28 May 2015

UK: New online data terror powers proposed - This is extremely very not good

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32896921?SThisFB&fb_ref=Default

The Tories, spearheaded by Theresa May, are soon going to propose legislation that will mean that all internet activity will be logged by ISPs (e.g. BT, Virgin, Sky) in a fashion similar to the pervasive mass surveillance in Orwell's 1984. This would be even worse than the restrictions currently in China.

If this comes to fruition, this means everything you do online will be open for the government to scrutinise. Your entire internet history, all messages, calls, will be recorded on every website you visit - Google, Facebook, Gmail, PayPal, banks, cloud backups - everything.

I implore you contact your representative constituency MP (they all have Twitter accounts, email addresses and postal addresses) to BLOCK this bill from even approaching the House of Commons and make it DOA.

It's not just the fact that means the government wants to basically have unrestricted access to your entire internet, it's also that this is a massive technological feat that would likely surpass the total disk storage available on Earth - it's Big Data, but in this case, it's gigantic.

In addition:

  • The massive security risk of ISPs keeping private/personal and business data
  • The performance overhead and costs with storing an exponential volume of information (I assume both TCP and UDP)
  • The simple method of bypassing direct connections by using international VPNs
  • A huge hit on the transition to IPv6
  • The large number of ISPs available and variability on conformity
  • The sheer fact that every letter you type and every selfie you take is being watched