UK proposals to monitor all electronic communications
The UK seems to have this mentality that it’s OK as long as it’s happening to someone else.
Read on..
Internet service providers are to be invited to tender for a government scheme to monitor all internet communications and telecommunications.
Under the proposed Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), internet service providers (ISPs) would be required to link ‘black boxes’ to their servers to record all internet traffic, including details of emails, VoIP telephone conversations, instant messages and browsing habits. Telephone conversations would also be monitored.
The traffic data would then be siphoned into a centralised database, enabling the government to monitor all business and domestic internet and telephone communications. According to insiders, some ISPs have already been pitching to the Home Office to provide the ‘black boxes’ to record the data.
The Home Office and GCHQ have applied to central government for funding for the scheme. Answering a written question posed by Lord Northesk last month, Admiral West, the parliamentary undersecretary of state for security and an adviser to Gordon Brown, gave details of the funding request last week.
According to West, as part of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), “a central bid was made to HM Treasury on behalf of the security and intelligence agencies. Funding for IMP was included in the bid, and the exact programme allocation across the CSR years is currently being finalised between the Home Office and HM Treasury.”
Funding would be for three years. University of Cambridge security expert Richard Clayton told ZDNet.co.uk that putting state-of-the-art surveillance devices into all UK ISPs would be “likely to cost quite a lot”. As a consequence, Clayton said the government plans to deploy the system at one ISP initially.
West confirmed that the government would be conducting a “feasibility study” for the surveillance of ISPs and for the centralised communications database, up to 2010.
“A significant proportion of the programme investment over the Comprehensive Spending Review period will be used to test feasibility and reduce the risk associated with implementing the proposed IMP solution,” said West. “The private sector is likely to play a major role in this work and the programme will be conducting a competitive tender and entering commercial negotiations to commission its services.”
However, peers criticised the government proposals. Lord Errol of Hay told ZDNet.co.uk on Tuesday that the proposals were “incredibly dangerous”.
“Part of the problem is that the Home Office would be able to self-authorise to do any searches in the database, which is very dangerous indeed,” said Errol. “At the moment, someone checks the access requests.”
Clayton agreed with Errol that the proposals were “completely not proportionate”. “If the government is going to do this, it would be far better to force all mosques, churches, and public houses to fit microphones and tape recorders,” he told ZDNet.co.uk. “East Germany used to have a comparable system.”
At present, surveillance information can be requested from ISPs by law-enforcement agencies, but those requests can be queried by the ISPs concerned. According to Clayton, a centralised database without such a check may contravene existing data-protection legislation, so the government would need to change the law to make the database legal.
“At the moment, the centralised database and self-authorisation would be illegal under the Data Protection Act,” said Clayton. “The draft Communications Data Bill will contain clauses to make this legal.”
Lord Errol agreed that the only reason to bring the Communications Data Bill in as primary, rather than secondary, legislation would be to legalise the government plans — secondary legislation would have to conform to existing data-protection laws.
“The Communications Data Bill has to be producing something new — the Home Office is going after some new powers,” said Errol. “They have all of the powers they want, except for being able to bring all of the data together at the Home Office.”
The Home Office on Tuesday confirmed that it was seeking to introduce a centralised database of communications data, but said the plans were at the proposal stage.
“The changes to the way we communicate, due particularly to the internet revolution, will increasingly undermine our current capabilities to obtain communications data — essential for counter-terrorism and investigation of crime purpose[s] — and use it to protect the public,” stated a Home Office spokesperson. “Proposals are being developed and full details of the draft Bill will be released later this year, allowing for full engagement with Parliament and the public.”
The Home Office spokesperson admitted that primary legislation would be necessary to legalise a self-authorised, centralised database. “That is why we’re introducing primary legislation,” the spokesperson told ZDNet.co.uk. However, the spokesperson again added that, at present, these are proposals rather than plans.
Privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it had “grave questions about the acceptability of such a scheme”.
“In the fight against evil, we must not ride roughshod over our liberties,” said Richard Thomas in a speech on Tuesday. “Every phone call, email, internet search and online transaction would be monitored. Even the possibility of such a scheme needs the fullest debate before becoming legislation.”
Thomas declined to comment as to whether the Home Office proposals were legal under current data-protection law, and refused to comment any further about his concerns.
The ICO had not been consulted by the Home Office over the communications-database plans, said an ICO insider.
bEYOnd DaVID IcKE
Norton Antivirus 2008 vs Free Antivirus Software
Following invitation, recently installed the 2008 version of Norton Antivirus.
Free software
Usually you have to pay, but this was free so why not?
The software took a couple of minutes to download.
I installed it on 11th Dec.
The following major effects were noticed over the course of it’s short, but eventful life:-
- System boot-time went from 10-20 seconds to more than 2 minutes.
After a number of boots, this did not improve.
I don’t see long boot-times as necessarily a bad thing. It can be indicative the software is doing it’s job learning the systems and programs, learning, after which it would become faster. - Boot times did not improve, running at roughly 2 minutes (4month old 1.8ghz Pentium dual core with 1gb of ram).
- After 8 days running, system experienced stability issues, crashing Dreamweaver and Photoshop, two of the software’s I use every day.
When I came back to work on Wednesday, I essentially didn’t have a computer to work with.
It’s taken me from then, the 18th, till now, the 4th, to fix the problem and install firewall and virus protection i.e wasted about 8 days.
If you’re tempted to download Norton 2008, don’t.
Or if you do, be prepared:
Here’s what you have to do to get rid of the stuff.
Rolling (backwards)
I rolled back to 2007 which I had on disk.
That failed to renew the subscription and virus definitions.
I then had to roll back to 2006.
The subscription and virus definitions failed when I came to work on the 2nd.
This was despite having over 103 days of subs left.
Uninstalling Symantec
The uninstaller failed.
After searching, Yahoo Search
I visited the Symantec site where they have an Symantec Unistaller tool for when things go wrong.
Downloaded this.
Failed.
Attempted to download and install Kapersky (internet software). Was told I had to uninstall Norton first.
I had no firewall to go surfing around the ‘net, pick up my emails or leave a broadband connection safetly.
Visited Cnet found this Revo uninstaller.
It identified the dynamic library and system entries which I had to go through and delete manually.
System now works.
Norton 2008 In summary
For anyone running an older system, I dread to think. You’re looking at dial-up style frustration say from a 1999 machine.
Paper readingly boring boot times.
Apparently Norton now charges for help facility so that goes some way to explaining why this release is so diabolical.
As an IT professional, non-core software should sit in the background. Quietly.
Here’s my own take Antivirus Software.
Evaluation of Anti-Virus Software 2008
Avira
£Free or £19.99
Pro’s: It’s free. Clean interface, easily navigable.
When I installed the paid version, it seemed to import all the Network Settings from Zone Alarm meaning I didn’t have to run the network set-up wizard on each computer or go round specifying individual IP addresses or ranges. An easy migration I think you’d call that.
The free version runs scheduled scans, something which Avast doesn’t do.
Con’s: After having run it for 2 months+ on two machines, free and paid versions.. none.
Installed: 2 Months
Download trial
Zone Alarm
£Free
Pro’s: It’s free. It’s fast.
Con’s: You’re going to need to be a bit of an expert. But I’m here to help you 🙂
a) To set up your home network.
You need to specify your Local IP Address and Subnet mask. You need to look at your Router>Setup> Internet settings retrieve the settings which should look something like this
Local IP Address 192.187.187.1
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
and enter them in the Safe Zone manually.
Then it works just fine.
b) It offers a firewall and virus scanning software, none of the extra bits you may have become accustomed to twiddling around with.
Depending on whether the Internet is full of scary people out to get you OR you simply want a system protected from incoming threats decides whether you should choose this Anti-virus software.
As an IT Pro who spends every day on the ‘net, this software works just fine and is system friendly.
Installed: 5 days
Download trial
Kapersky 
£29.00
Pro’s: Easily the quickest in terms of getting connected, getting it’s shit and sitting quietly in the corner (like a good Russian should).
Con’s: Took a while to identify viruses, you may have to move the scanners above the default level to flush the system out. The Kapersky gets high rankings for finding viruses on your system, so you should see this as a Pro as long as you set the levels right.
Set up the scans correctly and this will be the case.
Slight spectre of overiding security issues with Kapersky being located in the good old USSR.
Installed: 1 month
Download trial
F-Secure 
£49.00
Pro’s: Spam filtering binned all the stuff I would have deleted myself.
Con’s: Compared with the other softwares here; slightly long boot times.
Scan’s: Scheduled scans seemed to take a decade, on Friday I seemed to be pulling my hair out then realised the system was on scan. At least on Norton you get the icon telling you there’s something happening, this doesn’t happen with F-Secure.
Installed: 1 month
Download trial
AVG 
$33.00
Pro’s: Faster boot times than F-Secure.
Con’s: Needs a lot of work doing on the interface. Patience and manual dexterity are the name of the game if you want the software to work.
For example: If you have a persistent spam, you need to go into the message source and manually scoop that emailers address then paste it into AVG’s blocked senders list. This is the only way to block incoming emails without them entering your inbox.
Setting up a local network: Again, a cut and paste job. You’re going into the router, finding the IP range and subnet mask and adding them to your trusted networks.
I couldn’t achieve a two way connection even after fiddling round. Not ideal if you’re planning to share your workload between rooms, people or computers. If you plan to network, follow the steps in Zone Alarm…
Installed: 1 month
Download trial
Summary
Most of these software’s are either more complex and do less or don’t work as well on the things you really want, Avira/Zone Alarm work as well if not better than anything Norton has done in the past and steam ahead of the current release.
In terms of the Spam blocking, Norton still takes a lot of beating, F-Secure probably comes the closest in that respect.
Kapersky was good in that it was fast with high virus availability and lurked in the background with little problem. I hardly knew it was there.
Free software, I plumped for Zone Alarm and Avira. I can recommend it as the software which works to protect you from malicious threats on the Internet, Avira did a great job in mopping up, deleting spam and doing the weekly maintenance
Unlike Norton Antivirus 2008, none of these softwares stopped my computer working and crashed all my software then asked me to phone a helpline.
Shame on you Norton.
Real Cost of Living Index – RCLI
Every time I go down the shops things have gone up in price. Usually it’s bread. Week on week things seem to be rising.
Here are some figures that go some way in reflecting the real sizes and prices for everyday shop.
You can find the rest on The Telegraph website.