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This is a dreadful article, and the title is deeply misleading. Literally the only information this article contains is that MPs use Office365 and MessageLabs.

This is a dreadful article, and the title is deeply misleading. Literally the only information this article contains is that MPs use Office365 and MessageLabs. That they've felt the need to clarify, right at the end of the article: > Computer Weekly also points out that we have not made > any suggestion in this story that GCHQ “routinely > reads” MPs’ emails. I would say that is exactly the suggestion that the verb "accesses" makes.

cm2187 10y ago
So you are suggesting that accessing metadata about emails (senders, recipients, subject) is by no mean relevant? I think in 90% of the email traffic, the content can pretty much be inferred from the subject, and that's intended, it is meant to refer precisely to the most important point of the email. And the sender/recipient/other emails give you the context. In my book that pretty much qualifies to accessing emails.
- peteretep 10y ago
  No, I'm suggesting that we already knew the NSA and GCHQ were doing mass data collection. The article headline - and its very existence - suggests that politicians were being targetted, or there was some suggestion that GCHQ agents are reading politicians email in particular. That the published had to clarify (at the end, ad views already banked) that they didn't mean the emails are being read tells you that the article is woefully unclear. Neither is true: all the article actually says is that digital communication in the UK is being collected for possible future analysis, and because parliamentarians are in the UK, their data is included. Next up: ALL POLITICANS ARE TIME-TRAVELLERS[1] 1: They can go forward in time at the same speed as everything in their immediate vicinity
  - cm2187 10y ago
    You can argue that it is a way to spin it, but if the aim is to make politicians react, I don't think it's bad to tell them: all emails, including yours, are monitored.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      Politicians frequently say that they're only looking at metadata and they only want to monitor metadata. If you want to persuade them that it's a bad idea to gather metadata you need to focus on that. Creating bullshit scare headlines that aren't true allow them to dismiss it as fearmongering.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    > The article headline - and its very existence - suggests that politicians were being targetted, or there was some suggestion that GCHQ agents are reading politicians email in particular. And that's important because there have been occasions in the past when certain MPs were being surveilled by the security services. If it was happening today there'd probably be some ructions. (because somehow MPs think their email is more important than my email.)
nthcolumn 10y ago
Yes, that would be ridiculous. It is fully automated. Only communications with specific attributes are routinely inspected.
wfo 10y ago
I'm not sure it's all that misleading, what I got out of the article was that there was apparently an explicit law (Wilson doctrine) in the UK designed to prevent spy agencies from spying on political officials. But now that they have begun using cloud services, etc, the doctrine has been quietly rendered irrelevant because of routing technicalities.

cm2187 10y ago

So you are suggesting that accessing metadata about emails (senders, recipients, subject) is by no mean relevant? I think in 90% of the email traffic, the content can pretty much be inferred from the subject, and that's intended, it is meant to refer precisely to the most important point of the email. And the sender/recipient/other emails give you the context. In my book that pretty much qualifies to accessing emails.

peteretep 10y ago
No, I'm suggesting that we already knew the NSA and GCHQ were doing mass data collection. The article headline - and its very existence - suggests that politicians were being targetted, or there was some suggestion that GCHQ agents are reading politicians email in particular. That the published had to clarify (at the end, ad views already banked) that they didn't mean the emails are being read tells you that the article is woefully unclear. Neither is true: all the article actually says is that digital communication in the UK is being collected for possible future analysis, and because parliamentarians are in the UK, their data is included. Next up: ALL POLITICANS ARE TIME-TRAVELLERS[1] 1: They can go forward in time at the same speed as everything in their immediate vicinity
- cm2187 10y ago
  You can argue that it is a way to spin it, but if the aim is to make politicians react, I don't think it's bad to tell them: all emails, including yours, are monitored.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    Politicians frequently say that they're only looking at metadata and they only want to monitor metadata. If you want to persuade them that it's a bad idea to gather metadata you need to focus on that. Creating bullshit scare headlines that aren't true allow them to dismiss it as fearmongering.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > The article headline - and its very existence - suggests that politicians were being targetted, or there was some suggestion that GCHQ agents are reading politicians email in particular. And that's important because there have been occasions in the past when certain MPs were being surveilled by the security services. If it was happening today there'd probably be some ructions. (because somehow MPs think their email is more important than my email.)

nthcolumn 10y ago

Yes, that would be ridiculous. It is fully automated. Only communications with specific attributes are routinely inspected.

wfo 10y ago

I'm not sure it's all that misleading, what I got out of the article was that there was apparently an explicit law (Wilson doctrine) in the UK designed to prevent spy agencies from spying on political officials. But now that they have begun using cloud services, etc, the doctrine has been quietly rendered irrelevant because of routing technicalities.