13 ms·

How can I protect myself from government snoopers?

212 points by Graham24 10y ago

kragniz 10y ago
>But if they are not out to get you, why act as though they should be? It’s probably better to be as inconspicuous as possible, while limiting the amount of data that might turn up in some bored agency’s random fishing expeditions. This makes me so sad.
- SixSigma 10y ago
  Could be a shill ?
- hmmwell 10y ago
  So what this person is saying is that under something like the Nazis or Stalin, they would have cruised right along. That is what they are actually saying, and that's all they're saying. Saying "I don't have anything to hide" really translates to "I am so far away from any adult responsibility and intelligence that I don't even realize I should be hiding that.", and anyone over 20 still saying shit like that you can write clean off, as far as I'm concerned.
  - dTal 10y ago
    "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." --Edward Snowden, my favorite thing he's ever said.
guilamu 10y ago
Brilliant first recommanded comment by "stpman" in the article to answer all those saying "I don't have anything to hide": "Why should people care about surveillance? Because even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being recorded. You don't have to do anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion, even by a wrong call. They can use this system to go back in time and scrutinise everything, and derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer." -Edward Snowden "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -Cardinal Richelieu You may not have anything to hide, but you should hide as much as you can anyway, because anything you say or write may be one day used against you in a court of law.
- gmac 10y ago
  See also: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2015/responding-to-nothing-to-hide-nothing-to-fear https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2015/responding-to-noth...
- austinjp 10y ago
  I agree. Most people have curtains over their windows, after all. Although, a worrying possibility is that a tendency toward privacy marks you out as a dissenter. Guilty before proven innocent.
- planetjones 10y ago
  I fully agree with the quote above, but I don't find this as clear a cut issue as perhaps many on HN do. It's undoubtable that surveillance is becoming harder now and that groups who would bring great harm to innocent people are using the internet for research and communication. I don't know what the answer is, but encrypting everyone's communications end-to-end with no-one able to ever intercept does sound like it will make protecting us very hard indeed. And yes, I know these tools for strong encryption are out there and they can't be un-invented - but I can see why Governments want to do "something". I am just saying what that "something" is becomes difficult to define.
  - hueving 10y ago
    Yet society somehow protected itself when terrorists learned from books and communicated via mail, meeting in person, and telephone calls.
  - geff82 10y ago
    During all history of mankind, wrongdoers were using "words spoken by the mouth" to do all kind of bad things. Yet I miss total surveillance of privately spoken words. Even without total online surveillance, by the nature of computers you are leaving so many traces that full surveillance is not necessary to at least find something. And in countries without Big-Brother like surveillance, police often got good hints by searching the equipment of a real criminal. It is just not needed to include everyone. And even with encryption, you can often see who talked to who. The "something" you are talking about is the following: good old police work. You have a reason to be suspicious? Search the guy. Just as police did the last hundred years. Just do not search everyone. Police work should be hard if we still care about citizen rights.
nicktelford 10y ago
What truly terrifies me about this is how little control most users have over the websites they "visit". This law requires ISPs to log the domain name of websites users connect to. All it takes is one dodgy advert on an otherwise ordinary website to incriminate you. Worse, you might not even know this has happened, as the ad itself might be completely innocuous. But by virtue of being hosted on a website the government considers suspect, you find yourself on a list. I don't know if this actually happens in practice, but I have heard stories of bad actors using adverts to distribute malware - it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to see the same bad actors using adverts to generate false positives to the authorities. Ad blockers are going to become more important than ever.
- treerock 10y ago
  Yeah I was curious about what level of detail will be recorded. According to the article: "The law forces internet service providers to keep a record of all the websites – not the actual pages – you visit for up to a year." If they aren't recording the pages, I'd doubt they've be recording the ads embedded on the page. But who knows, I imagine it's down to how the ISPs implement the legislation.
  - doc_holliday 10y ago
    From my interpretation they are logging the IP address and ports data transfered from. So theoretically if you transfer data from insert bad orgs IP address here from within another innocent website you'd be logged for that.
  - redcalx 10y ago
    They can't record the pages if the request is over https, as per most web sites these days. The IP address is known because it's necessary for routing traffic, but the content of each HTTP request and response is encrypted, and that's where the rest of the URL lives.
    - Warp__ 10y ago
      Gov't can easily MITM HTTPS connections.
gmac 10y ago
I have taken to sending all traffic through my own IKEv2 VPN hosted in Germany. I have a script to automate setup [1], which I will be updating shortly to use Let's Encrypt and to generate an on-demand Mac/iOS configuration profile that keeps one constantly connected. I have half a mind to set up some semi-commercial service on the basis of complete transparency and the motivation to avoid the Investigatory Powers Act (most existing VPN services seem to come across as very shady). [1] https://github.com/jawj/IKEv2-setup https://github.com/jawj/IKEv2-setup
- jgrahamc 10y ago
  What does this do in your configuration? i.e. why 10.10.10.0/24? VPNIPPOOL="10.10.10.0/24"
  - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
    It defines the IP range of the devices on the VPN to be a subset of the special/reserved "private network" range [0]. More specifically it says that the VPN IP's are over the range of 10.10.10.0 to 10.10.10.255. This can be calculated from taking the binary representation of the specified IP and 'fixing' the first 24 (in this case) bits, the range of possible addresses is the range over which the last 8 (in this case) bits can vary. It is common to also see a broadcast address, gateway, and network mask specified. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Special-use_addresses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Special-use_addresses
- billybofh 10y ago
  In a similar line, I've been using 'streisand' for the past little while - might be worth looking at for inspiration if nothing else. https://github.com/jlund/streisand https://github.com/jlund/streisand
- sdfjkl 10y ago
  What makes you think Germany is a better exit point for your traffic? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_zur_Beschr%C3%A4nkung_des_Brief-,_Post-_und_Fernmeldegeheimnisses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_zur_Beschr%C3%A4nkung_d... Much more comprehensive German version: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artikel_10-Gesetz#.C3.9Cbermittlung_von_BND-Erkenntnissen_an_andere_Staaten https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artikel_10-Gesetz#.C3.9Cbermit...
_pdp_ 10y ago
If you need minimal no-fuss, pay for what you use type of setup, you can use Amazon Lambda to proxy for you. Hook this up to FoxyProxy or something like this with some good rules and you will be on a good track in terms of your default browser. That being said, VPN will be always better and it doesn't cost very much to set one up on DO.
Fifer82 10y ago
Please sign https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 to help get rid of this disgusting invasion of privacy.
- pauljohncleary 10y ago
  ...and be put on the list of state enemies?
  - aluhut 10y ago
    Mission accomplished.
  - jalfresi 10y ago
    As of this law, you are already on that list
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    I have a brain and think they are (damn near) all hopelessly corrupt, someone once said you can define a man by his enemies. I'm at the point where I actively think the current round of politicians is actively bad for the country.
- lucozade 10y ago
  Does anyone happen to know if any of these petitions have actually stopped a bill or caused it to be amended? Would be disappointed to think it's just a placebo.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- philbarr 10y ago
  Done. And it's not so much that I care about how much they snoop on me, but more that I know how absolutely useless they are at storing all this data so it can't be abused by malicious parties.
cs02rm0 10y ago
Small point. This is about protecting yourself from ISP logging now required by government. Using a VPN and to tunnel your connection via [another country] may not be sufficient to avoid the government snooping Snowden talked about, as referred to in the article.
- your_ai_manager 10y ago
  You're quite right. It's more akin to drawing your curtains and locking your front door. Anyone with enough motivation can break in but at least it's not all out on display.
- wlll 10y ago
  There is a secondary risk, and that is that ISPs (who IME often don't have skills or decent budgets for this sort of thing) are storing your data. At some point an ISP is going to get hacked for this data. At least re-routing to a server somewhere bypasses that storage, even if it doesn't protect against overarching state snooping.
heisenbit 10y ago
I suspect on site level there won't be too much to allow effective identification of threats without a lot of false positives. This may be intention as with a "reasonable" suspicion more invasive procedures can be justified. The biggest practical near term threat could well be to the spouses of all the parties that can request the data. Other likely threats are employers, particularly public ones.
JamesBaxter 10y ago
I just bought a subscription to F-SECURE FREEDOME VPN after a bit of research but also heavily influenced by Troy Hunt's recommendation. It's currently discounted with the coupon code BlackFriday. Setup on the iPhone took 2 minutes, setting it up on my OpenWRT router tonight will take longer I suspect...
- estefan 10y ago
  > Setup on the iPhone took 2 minutes, setting it up on my OpenWRT router tonight will take longer I suspect... I think you'll be disappointed: https://community.f-secure.com/t5/F-Secure/i-want-to-use-freedome-directly/td-p/77919 https://community.f-secure.com/t5/F-Secure/i-want-to-use-fre...
- slededit 10y ago
  Your just making yourself a bigger target. if you don't want to be tracked in a surveillance state the solution is to be under the radar.
MichaelMoser123 10y ago
They didn't mention TOR in the article; is there a reason for not mentioning it? Is it still legal to use TOR in the UK?
- bogle 10y ago
  Yes, Tor is legal in the UK.
- Accacin 10y ago
  Tor is really for anonymity, not privacy.
  - MichaelMoser123 10y ago
    They can't log your browsing history if you use TOR.
kseistrup 10y ago
How about VPSes in UK datacentres, e.g. Linode, London? Should one consider moving them to e.g. Germany?
antaviana 10y ago
One way to protect youself is by writing a program that sends random requests every few seconds to an URL of a database of millions of URLs. Then they will have to find out which your actual visits were and which not.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  So when you're hauled up in front of a court, the prosecutor can cherry-pick the worst possible subset and sequence of all of those domains?
ischm 10y ago
There is no technical solution to such a problem. There is only a political solution. Either force government to change politics, or change government. Some background of why I believe this. I grew up in communist East Germany (GDR) and lived there for 27 years, until - yes - we changed the government. Trying to change politics beforehand was not so successful after all. As you may know or may not know, that state was based to a good extent on the soft terror of broad surveillance. In the 70s and 80s of the last century, to achieve this a lot of human power was needed. Nowadays, surveillance can mostly be based on technology. I'm much concerned - given my life experience - about the trend over the last years to undermine democracy in the name of saving it - all over the (yet) free world. At least I know how a society looks like, that is no longer democratic. The technical solutions like VPN or whatever are similiar to what we called "inner emigration" back in the past. It was a widespread phenomenon in that society. But only once many people have stopped this kind of hiding, and have publicly stripped off their fear, the system began to tumble. In the end, all the surveillance could not save it. They did know what happened and they could not stop it, simply because the people did not play their game anymore. That petition mentioned here elsewhere is the right way. Sign it if you are a UK citizen. I'm unfortunately not, but I would do it now.
- mfukar 10y ago
  True. We tend to forget the lessons of history very fast.
  - wlll 10y ago
    Human memory is short. Currently hoping I'm not watching a slide into fascism around the world.
    - ischm 10y ago
      As long as we keep watching - maybe. Once we start acting - maybe not.
- dualogy 10y ago
  > yes - we changed the government. Trying to change politics beforehand was not so successful after all East-German too, younger though. Yeah it's funny, all the time it seems impossible for "da people" to engender substantial change in governance. Then woopdidoo, some Gorbachev comes along, holds some talks with the Reagans of this world, eastern client states slowly learn they now can and should hold off a bit from total autocracy, and "the folk" get to exercise some agency for a brief time. Beautiful. Where was this agency after Snowden, after other introductions or revelations of police/surveillance state measures? Looks like it wasn't quite as expedient to today's Reagans/Gorbachevs/etc of today. Sorry people, no illusion-of-agency for you when alignment with officious objectives is absent. Maybe it'll come around somehow..
david_mitchell 10y ago
Some questions for anyone who happens to have been following this closely: 1. What exactly is being stored? I have seen stories/comments saying it is domain names visited from web browsing but does it also cover other internet activity? Or is it being left vague? 2. Does the requirement to keep data for one year come with a corresponding obligation to delete it after that? Are they allowed to keep it longer (perhaps summary/derived data for cost reduction) ? 3. Can the organisations with access make bulk requests for all the data or do they have to request records one ip addr/person at a time? (yes, I know an IP is not a person etc). 4. If the data does have to be destroyed at some point does that only include data collected by the isp or also include copies made by those with access? 5. Are there any published numbers on roughly how many people will have access to collected data?
rubberstamp 10y ago
Like I said in the other thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13034747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13034747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035114 I am not from UK, but listen to me if any folks from UK are reading this. This is one of the things that is harmful to your privacy. Should the list of websites that you visit be available for government unless you are under active investigation? Its not just the list of websites but every packet data that your devices send out, which means government could see your messages, data sent to dropbox, online spreadsheet like google docs etc. This is mass surveillance. You should be proud that your government have a website were you can start petitions. Now please use this feature and sign the petition so that this surveillance law can be repealed. The petition against this bill is at: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 You sign the petition and ask your close friends and family to do the same. What you do not need is an intrusive government. I am voicing this because even though I am not a UK citizen, I do not want law makers in my country thinking "Oh those chaps has a fine surveillance law and their citizens are okay with it. Lets adopt that law". Now get to action. Sign the petition at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199
- wlll 10y ago
  I signed it, though I'm pretty sure that the government e-petitions are a well crafted wind for people to piss into. At least I become a +1 in the count of people who object.
  - ischm 10y ago
    Don't worry. If the petition does not help, there is a lot more in the political toolbox. Next maybe a public demonstration.
    - wlll 10y ago
      Honestly not sure how well those really work either. As long as a majority (or lets face it, significant minority, see US election) can be manipulated into voting against their interests the only thing politicians need to fear are actual threats to their power. Maybe I'm too cynical :)
SEJeff 10y ago
The surveillance self defense kit from the eff is a most excellent starting point for anyone serious about this: https://ssd.eff.org/en https://ssd.eff.org/en
known 10y ago
Check https://prism-break.org/en/all/ https://prism-break.org/en/all/ and https://www.privacytools.io/ https://www.privacytools.io/
IlPeach 10y ago
An interesting movie on the topic, filmed before everything blew up, The Listening (2006) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Listening_(film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Listening_(film)
exabrial 10y ago
For one, stop idolizing the people that promoted it under his administration: President Obama. It started under Bush, but Obama should have killed it.
JupiterMoon 10y ago
If you are in the UK then sign the petition (please don't sign it if you are not). https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 60,000 so far, less than 100,000 means it will be ignored out of hand. There is another HN discussion about it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035996#13036348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035996#13036348
vixen99 10y ago
In spite of the virulent dislike for the Daily Mail usually expressed in these pages, I'll stick my head out and offer a link to a list of the folk who'll be snooping on your browsing if you live in the UK. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3971214/The-48-organisations-entire-online-browsing-history-delete-it.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3971214/The-4... Edit: If that's a step too far . . . here it is. Metropolitan police force, City of London police force, Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996, Police Service of Scotland, Police Service of Northern Ireland,British Transport Police, Ministry of Defence Police,Royal Navy Police, Royal Military Police,Royal Air Force Police, Security Service,Secret Intelligence Service, GCHQ,Ministry of Defence,Department of Health, Home Office,Ministry of Justice, National Crime Agency,HM Revenue & Customs, Department for Transport,Department for Work and Pensions, NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services,Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service,Competition and Markets Authority, Criminal Cases Review Commission,Department for Communities in Northern Ireland,Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland,Department of Justice in Northern Ireland, Financial Conduct Authority,Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, Food Standards Agency,Food Standards Scotland, Gambling Commission,Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, Health and Safety Executive,Independent Police Complaints Commissioner,Information Commissioner, NHS Business Services Authority,Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board, Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Regional Business Services Organisation,Office of Communications, Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, Scottish Ambulance Service Board, Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, Serious Fraud Office,Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust.
spaceman77 10y ago
Using someone else's computer (internet cafe) with a different set of usernames/identities while not having your smartphone with you. Using a laptop running a live Linux CD using public WI FI while leaving your smart phone at home. Using fake log ins online.

212 points by Graham24 10y ago

>But if they are not out to get you, why act as though they should be? It’s probably better to be as inconspicuous as possible, while limiting the amount of data that might turn up in some bored agency’s random fishing expeditions. This makes me so sad.

SixSigma 10y ago
Could be a shill ?
hmmwell 10y ago
So what this person is saying is that under something like the Nazis or Stalin, they would have cruised right along. That is what they are actually saying, and that's all they're saying. Saying "I don't have anything to hide" really translates to "I am so far away from any adult responsibility and intelligence that I don't even realize I should be hiding that.", and anyone over 20 still saying shit like that you can write clean off, as far as I'm concerned.
- dTal 10y ago
  "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." --Edward Snowden, my favorite thing he's ever said.

guilamu 10y ago

Brilliant first recommanded comment by "stpman" in the article to answer all those saying "I don't have anything to hide": "Why should people care about surveillance? Because even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being recorded. You don't have to do anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion, even by a wrong call. They can use this system to go back in time and scrutinise everything, and derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer." -Edward Snowden "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -Cardinal Richelieu You may not have anything to hide, but you should hide as much as you can anyway, because anything you say or write may be one day used against you in a court of law.

gmac 10y ago
See also: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2015/responding-to-nothing-to-hide-nothing-to-fear https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2015/responding-to-noth...
austinjp 10y ago
I agree. Most people have curtains over their windows, after all. Although, a worrying possibility is that a tendency toward privacy marks you out as a dissenter. Guilty before proven innocent.
planetjones 10y ago
I fully agree with the quote above, but I don't find this as clear a cut issue as perhaps many on HN do. It's undoubtable that surveillance is becoming harder now and that groups who would bring great harm to innocent people are using the internet for research and communication. I don't know what the answer is, but encrypting everyone's communications end-to-end with no-one able to ever intercept does sound like it will make protecting us very hard indeed. And yes, I know these tools for strong encryption are out there and they can't be un-invented - but I can see why Governments want to do "something". I am just saying what that "something" is becomes difficult to define.
- hueving 10y ago
  Yet society somehow protected itself when terrorists learned from books and communicated via mail, meeting in person, and telephone calls.
- geff82 10y ago
  During all history of mankind, wrongdoers were using "words spoken by the mouth" to do all kind of bad things. Yet I miss total surveillance of privately spoken words. Even without total online surveillance, by the nature of computers you are leaving so many traces that full surveillance is not necessary to at least find something. And in countries without Big-Brother like surveillance, police often got good hints by searching the equipment of a real criminal. It is just not needed to include everyone. And even with encryption, you can often see who talked to who. The "something" you are talking about is the following: good old police work. You have a reason to be suspicious? Search the guy. Just as police did the last hundred years. Just do not search everyone. Police work should be hard if we still care about citizen rights.

nicktelford 10y ago

What truly terrifies me about this is how little control most users have over the websites they "visit". This law requires ISPs to log the domain name of websites users connect to. All it takes is one dodgy advert on an otherwise ordinary website to incriminate you. Worse, you might not even know this has happened, as the ad itself might be completely innocuous. But by virtue of being hosted on a website the government considers suspect, you find yourself on a list. I don't know if this actually happens in practice, but I have heard stories of bad actors using adverts to distribute malware - it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to see the same bad actors using adverts to generate false positives to the authorities. Ad blockers are going to become more important than ever.

treerock 10y ago
Yeah I was curious about what level of detail will be recorded. According to the article: "The law forces internet service providers to keep a record of all the websites – not the actual pages – you visit for up to a year." If they aren't recording the pages, I'd doubt they've be recording the ads embedded on the page. But who knows, I imagine it's down to how the ISPs implement the legislation.
- doc_holliday 10y ago
  From my interpretation they are logging the IP address and ports data transfered from. So theoretically if you transfer data from insert bad orgs IP address here from within another innocent website you'd be logged for that.
- redcalx 10y ago
  They can't record the pages if the request is over https, as per most web sites these days. The IP address is known because it's necessary for routing traffic, but the content of each HTTP request and response is encrypted, and that's where the rest of the URL lives.
  - Warp__ 10y ago
    Gov't can easily MITM HTTPS connections.

gmac 10y ago

I have taken to sending all traffic through my own IKEv2 VPN hosted in Germany. I have a script to automate setup [1], which I will be updating shortly to use Let's Encrypt and to generate an on-demand Mac/iOS configuration profile that keeps one constantly connected. I have half a mind to set up some semi-commercial service on the basis of complete transparency and the motivation to avoid the Investigatory Powers Act (most existing VPN services seem to come across as very shady). [1] https://github.com/jawj/IKEv2-setup https://github.com/jawj/IKEv2-setup

jgrahamc 10y ago
What does this do in your configuration? i.e. why 10.10.10.0/24? VPNIPPOOL="10.10.10.0/24"
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  It defines the IP range of the devices on the VPN to be a subset of the special/reserved "private network" range [0]. More specifically it says that the VPN IP's are over the range of 10.10.10.0 to 10.10.10.255. This can be calculated from taking the binary representation of the specified IP and 'fixing' the first 24 (in this case) bits, the range of possible addresses is the range over which the last 8 (in this case) bits can vary. It is common to also see a broadcast address, gateway, and network mask specified. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Special-use_addresses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Special-use_addresses
billybofh 10y ago
In a similar line, I've been using 'streisand' for the past little while - might be worth looking at for inspiration if nothing else. https://github.com/jlund/streisand https://github.com/jlund/streisand
sdfjkl 10y ago
What makes you think Germany is a better exit point for your traffic? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_zur_Beschr%C3%A4nkung_des_Brief-,_Post-_und_Fernmeldegeheimnisses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_zur_Beschr%C3%A4nkung_d... Much more comprehensive German version: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artikel_10-Gesetz#.C3.9Cbermittlung_von_BND-Erkenntnissen_an_andere_Staaten https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artikel_10-Gesetz#.C3.9Cbermit...

_pdp_ 10y ago

If you need minimal no-fuss, pay for what you use type of setup, you can use Amazon Lambda to proxy for you. Hook this up to FoxyProxy or something like this with some good rules and you will be on a good track in terms of your default browser. That being said, VPN will be always better and it doesn't cost very much to set one up on DO.

Fifer82 10y ago

Please sign https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 to help get rid of this disgusting invasion of privacy.

pauljohncleary 10y ago
...and be put on the list of state enemies?
- aluhut 10y ago
  Mission accomplished.
- jalfresi 10y ago
  As of this law, you are already on that list
- noir_lord 10y ago
  I have a brain and think they are (damn near) all hopelessly corrupt, someone once said you can define a man by his enemies. I'm at the point where I actively think the current round of politicians is actively bad for the country.
lucozade 10y ago
Does anyone happen to know if any of these petitions have actually stopped a bill or caused it to be amended? Would be disappointed to think it's just a placebo.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
philbarr 10y ago
Done. And it's not so much that I care about how much they snoop on me, but more that I know how absolutely useless they are at storing all this data so it can't be abused by malicious parties.

cs02rm0 10y ago

Small point. This is about protecting yourself from ISP logging now required by government. Using a VPN and to tunnel your connection via [another country] may not be sufficient to avoid the government snooping Snowden talked about, as referred to in the article.

your_ai_manager 10y ago
You're quite right. It's more akin to drawing your curtains and locking your front door. Anyone with enough motivation can break in but at least it's not all out on display.
wlll 10y ago
There is a secondary risk, and that is that ISPs (who IME often don't have skills or decent budgets for this sort of thing) are storing your data. At some point an ISP is going to get hacked for this data. At least re-routing to a server somewhere bypasses that storage, even if it doesn't protect against overarching state snooping.

heisenbit 10y ago

I suspect on site level there won't be too much to allow effective identification of threats without a lot of false positives. This may be intention as with a "reasonable" suspicion more invasive procedures can be justified. The biggest practical near term threat could well be to the spouses of all the parties that can request the data. Other likely threats are employers, particularly public ones.

JamesBaxter 10y ago

I just bought a subscription to F-SECURE FREEDOME VPN after a bit of research but also heavily influenced by Troy Hunt's recommendation. It's currently discounted with the coupon code BlackFriday. Setup on the iPhone took 2 minutes, setting it up on my OpenWRT router tonight will take longer I suspect...

estefan 10y ago
> Setup on the iPhone took 2 minutes, setting it up on my OpenWRT router tonight will take longer I suspect... I think you'll be disappointed: https://community.f-secure.com/t5/F-Secure/i-want-to-use-freedome-directly/td-p/77919 https://community.f-secure.com/t5/F-Secure/i-want-to-use-fre...
slededit 10y ago
Your just making yourself a bigger target. if you don't want to be tracked in a surveillance state the solution is to be under the radar.

MichaelMoser123 10y ago

They didn't mention TOR in the article; is there a reason for not mentioning it? Is it still legal to use TOR in the UK?

bogle 10y ago
Yes, Tor is legal in the UK.
Accacin 10y ago
Tor is really for anonymity, not privacy.
- MichaelMoser123 10y ago
  They can't log your browsing history if you use TOR.

kseistrup 10y ago

How about VPSes in UK datacentres, e.g. Linode, London? Should one consider moving them to e.g. Germany?

antaviana 10y ago

One way to protect youself is by writing a program that sends random requests every few seconds to an URL of a database of millions of URLs. Then they will have to find out which your actual visits were and which not.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
So when you're hauled up in front of a court, the prosecutor can cherry-pick the worst possible subset and sequence of all of those domains?

ischm 10y ago

There is no technical solution to such a problem. There is only a political solution. Either force government to change politics, or change government. Some background of why I believe this. I grew up in communist East Germany (GDR) and lived there for 27 years, until - yes - we changed the government. Trying to change politics beforehand was not so successful after all. As you may know or may not know, that state was based to a good extent on the soft terror of broad surveillance. In the 70s and 80s of the last century, to achieve this a lot of human power was needed. Nowadays, surveillance can mostly be based on technology. I'm much concerned - given my life experience - about the trend over the last years to undermine democracy in the name of saving it - all over the (yet) free world. At least I know how a society looks like, that is no longer democratic. The technical solutions like VPN or whatever are similiar to what we called "inner emigration" back in the past. It was a widespread phenomenon in that society. But only once many people have stopped this kind of hiding, and have publicly stripped off their fear, the system began to tumble. In the end, all the surveillance could not save it. They did know what happened and they could not stop it, simply because the people did not play their game anymore. That petition mentioned here elsewhere is the right way. Sign it if you are a UK citizen. I'm unfortunately not, but I would do it now.

mfukar 10y ago
True. We tend to forget the lessons of history very fast.
- wlll 10y ago
  Human memory is short. Currently hoping I'm not watching a slide into fascism around the world.
  - ischm 10y ago
    As long as we keep watching - maybe. Once we start acting - maybe not.
dualogy 10y ago
> yes - we changed the government. Trying to change politics beforehand was not so successful after all East-German too, younger though. Yeah it's funny, all the time it seems impossible for "da people" to engender substantial change in governance. Then woopdidoo, some Gorbachev comes along, holds some talks with the Reagans of this world, eastern client states slowly learn they now can and should hold off a bit from total autocracy, and "the folk" get to exercise some agency for a brief time. Beautiful. Where was this agency after Snowden, after other introductions or revelations of police/surveillance state measures? Looks like it wasn't quite as expedient to today's Reagans/Gorbachevs/etc of today. Sorry people, no illusion-of-agency for you when alignment with officious objectives is absent. Maybe it'll come around somehow..

david_mitchell 10y ago

Some questions for anyone who happens to have been following this closely: 1. What exactly is being stored? I have seen stories/comments saying it is domain names visited from web browsing but does it also cover other internet activity? Or is it being left vague? 2. Does the requirement to keep data for one year come with a corresponding obligation to delete it after that? Are they allowed to keep it longer (perhaps summary/derived data for cost reduction) ? 3. Can the organisations with access make bulk requests for all the data or do they have to request records one ip addr/person at a time? (yes, I know an IP is not a person etc). 4. If the data does have to be destroyed at some point does that only include data collected by the isp or also include copies made by those with access? 5. Are there any published numbers on roughly how many people will have access to collected data?

rubberstamp 10y ago

Like I said in the other thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13034747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13034747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035114 I am not from UK, but listen to me if any folks from UK are reading this. This is one of the things that is harmful to your privacy. Should the list of websites that you visit be available for government unless you are under active investigation? Its not just the list of websites but every packet data that your devices send out, which means government could see your messages, data sent to dropbox, online spreadsheet like google docs etc. This is mass surveillance. You should be proud that your government have a website were you can start petitions. Now please use this feature and sign the petition so that this surveillance law can be repealed. The petition against this bill is at: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 You sign the petition and ask your close friends and family to do the same. What you do not need is an intrusive government. I am voicing this because even though I am not a UK citizen, I do not want law makers in my country thinking "Oh those chaps has a fine surveillance law and their citizens are okay with it. Lets adopt that law". Now get to action. Sign the petition at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199

wlll 10y ago
I signed it, though I'm pretty sure that the government e-petitions are a well crafted wind for people to piss into. At least I become a +1 in the count of people who object.
- ischm 10y ago
  Don't worry. If the petition does not help, there is a lot more in the political toolbox. Next maybe a public demonstration.
  - wlll 10y ago
    Honestly not sure how well those really work either. As long as a majority (or lets face it, significant minority, see US election) can be manipulated into voting against their interests the only thing politicians need to fear are actual threats to their power. Maybe I'm too cynical :)

SEJeff 10y ago

The surveillance self defense kit from the eff is a most excellent starting point for anyone serious about this: https://ssd.eff.org/en https://ssd.eff.org/en

known 10y ago

Check https://prism-break.org/en/all/ https://prism-break.org/en/all/ and https://www.privacytools.io/ https://www.privacytools.io/

IlPeach 10y ago

An interesting movie on the topic, filmed before everything blew up, The Listening (2006) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Listening_(film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Listening_(film)

exabrial 10y ago

For one, stop idolizing the people that promoted it under his administration: President Obama. It started under Bush, but Obama should have killed it.

JupiterMoon 10y ago

If you are in the UK then sign the petition (please don't sign it if you are not). https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199 60,000 so far, less than 100,000 means it will be ignored out of hand. There is another HN discussion about it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035996#13036348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035996#13036348

vixen99 10y ago

In spite of the virulent dislike for the Daily Mail usually expressed in these pages, I'll stick my head out and offer a link to a list of the folk who'll be snooping on your browsing if you live in the UK. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3971214/The-48-organisations-entire-online-browsing-history-delete-it.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3971214/The-4... Edit: If that's a step too far . . . here it is. Metropolitan police force, City of London police force, Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996, Police Service of Scotland, Police Service of Northern Ireland,British Transport Police, Ministry of Defence Police,Royal Navy Police, Royal Military Police,Royal Air Force Police, Security Service,Secret Intelligence Service, GCHQ,Ministry of Defence,Department of Health, Home Office,Ministry of Justice, National Crime Agency,HM Revenue & Customs, Department for Transport,Department for Work and Pensions, NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services,Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service,Competition and Markets Authority, Criminal Cases Review Commission,Department for Communities in Northern Ireland,Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland,Department of Justice in Northern Ireland, Financial Conduct Authority,Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, Food Standards Agency,Food Standards Scotland, Gambling Commission,Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, Health and Safety Executive,Independent Police Complaints Commissioner,Information Commissioner, NHS Business Services Authority,Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board, Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Regional Business Services Organisation,Office of Communications, Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, Scottish Ambulance Service Board, Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, Serious Fraud Office,Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust.

spaceman77 10y ago

Using someone else's computer (internet cafe) with a different set of usernames/identities while not having your smartphone with you. Using a laptop running a live Linux CD using public WI FI while leaving your smart phone at home. Using fake log ins online.