well we can't do that any more".
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Or maybe she is a private citizen with an unusual sexual kink that she does not want her mother/boss/customers to know about. The UK government will not be able to keep all the data they are slurping up secure and it will end up in (more) criminal hands than GCHQ/the police. > you're mistaking your desire for privacy with thinking the UK is in any way interested in you. Why does the UK maintain a file on her then? And why on me? And why on you? If they are not interested why bother to store the data? Your second paragraph is inaccurate in almost every respect.
- throwaway7767 11y ago
  Yes, seriously. You don't need to believe that someone is actively looking at your communications to be concerned about all your conversations being logged into a database somewhere, for future reference. We know now that the only chance we have to prevent our communications falling into the mass surveillance dragnet is precisely to follow, as you say, "Defcon levels of preparation all the time". Despite what you say, your argument is exactly the trite old gripe about "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". Except maybe if you decide in 15 years to run for political office on a platform to rein in the intelligence services, you might. Then it might not be good for them to have this huge haystack to search through to pass juicy bits to the tabloids. Look into the FBI's handling of Martin Luther King for example.
ionised 11y ago
Yup. As a British citizen I wouldn't recommend that anyone visit here. I wouldn't personally wish to visit the US since its hyper-nationalist, gung-ho, war-fervour has been in full swing, coupled with the potential ass-raping at airport security by the TSA. Even less so since the NSA/GCHQ stuff has come to light.

draugadrotten 11y ago

It won't matter if you visit the UK. The UK law extends the rights of surveillance world-wide, These laws comes in handy at times. As part of the "five eyes" spy agrement, UK and US are intentionally spying on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each other in order to circumvent restrictive domestic regulations on spying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

schoen 11y ago

It is a legitimate, practical concern whether visiting somewhere will increase your risk of attacks on your devices and data. I was struck by a New York Times article from 2012, before organized governmental hacking was the topic of the day, setting out some of the precautions that people took. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/technology/electronic-security-a-worry-in-an-age-of-digital-espionage.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/technology/electronic-secu... This was particularly focused on hacking by China (something we in English-speaking countries had learned to hate and fear over the years), and I found it sad to learn that the same precautions can be appropriate for visiting liberal democracies.

harkyns_ruins 11y ago

Seems to be a pretty common theme going on now, at least among the five eyes and any beholden countries. The one thing that makes me (grimace) laugh is that with this level of surveillance, they seem to be either a) incredibly incompetent because of all the corruption, paedophilia and so on that seems to go unpunished/uncaught, or b) a tool used by people higher up the chain for other purposes.

spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
Probably because the data is only used for intelligence / contra intelligence purposes and quiet rightly the plod (Police) are not allowed to go on fishing expeditions.
- harkyns_ruins 11y ago
  Well the current laws passed in Australia mean a large array of government departments can see our metadata. That aside, we know the intelligence gathered has been used for parallel construction... perhaps just selectively I guess.
  - bediger4000 11y ago
    Dragnet surveillance data must be used selectively: you don't want to use it against your "confidential informants", after all. That would ruin their testimony in later cases, and give previously convicted "perps" grounds for appeal.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Well the <sarcasm>good news</end sarcasm> is that the new laws being proposed in the UK will give the data to the police as well. Given the record of abuse of such data it won't be long before they are dragnetting the database.
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    That's the worrying issue then the Police and the Home Secratery are not getting on at the moment - I can see the lords putting some amendments down to kill off general access by the plod.

mirimir 11y ago

But that's the thing. We're always attending something like Defcon ;) Surveillance is ubiquitous.

elthran 11y ago

I'm intrigued here, since I can't personally empathize with your viewpoint. What makes state security services monitoring communications (pretty much like all countries) outweigh the desire to visit another country, experience it's culture, sights etc? For me, this would always outweigh anything else, other than actual physical safety - I'm deliberately not taking my dream holiday to travel Egypt, and have been for years now. (FYI, UK citizen, in case anyone feels it's relevant)

eru 11y ago
Maybe he's zer0defex is equally torn on the margin between Britain and country x.

benevol 11y ago

> I used to want to visit the UK I used to want to move to London. Now I know I won't.

pjc50 11y ago

As a Brit, it's weird because unless you're one of a few kinds of activist or visit Northern Ireland, it's pretty much invisible and a largely theoretical threat compared to, say, regular malware or driveby hackers. It's a lot like refusing to go to the US because the risk of being shot by the police is far higher there: statistically true, but as a white tourist it's very unlikely to be a problem. The other weird thing is about how the war on terrorism is being carried out as invisibly as possible, including what it might claim as "victories": actual convictions of people for terrorist offences. They're not being paraded around in the papers. The concern lies at the political level: are the security services being deployed against Corbyn? After all the PM did call him a "threat to national security".

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
cmdkeen 11y ago
MI5 have a very long, and proud, history of distinguishing between political enmity and "subversive" activity. The history of "entryism" during the Cold War is well documented, and MI5 have declassified information about what they did and did not do. Basically they helped protect the Labour party from infiltration from Communist sympathising individuals who wanted to overthrow Parliamentary democracy. They did not spy on merely left wing individuals. We're in an age of leaks, and there have been whistleblowers from the UK intelligence services. If MI5 were asked to spy on Corbyn you'd probably hear about it in the resignation letter of the head of the service... Personally I do think Corbyn is a threat to national security. Not in a sense which he is aiming to destroy the state or country, but that his naive and inconsistent world view would embolden our enemies and be more likely to cause conflict. His views are one which he is entitled to have without state surveillance, he's entitled to stand for public office and entitled to be brutalised by his political opponents for his previous positions, especially on foreign policy.
- richmarr 11y ago
  > Personally I do think Corbyn is a threat to national security... his naive and inconsistent world view would embolden our enemies and be more likely to cause conflict. I agree with most of your comment, but this one point made me spit my tea all over my screen. 15 years after Tony Blair's 'sexed up' dodgy dossier pushed us into joining the US in the rediculous 'Gulf War 2', which (predictably) resulted in a huge power vacuum in the region, world-wide radicalisation, and further conflict (with no end in sight), it's a little funny that someone outside the usual 'war hawk' template gets accused of being a threat. Sure, he wants to get rid of Trident, the nuclear missile system that relies so heavily on US guidance infrastructure that the UK physically cannot fire it without US approval. Since it's not independent it has zero tactical value and exists solely as a way of subsidising the US nuclear stockpile while fluffing up our own feathers like a giant mind-numbingly-expensive peacock.

cmdkeen 11y ago

Seriously? Now you might be engaging in activities which mean you do need to engage in Defcon levels of preparation, perhaps you work in intelligence, perhaps you're a terrorist, or perhaps you're a journalist. But then you'd be engaging in Defcon levels of preparation all the time, including heading to any Western country. I suspect you're not and you're mistaking your desire for privacy with thinking the UK is in any way interested in you. This isn't a "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument I'm trying to be realistic. The UK has a strong history of an independent judiciary standing up to the state and of a government that has been legislating to increase scrutiny and safeguards for decades. This whole programme may have been under a "vague" law but it is covered under the law and the government is having a debate on making it clearer what is happening. In trying to update old laws to the modern age I think it is acceptable to discuss what the limits should be, but also accept that old concepts of where the state can intercept communications should change not just be written off as "oh well we can't do that any more".

JupiterMoon 11y ago
Or maybe she is a private citizen with an unusual sexual kink that she does not want her mother/boss/customers to know about. The UK government will not be able to keep all the data they are slurping up secure and it will end up in (more) criminal hands than GCHQ/the police. > you're mistaking your desire for privacy with thinking the UK is in any way interested in you. Why does the UK maintain a file on her then? And why on me? And why on you? If they are not interested why bother to store the data? Your second paragraph is inaccurate in almost every respect.
throwaway7767 11y ago
Yes, seriously. You don't need to believe that someone is actively looking at your communications to be concerned about all your conversations being logged into a database somewhere, for future reference. We know now that the only chance we have to prevent our communications falling into the mass surveillance dragnet is precisely to follow, as you say, "Defcon levels of preparation all the time". Despite what you say, your argument is exactly the trite old gripe about "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". Except maybe if you decide in 15 years to run for political office on a platform to rein in the intelligence services, you might. Then it might not be good for them to have this huge haystack to search through to pass juicy bits to the tabloids. Look into the FBI's handling of Martin Luther King for example.

ionised 11y ago

Yup. As a British citizen I wouldn't recommend that anyone visit here. I wouldn't personally wish to visit the US since its hyper-nationalist, gung-ho, war-fervour has been in full swing, coupled with the potential ass-raping at airport security by the TSA. Even less so since the NSA/GCHQ stuff has come to light.