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UK spies using social media data for mass surveillance

207 points by infodroid 9y ago

infodroid 9y ago
The headline unfortunately downplays the scope of the data, since it covers a lot more than social media - it can include legally priviliged and "otherwise confidential" information, as well as information on "religion, racial or ethnic origin, political views, medical condition, sexual orientation." What is remarkable is the absolute lack of oversight over the sharing of this sensitive data with foreign governments and law enforcement, but especially with so-called "industry partners". And that there don't appear to be any legal penalties for its misuse.
- deleted 9y ago
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- QAPereo 9y ago
  What’s more remarkable to me is that people happily offer up this data on themselves, and what worries me is what intelligence agencies do to spy on people who care enough not to broadcast their every movement, meal, and stray thought.
  - jstanley 9y ago
    If you're not offering up that data, you obviously have something to hide, so that's surely sufficient grounds for a warrant to tap your communications. :)
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      It’s true, I’m almost certainly a drug dealer/pedophile/terrorist, as are all who encrypt so much as a single byte!
    - Sevrene 9y ago
      You're being playful about this, but I'm legitimately worried about a future where job candidates are rejected purely because they didn't offer their social media identities or passwords. I know this does happen sometimes now. What happens when saying "I don't have a facebook account" becomes a significant enough indicator that your're hiding your past? I've heard stories of people at airport customs attempting to enter a country and having to try explain to the customs officers their lack of web presence or social media posts that they would otherwise use to corroborate and back up their intent for travel.
      - vtange 9y ago
        Doesn't this just mean people will eventually start building artificial social presences to point to instead of simply lacking any sort of presence?
        mikro2nd 9y ago
        I assume that many already do this. There's certainly a number of business opportunities in this, and it's only a matter of time before it turns into an arms race: people building fake social-media identities, other parties (governments, big internet players) deploy AI to distinguish these from real,... rinse and repeat ad infinitum. If I still cared enough about writing software I'd probably do a startup around some of this. Instead I'm writing SF about it.
      - vkou 9y ago
        > You're being playful about this, but I'm legitimately worried about a future where job candidates are rejected purely because they didn't offer their social media identities or passwords. Demanding a social media identity or password is a great idea if you want to paint a huge target on your back for a discrimination lawsuit. Said social media account will contain a lot of information about whether or not you are a member of a protected class. Good luck proving that you didn't use it in your hiring decision.
      - mosselman 9y ago
        Do you have any sources that describe the asking for social media access in job applications? As a software engineer I am very lucky with the amount of jobs that is available to me, so if I were asked this I would walk out of the interview immediately. My only fear is for all those people who don't have a choice because they are part of a pool of hundreds of applications (psychology graduates for example, at least here in the Netherlands). Some employers just want to squeeze every last drop of dignity out of their employees, it is disgusting.
    - KGIII 9y ago
      I once had a pair of police officers try to tell me that my refusal to let them search the vehicle was grounds for probable cause and would enable them to legally search my vehicle. I laughed and pointed out that I'm not a teen and am quite familiar with my rights. They were visibly disappointed and told me that I was kicked out of Kansas and that I'd be arrested if I ever went back to Kansas. I giggled again but left and they followed me to the interstate slipway.
      - alsetmusic 9y ago
        Sheriffs tried the same with me, also in Kansas. Threatened to impound my vehicle to search it, threatened me with arrest, ultimately let me go about my business because I had not violated the law or given a viable appearance of doing so. It was a very clear bully technique that fell apart when I calmly asserted my rights. This certainly isn’t a localized tactic. I recall discussion of videographers printing statutes and employing them when threatened about recording police activity in public spaces. The frightening aspect (to me) is that some law enforcement officers genuinely appear to believe that they have authority that they don’t have. http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2017/04/gresham_pays_85k_educates_cops.html http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2017/04/gresham... https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-portland-police-reach-settlement-filming-case https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-portland-police-reach-settlem... https://www.google.com/search?q=settlement+recording+police https://www.google.com/search?q=settlement+recording+police
        KGIII 9y ago
        The funny part was it was during one of my extended wanderlust adventures and I'd just finished spending a couple of weeks volunteering in Greenville, KS. They'd just been almost totally destroyed by a tornado and I happened to be just a little ways away. So, lacking anything better to do, I bought some work clothes and went to help move rubble. I was leaving the State and decided I'd nap for a few hours. I didn't feel like getting a hotel so I slept in the car. It turns out, I was sleeping in a factory parking lot and the people who came in to open it called the police - or so the cops said. It probably didn't help that I was in manual labor clothing, I'm not white, and I was in a new BMW. I probably looked like a drug dealer. That's still not an excuse. Not to worry, I didn't let it reflect on the nice people of Kansas. But, after I'd spent a couple of weeks just giving my time to those in need, their cops harassed me and told me that I was banned from their State. I haven't been back but that's just coincidental.
  - alchemism 9y ago
    What’s more remarkable to me is how people don’t see how easy it is to set up a clean surface identity and discrete secondary identities, and hide in plain sight.
    - Sevrene 9y ago
      Depends on whom you're trying to hide from, no? Friends and family might have a hard time tracking your discrete secondary identities, but your ISP or facebook might see it very transparently.
      - QAPereo 9y ago
        ...and police, intelligence agencies etc... will just flag that and your countermeasures will become a target.
      - nine_k 9y ago
        A VM with a separate OS, talking to the world through a VPN would probably hide you from Facebook, Google, etc, in the sense that it would be hard for them to correlate the two identities. It of course won't work well against police, who can look up the VPN provider, ask who's paying for it, and it's mostly enough to find you.
        dogruck 9y ago
        They will fingerprint your online presence timing, writing style, forums, audience, etc.
        nine_k 9y ago
        Writing style: this is something you can work on. Forums: often the need for a separate identity arises from the need to join a particular forum frowned upon by your peers or superiors. Same for audience. That is, if you want a different persona and not a sock puppet to support your "main" persona. Timing: this is also solvable if you want to.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    It's kind of rational to do so. I mean, individuals cannot realistically compete with governments who want to oppress them unless they're monumentally stubborn and self-sacrificing, but the various benefits of sharing information on social media has measurable upsides for thema s consumers - they get to meet friends, receive advertising on topics of genuine interest, and so on, which may outweigh the relatively low probability of direct repression. There's a parallel phenomenon in political behavior that's ably explained in Brian Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter. You could practice really rigorous security culture and avoid creating any digital footprint worth talking about in the first place, but then you'd be socially isolated to a degree that was economically disadvantageous (economically meaning in multiple contexts besides purely fiscal). And to the degree that you can be socially connected, inferences could still be made about you through the behavior of your friends. As a crude example, recall that Osama bin Laden's hiding place was determined to be interesting because there was physical traffic of people and goods to the residence, but an uncharacteristic lack of electronic communication for the neighborhood it was situated in. What kind of house has a bunch of people living there and regular visitors, but not internet or phone service? Finally, people have different kinds of risk calculus. Many people know that they're subject to such surveillance and the ramifications that follow from it, but choose to be who they are anyway despite the risks, on the theory that they'd rather live on their feet than die on their knees.
    - visarga 9y ago
      Good point - we're choosing to let all this happen because we prefer to have access to all the other benefits that come with surveillance.
  - e12e 9y ago
    It's not so much the data people offer up about themselves, as it is the data they offer up about everyone around them.
    - mosselman 9y ago
      Exactly. When I received my university degree I told someone not to post the picture she was taking of me with my diploma on Facebook. "Why not?" she asked offendedly. Why on earth that was offensive is beyond me, but apparently the urge to 'share' is very strong with some people.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  And this is why I don't understand how anyone in the U.S. could be flippant or irreverent about any of the rights afforded to them under the constitution. In America, it is still legally feasible to challenge the existing surveillance programs, which are inherently limited in terms of invasiveness.
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    A quick but important note on the Constitution and rights. The Constitution was created in order to protect natural rights that exist outside of any government, and does not grant or establish any rights themselves, but merely imparts negative rights and limitations on the government. You may think that an obvious statement, but I've been increasingly concerned at the education of the populace about the subject. Also, the difference between positive and negative rights is an important one not enough are aware of. This is what makes America, despite its flaws, what Christopher Hitchens called "the last revolution to stand a chance", and to this day is the basis for what I consider true American exceptionalism that distinguishes us from other countries such as the UK.
    - duncan_bayne 9y ago
      > Also, the difference between positive and negative rights is an important one not enough are aware of. I'd go further than that; I'd say that the difference is strongly downplayed in political and educational contexts because so much Government overreach is predicated upon people not knowing, or not caring, about the difference. Also, even people who /do/ understand, often don't care. Because if they did, they'd have to concede that many Federal programmes in the US are unconstitutional, that is, they involve powers not explicitly delegated to the Federal Government by the Constitution. And folks want their FCC, FDA and Obamacare, so they let it slide ...
      - arca_vorago 9y ago
        Well said. Honestly I am a bit ashamed I didn't know about the difference sooner. A few years ago though I realized that I should probably better understand this document I swore an oath to protect. That journey has not been easy though because it has forced me to challenge popular opinion in both the public and the legal field.
anigbrowl 9y ago
Without endorsing this practice, as a practical matter they'd be idiots not to.
- jstanley 9y ago
  Sure, if their goal is to collect as much data as possible, rather than to do good in the world.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    That's a silly objection. The 'good' they're attempting to do is preventing terrorism by sifting through the sea of available information on social media. When terrorism occurs in developed countries, the public's anger and fear leads to questions like 'why didn't you see this coming?' And so politicians naturally enough say they'll watch more closely for the signs of such activity. Again, I am not endorsing this, but espionage and counter-espionage has the same arms-race characteristics as other spheres of military and indeed much commercial activity. What's your alternative proposal? I don't have a good one myself. Also, what do you think will happen to a politician that says 'this sort of thing can't be prevented,' given the fact that many pundits and media outlets are happy to promote the notion of a security state to the general public, and the general public is poorly equipped to evaluate their claims? I'm absolutely not trying to dismiss your argument, but I wish you'd put more effort into fleshing it out. We have centuries of experience for the proposition that the public is easily stampeded into fortress-building and suspicion, and overcoming that requires more than a generalized wish people to just Do The Right Thing, as if that were easily identifiable.
    - jstanley 9y ago
      Does the public's anger and fear lead to questions like "why didn't you see this coming?"? Or is the public's anger and fear stoked by the very people who want to be asked "why didn't you see this coming?", precisely so they can say "ah, you're right, let's increase our surveillance powers"?
      - 9y ago
hacker_9 9y ago
So what if they collect it and share it with foreign governments? Social media is public to begin with, so big deal if they are basically indexing the information. Doesn't stop them moaning it's not enough or preventing bomb attacks.
- mandelbrotwurst 9y ago
  What do you mean that "social media is public to begin with"? As I'm sure you're aware, while most social media sites have options to post publicly, many (at least ostensibly) also offer a wide variety of options for sharing data in narrower circles (i.e. private groups, direct messages, etc). If you're talking about only the content that the users intended to share publicly, that seems like a reasonable enough position to take, but if it goes beyond that I hope you wouldn't still say "big deal". One of the "Key Points" on the Privacy International release linked from the TechCrunch story and available at https://privacyinternational.org/node/1532 https://privacyinternational.org/node/1532 is that "GCHQ collected and accesses this information by gaining access to private companies’ databases." That sounds an awful lot like they're going beyond simply indexing the public web.
- saimiam 9y ago
  It doesn’t work for the same reason American gun control hasn’t worked - you cannot stop bad actors and the ones getting unduly impacted by onerous intrusion are law abiding American citizens. I’m neither an American nor a gun owner but I can see the parallel between private citizens being legally forced to give up privacy for dubious reasons and gun owners potentially being asked to give up guns for dubious reasons (dubious because of how few people get killed in rampages in the United States.)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- jstanley 9y ago
  > or preventing bomb attacks You're more likely to die by falling down the stairs than by being killed by a terrorist[0]. Bomb attacks are not something you should be concerned by. However much bomb attacks scare you, you should be ~100x more scared of living in a house that has more than one floor. [0] http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/12/just-dangerous-terrorism-really.html http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/12/just-dangerous-terror...
DyslexicAtheist 9y ago
Quick, spread some FUD[0] to justify our conduct and nanny-state: [0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/17/uk-most-severe-terror-threat-ever-mi5-islamist https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/17/uk-most-seve... Seriously the timing of these 2 stories is very questionable.
LeoPanthera 9y ago
I feel like... I'm actually OK with this? Social media is public. It's intentionally public. That's really the whole point. It's your choice to post things to Facebook or Twitter or Snapstergram. Of all the privacy issues that we should be worried about it feels like this should not be one of them. If you don't want your social media info used... don't post it to social media!
- infodroid 9y ago
  Despite the headline, social media isn't the privacy issue or the main story. It's just that we have evidence that social media makes up one of the Bulk Personal Datasets (BPDs) [1]. The actual story is that the oversight body wasn't informed that BPDs were being shared with foreign governments, law enforcement and industry partners. There is no oversight of the process. Partners don't have to meet any standards on use of the data. There are no penalties for misuse of the data. This makes it possible to circumvent UK regulations. These are the privacy issues. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/12/isc-report-privacy-and-security-report/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/12/isc-report-privacy-and-sec...
- papaf 9y ago
  It's intentionally public. Is it? I was under the impression that I was sharing information with my "friends".
  - saiya-jin 9y ago
    well, it's friends AND facebook. after Snowden, we all know that any big 3-letter company having the info means secret services having same info. realistically, if you want to keep something private, don't tell it to people and don't put it anywhere, and I mean literally anywhere on internet, encrypted or not.
- keont 9y ago
  Thing is, if they make a profile about you that includes race, religion, and sexuality, what is stopping them from denying a certain group of people a job in the public sector? Or to use it as basis to spy on you because "this type of profile tends to be violent/terrorist/communist/not patriotic enough". Or to not give you social aid since you aren't the right type of profile.
jarym 9y ago
How is the government storing legally privileged information at all lawful? And Amber Rudd wonders why respectable technologists sneer at her - maybe it's because they've read 1984 and want to do what they can to stop the madness!
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > How is the government storing legally privileged information Are these legally-privileged data in the United Kingdom?
  - whiteandnerdy 9y ago
    Yes, I believe so. Definition of sensitive data: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/section/2 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/section/2 Some legal restrictions on processing said data: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/part/II https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/part/II However, it's not clear to me to what degree, if any, security agencies are exempt from the Data Protection Act.
    - pja 9y ago
      There's a sweeping exemption from the DPA for the purposes of "national security". Any minister can issue a certificate stating that a given activity is for the purposes of national security and therefore exempt & these certificates can be issued retrospectively. It's all laid out in section 28 of the DPA: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/section/28 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/section/28
      - 103e 9y ago
        I wonder if their industry partners are similarly indemnified...
      - lostboys67 9y ago
        but there are also protections e.g. if they come across evidence of stuff that is not related to national security it is ignored.
peterburkimsher 9y ago
The police in Australia have been sharing private information about members of community groups with private companies to "manage" future activities and potential "security threats". Since 2009. That's before the Snowden leaks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Desalination_Plant#Sharing_of_private_information_with_private_consortia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Desalination_Plant#S... One might assume that the information about members of these groups was gleaned from social media sites. I feel like this is an example of "guilty until proven innocent".
- throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  The past 200 years... flushed! Why did they bother fighting for the west in the cold war, if they were just going to be trainee stasi types today!!
jheriko 9y ago
"UK spies do job properly" not-news.
driverdan 9y ago
Original source: https://privacyinternational.org/node/1532 https://privacyinternational.org/node/1532
zigzag333 9y ago
You will never understand what is happening around you if you don't find the courage to escape your own self-censorship, self-reinforced prison-of-a-worldview. You are all able to think critically, but for reasons I won't go into, fail to use the same critical thinking for a huge part of the information you come across. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aOhnK01wMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aOhnK01wMY [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHi-1PJsgbI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHi-1PJsgbI Disclaimer: I do not know nor trust those people. I personally found them more-or-less by accident and do think that noone in this day-and-age would be able to make any tours if a) there was no "guarding angel" protecting them b) were not part of the game peace and prosper ;)
danhess68 9y ago
The only rights you have are those we deign to allow you on a case by case basis or rather those not yet denied you. We will use whatever means necessary to attack persons of interest to us and if you are merely tangential to that - tough it is more expedient for us and that is what matters. If you expose or challenge us then we will ruin your life. Do not even think about blowing that whistle or leaking any info - that is for us not you. You can do three tours in Iraq, come back and get shot in the back by a fat mall cop and he will get away with it if we so choose and we do. If it is illegal to use this data now, then we will get our foreign friends to do it until we change the law to make it legal here. If you ask us about it we will lie for as long as we can until we don't have to lie any more. We don't care about cholera, don't care if your beach house is on fire. Don't care if the sky falls in. It is window-dressing and frankly we are a little bored of it to the point where we hardly even attempt to hide it anymore. We have absolute power and you are just a product. Carry on.

207 points by infodroid 9y ago

The headline unfortunately downplays the scope of the data, since it covers a lot more than social media - it can include legally priviliged and "otherwise confidential" information, as well as information on "religion, racial or ethnic origin, political views, medical condition, sexual orientation." What is remarkable is the absolute lack of oversight over the sharing of this sensitive data with foreign governments and law enforcement, but especially with so-called "industry partners". And that there don't appear to be any legal penalties for its misuse.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
QAPereo 9y ago
What’s more remarkable to me is that people happily offer up this data on themselves, and what worries me is what intelligence agencies do to spy on people who care enough not to broadcast their every movement, meal, and stray thought.
- jstanley 9y ago
  If you're not offering up that data, you obviously have something to hide, so that's surely sufficient grounds for a warrant to tap your communications. :)
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    It’s true, I’m almost certainly a drug dealer/pedophile/terrorist, as are all who encrypt so much as a single byte!
  - Sevrene 9y ago
    You're being playful about this, but I'm legitimately worried about a future where job candidates are rejected purely because they didn't offer their social media identities or passwords. I know this does happen sometimes now. What happens when saying "I don't have a facebook account" becomes a significant enough indicator that your're hiding your past? I've heard stories of people at airport customs attempting to enter a country and having to try explain to the customs officers their lack of web presence or social media posts that they would otherwise use to corroborate and back up their intent for travel.
    - vtange 9y ago
      Doesn't this just mean people will eventually start building artificial social presences to point to instead of simply lacking any sort of presence?
      - mikro2nd 9y ago
        I assume that many already do this. There's certainly a number of business opportunities in this, and it's only a matter of time before it turns into an arms race: people building fake social-media identities, other parties (governments, big internet players) deploy AI to distinguish these from real,... rinse and repeat ad infinitum. If I still cared enough about writing software I'd probably do a startup around some of this. Instead I'm writing SF about it.
    - vkou 9y ago
      > You're being playful about this, but I'm legitimately worried about a future where job candidates are rejected purely because they didn't offer their social media identities or passwords. Demanding a social media identity or password is a great idea if you want to paint a huge target on your back for a discrimination lawsuit. Said social media account will contain a lot of information about whether or not you are a member of a protected class. Good luck proving that you didn't use it in your hiring decision.
    - mosselman 9y ago
      Do you have any sources that describe the asking for social media access in job applications? As a software engineer I am very lucky with the amount of jobs that is available to me, so if I were asked this I would walk out of the interview immediately. My only fear is for all those people who don't have a choice because they are part of a pool of hundreds of applications (psychology graduates for example, at least here in the Netherlands). Some employers just want to squeeze every last drop of dignity out of their employees, it is disgusting.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    I once had a pair of police officers try to tell me that my refusal to let them search the vehicle was grounds for probable cause and would enable them to legally search my vehicle. I laughed and pointed out that I'm not a teen and am quite familiar with my rights. They were visibly disappointed and told me that I was kicked out of Kansas and that I'd be arrested if I ever went back to Kansas. I giggled again but left and they followed me to the interstate slipway.
    - alsetmusic 9y ago
      Sheriffs tried the same with me, also in Kansas. Threatened to impound my vehicle to search it, threatened me with arrest, ultimately let me go about my business because I had not violated the law or given a viable appearance of doing so. It was a very clear bully technique that fell apart when I calmly asserted my rights. This certainly isn’t a localized tactic. I recall discussion of videographers printing statutes and employing them when threatened about recording police activity in public spaces. The frightening aspect (to me) is that some law enforcement officers genuinely appear to believe that they have authority that they don’t have. http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2017/04/gresham_pays_85k_educates_cops.html http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2017/04/gresham... https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-portland-police-reach-settlement-filming-case https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-portland-police-reach-settlem... https://www.google.com/search?q=settlement+recording+police https://www.google.com/search?q=settlement+recording+police
      - KGIII 9y ago
        The funny part was it was during one of my extended wanderlust adventures and I'd just finished spending a couple of weeks volunteering in Greenville, KS. They'd just been almost totally destroyed by a tornado and I happened to be just a little ways away. So, lacking anything better to do, I bought some work clothes and went to help move rubble. I was leaving the State and decided I'd nap for a few hours. I didn't feel like getting a hotel so I slept in the car. It turns out, I was sleeping in a factory parking lot and the people who came in to open it called the police - or so the cops said. It probably didn't help that I was in manual labor clothing, I'm not white, and I was in a new BMW. I probably looked like a drug dealer. That's still not an excuse. Not to worry, I didn't let it reflect on the nice people of Kansas. But, after I'd spent a couple of weeks just giving my time to those in need, their cops harassed me and told me that I was banned from their State. I haven't been back but that's just coincidental.
- alchemism 9y ago
  What’s more remarkable to me is how people don’t see how easy it is to set up a clean surface identity and discrete secondary identities, and hide in plain sight.
  - Sevrene 9y ago
    Depends on whom you're trying to hide from, no? Friends and family might have a hard time tracking your discrete secondary identities, but your ISP or facebook might see it very transparently.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      ...and police, intelligence agencies etc... will just flag that and your countermeasures will become a target.
    - nine_k 9y ago
      A VM with a separate OS, talking to the world through a VPN would probably hide you from Facebook, Google, etc, in the sense that it would be hard for them to correlate the two identities. It of course won't work well against police, who can look up the VPN provider, ask who's paying for it, and it's mostly enough to find you.
      - dogruck 9y ago
        They will fingerprint your online presence timing, writing style, forums, audience, etc.
        nine_k 9y ago
        Writing style: this is something you can work on. Forums: often the need for a separate identity arises from the need to join a particular forum frowned upon by your peers or superiors. Same for audience. That is, if you want a different persona and not a sock puppet to support your "main" persona. Timing: this is also solvable if you want to.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  It's kind of rational to do so. I mean, individuals cannot realistically compete with governments who want to oppress them unless they're monumentally stubborn and self-sacrificing, but the various benefits of sharing information on social media has measurable upsides for thema s consumers - they get to meet friends, receive advertising on topics of genuine interest, and so on, which may outweigh the relatively low probability of direct repression. There's a parallel phenomenon in political behavior that's ably explained in Brian Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter. You could practice really rigorous security culture and avoid creating any digital footprint worth talking about in the first place, but then you'd be socially isolated to a degree that was economically disadvantageous (economically meaning in multiple contexts besides purely fiscal). And to the degree that you can be socially connected, inferences could still be made about you through the behavior of your friends. As a crude example, recall that Osama bin Laden's hiding place was determined to be interesting because there was physical traffic of people and goods to the residence, but an uncharacteristic lack of electronic communication for the neighborhood it was situated in. What kind of house has a bunch of people living there and regular visitors, but not internet or phone service? Finally, people have different kinds of risk calculus. Many people know that they're subject to such surveillance and the ramifications that follow from it, but choose to be who they are anyway despite the risks, on the theory that they'd rather live on their feet than die on their knees.
  - visarga 9y ago
    Good point - we're choosing to let all this happen because we prefer to have access to all the other benefits that come with surveillance.
- e12e 9y ago
  It's not so much the data people offer up about themselves, as it is the data they offer up about everyone around them.
  - mosselman 9y ago
    Exactly. When I received my university degree I told someone not to post the picture she was taking of me with my diploma on Facebook. "Why not?" she asked offendedly. Why on earth that was offensive is beyond me, but apparently the urge to 'share' is very strong with some people.
microcolonel 9y ago
And this is why I don't understand how anyone in the U.S. could be flippant or irreverent about any of the rights afforded to them under the constitution. In America, it is still legally feasible to challenge the existing surveillance programs, which are inherently limited in terms of invasiveness.
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  A quick but important note on the Constitution and rights. The Constitution was created in order to protect natural rights that exist outside of any government, and does not grant or establish any rights themselves, but merely imparts negative rights and limitations on the government. You may think that an obvious statement, but I've been increasingly concerned at the education of the populace about the subject. Also, the difference between positive and negative rights is an important one not enough are aware of. This is what makes America, despite its flaws, what Christopher Hitchens called "the last revolution to stand a chance", and to this day is the basis for what I consider true American exceptionalism that distinguishes us from other countries such as the UK.
  - duncan_bayne 9y ago
    > Also, the difference between positive and negative rights is an important one not enough are aware of. I'd go further than that; I'd say that the difference is strongly downplayed in political and educational contexts because so much Government overreach is predicated upon people not knowing, or not caring, about the difference. Also, even people who /do/ understand, often don't care. Because if they did, they'd have to concede that many Federal programmes in the US are unconstitutional, that is, they involve powers not explicitly delegated to the Federal Government by the Constitution. And folks want their FCC, FDA and Obamacare, so they let it slide ...
    - arca_vorago 9y ago
      Well said. Honestly I am a bit ashamed I didn't know about the difference sooner. A few years ago though I realized that I should probably better understand this document I swore an oath to protect. That journey has not been easy though because it has forced me to challenge popular opinion in both the public and the legal field.

anigbrowl 9y ago

Without endorsing this practice, as a practical matter they'd be idiots not to.

jstanley 9y ago
Sure, if their goal is to collect as much data as possible, rather than to do good in the world.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  That's a silly objection. The 'good' they're attempting to do is preventing terrorism by sifting through the sea of available information on social media. When terrorism occurs in developed countries, the public's anger and fear leads to questions like 'why didn't you see this coming?' And so politicians naturally enough say they'll watch more closely for the signs of such activity. Again, I am not endorsing this, but espionage and counter-espionage has the same arms-race characteristics as other spheres of military and indeed much commercial activity. What's your alternative proposal? I don't have a good one myself. Also, what do you think will happen to a politician that says 'this sort of thing can't be prevented,' given the fact that many pundits and media outlets are happy to promote the notion of a security state to the general public, and the general public is poorly equipped to evaluate their claims? I'm absolutely not trying to dismiss your argument, but I wish you'd put more effort into fleshing it out. We have centuries of experience for the proposition that the public is easily stampeded into fortress-building and suspicion, and overcoming that requires more than a generalized wish people to just Do The Right Thing, as if that were easily identifiable.
  - jstanley 9y ago
    Does the public's anger and fear lead to questions like "why didn't you see this coming?"? Or is the public's anger and fear stoked by the very people who want to be asked "why didn't you see this coming?", precisely so they can say "ah, you're right, let's increase our surveillance powers"?
    - 9y ago

hacker_9 9y ago

So what if they collect it and share it with foreign governments? Social media is public to begin with, so big deal if they are basically indexing the information. Doesn't stop them moaning it's not enough or preventing bomb attacks.

mandelbrotwurst 9y ago
What do you mean that "social media is public to begin with"? As I'm sure you're aware, while most social media sites have options to post publicly, many (at least ostensibly) also offer a wide variety of options for sharing data in narrower circles (i.e. private groups, direct messages, etc). If you're talking about only the content that the users intended to share publicly, that seems like a reasonable enough position to take, but if it goes beyond that I hope you wouldn't still say "big deal". One of the "Key Points" on the Privacy International release linked from the TechCrunch story and available at https://privacyinternational.org/node/1532 https://privacyinternational.org/node/1532 is that "GCHQ collected and accesses this information by gaining access to private companies’ databases." That sounds an awful lot like they're going beyond simply indexing the public web.
saimiam 9y ago
It doesn’t work for the same reason American gun control hasn’t worked - you cannot stop bad actors and the ones getting unduly impacted by onerous intrusion are law abiding American citizens. I’m neither an American nor a gun owner but I can see the parallel between private citizens being legally forced to give up privacy for dubious reasons and gun owners potentially being asked to give up guns for dubious reasons (dubious because of how few people get killed in rampages in the United States.)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jstanley 9y ago
> or preventing bomb attacks You're more likely to die by falling down the stairs than by being killed by a terrorist[0]. Bomb attacks are not something you should be concerned by. However much bomb attacks scare you, you should be ~100x more scared of living in a house that has more than one floor. [0] http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/12/just-dangerous-terrorism-really.html http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/12/just-dangerous-terror...

DyslexicAtheist 9y ago

Quick, spread some FUD[0] to justify our conduct and nanny-state: [0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/17/uk-most-severe-terror-threat-ever-mi5-islamist https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/17/uk-most-seve... Seriously the timing of these 2 stories is very questionable.

LeoPanthera 9y ago

I feel like... I'm actually OK with this? Social media is public. It's intentionally public. That's really the whole point. It's your choice to post things to Facebook or Twitter or Snapstergram. Of all the privacy issues that we should be worried about it feels like this should not be one of them. If you don't want your social media info used... don't post it to social media!

infodroid 9y ago
Despite the headline, social media isn't the privacy issue or the main story. It's just that we have evidence that social media makes up one of the Bulk Personal Datasets (BPDs) [1]. The actual story is that the oversight body wasn't informed that BPDs were being shared with foreign governments, law enforcement and industry partners. There is no oversight of the process. Partners don't have to meet any standards on use of the data. There are no penalties for misuse of the data. This makes it possible to circumvent UK regulations. These are the privacy issues. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/12/isc-report-privacy-and-security-report/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/12/isc-report-privacy-and-sec...
papaf 9y ago
It's intentionally public. Is it? I was under the impression that I was sharing information with my "friends".
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  well, it's friends AND facebook. after Snowden, we all know that any big 3-letter company having the info means secret services having same info. realistically, if you want to keep something private, don't tell it to people and don't put it anywhere, and I mean literally anywhere on internet, encrypted or not.
keont 9y ago
Thing is, if they make a profile about you that includes race, religion, and sexuality, what is stopping them from denying a certain group of people a job in the public sector? Or to use it as basis to spy on you because "this type of profile tends to be violent/terrorist/communist/not patriotic enough". Or to not give you social aid since you aren't the right type of profile.

jarym 9y ago

How is the government storing legally privileged information at all lawful? And Amber Rudd wonders why respectable technologists sneer at her - maybe it's because they've read 1984 and want to do what they can to stop the madness!

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> How is the government storing legally privileged information Are these legally-privileged data in the United Kingdom?
- whiteandnerdy 9y ago
  Yes, I believe so. Definition of sensitive data: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/section/2 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/section/2 Some legal restrictions on processing said data: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/part/II https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/part/II However, it's not clear to me to what degree, if any, security agencies are exempt from the Data Protection Act.
  - pja 9y ago
    There's a sweeping exemption from the DPA for the purposes of "national security". Any minister can issue a certificate stating that a given activity is for the purposes of national security and therefore exempt & these certificates can be issued retrospectively. It's all laid out in section 28 of the DPA: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/section/28 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/section/28
    - 103e 9y ago
      I wonder if their industry partners are similarly indemnified...
    - lostboys67 9y ago
      but there are also protections e.g. if they come across evidence of stuff that is not related to national security it is ignored.

peterburkimsher 9y ago

The police in Australia have been sharing private information about members of community groups with private companies to "manage" future activities and potential "security threats". Since 2009. That's before the Snowden leaks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Desalination_Plant#Sharing_of_private_information_with_private_consortia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Desalination_Plant#S... One might assume that the information about members of these groups was gleaned from social media sites. I feel like this is an example of "guilty until proven innocent".

throwawaymanbot 9y ago
The past 200 years... flushed! Why did they bother fighting for the west in the cold war, if they were just going to be trainee stasi types today!!

jheriko 9y ago

"UK spies do job properly" not-news.

driverdan 9y ago

Original source: https://privacyinternational.org/node/1532 https://privacyinternational.org/node/1532

zigzag333 9y ago

You will never understand what is happening around you if you don't find the courage to escape your own self-censorship, self-reinforced prison-of-a-worldview. You are all able to think critically, but for reasons I won't go into, fail to use the same critical thinking for a huge part of the information you come across. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aOhnK01wMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aOhnK01wMY [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHi-1PJsgbI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHi-1PJsgbI Disclaimer: I do not know nor trust those people. I personally found them more-or-less by accident and do think that noone in this day-and-age would be able to make any tours if a) there was no "guarding angel" protecting them b) were not part of the game peace and prosper ;)

danhess68 9y ago

The only rights you have are those we deign to allow you on a case by case basis or rather those not yet denied you. We will use whatever means necessary to attack persons of interest to us and if you are merely tangential to that - tough it is more expedient for us and that is what matters. If you expose or challenge us then we will ruin your life. Do not even think about blowing that whistle or leaking any info - that is for us not you. You can do three tours in Iraq, come back and get shot in the back by a fat mall cop and he will get away with it if we so choose and we do. If it is illegal to use this data now, then we will get our foreign friends to do it until we change the law to make it legal here. If you ask us about it we will lie for as long as we can until we don't have to lie any more. We don't care about cholera, don't care if your beach house is on fire. Don't care if the sky falls in. It is window-dressing and frankly we are a little bored of it to the point where we hardly even attempt to hide it anymore. We have absolute power and you are just a product. Carry on.