Tag Archives: government

Thoughts

Part 3 of the RIP Act coming soon for the UK

The UK Home Office has decided to put through the 3rd part of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Originally introduced in 2000, the first two parts have already been implemented. This particular part would introduce penalties of up to 2 years in jail for companies or individuals who wouldn’t disclose their encryption keys at the government’s request. The final language may be amended, since the Home Office is involved in a consultation process on this matter, and results have yet to be reached.

As usual, the Slashdot people are having a field day with this bit of news. Even the language used by reputable news organizations is sensationalistic. I have to admit I was concerned, but I had a look at the wording of the act, and it says, clearly, that organizations or individuals would only need to release their encryption keys at the specific request of Her Majesty’s forces, for a pending investigation. It’s not as if the government’s asking everyone to hand over their keys, en masse. They’re also going to reimburse them for their expenses of retrieving and reproducing that data.

To me, this is no different than the powers of search and seizure police have here in the States. They can obtain a warrant to search your property, and you can be sure they’ll go through with a fine tooth comb, looking for anything important. On top of that, they won’t reimburse you for the trouble.

Well, now they’ll be able to do the same to someone’s data in the UK. Until now, encrypted data was above the law, so to speak – if it was well encrypted. If RIPA-3 gets going, the police might have a chance to take a look at it. I say “might”, because encryption can use constantly changing keys, and if you forget or misplace the original key, good luck getting that data back…

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Thoughts

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

Wired News picked up an interesting article from the Associated Press about the NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency), which describes the purpose and capabilities of this youngest of government intelligence agencies. Its director, Lt. Gen. James Clapper (Ret.) is stepping down next month, and he is proud of the work NGA is doing.

Their capabilities are rumored to far exceed those of commercial satellite imagery, and they’ve become very useful in the aftermath of last year’s hurricanes. That’s when they set up mobile stations in the backs of Humvees and provided displaced and worried people with satellite images showing the condition of their homes.

They also work together with security staff in public places, like hotels, to tap into lobby cameras and combine that footage with mapping and graphical data to help secure events or take action in case of a hostage situation or other catastrophe.

My reaction to this is mixed. On the one hand, it’s nice to see a government agency actually helping out when a natural disaster occurs, and on the other hand, I have to wonder about people’s privacy given their serious capabilities.

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Thoughts

The NSA wire-tapping scandal

I wrote about the wire tapping issue back on the 8th of April, and it looks like the it’s resurfaced big time. Just today, I read this USA Today article. Senators Leahy and Specter picked up the stoy, then CNN picked it up as well. Now the Washington Post published the results of a telephone survey that says most americans (60% or so) support the NSA’s collection of information on telephone calls.

It seems like all that’s happening is that massive amounts of data are getting crunched at the NSA, for statistical purposes, in an effort to try and determine patterns in terrorist communications, but the NSA (including Gen. Hayden) and the Bush administration have been going about it all wrong. As the USA Today article details, they used strong-arm tactics on the phone companies in order to get them to cooperate. When Qwest wouldn’t, they accused them of compromising national security and told them they wouldn’t get any more classified contracts… Is that the way to treat someone who has legal and understandable doubts about its customers’ privacy? I think it’s shameful.

So let me see if I get it straight. The government gives you classified contracts if you jump through their hoops, and once you get used to the taste of steady government money, threatens to yank them from your plate if you won’t compromise on your ethics. It looks to be a pretty good tactic, which works great on most executives. After all, every one of the phone companies but Qwest capitulated and handed over their data.

It’s all very sad. The NSA’s methods are classified, but I for one have a hard time seeing how one can gather real data about terrorists (people who are, for the most part, already flagged and monitored) by crunching through the phone calls of the average law-abiding citizen, unless you’re trying to make sure this same average citizen isn’t a terrorist.

Maybe it’s about establishing a “noise floor”, and that’s why they need a statistically-relevant mass of data? Once they’ve compiled a database of the common conversations of regular folks, anything out of the ordinary will spike above the “noise floor”, raising a flag for further examination. Just my uneducated guess. The method sounds good, but the manner in which they’re going about securing the data is, as I’ve said above, wrong.

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Thoughts

Two spyware companies slapped down by the FTC

The FTC is to be praised for its efforts in shutting down spyware companies. In its latest coup, two of them, Spybot.net and Odysseus Marketing, were fined and closed, and their owners are now responsible for payment of the fines. The FTC wants to put a permanent halt to their services, and to make them cough up all the money they made: over $4 million. I hope they shake them for every penny!

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Thoughts

Why didn't the United States ever switch to the metric system?

Ask Yahoo! answers that question in this week’s entry. Truth is, the US did adopt the metric system, quite a while back, but not as a replacement for the British measurements. A few decades ago, the government even tried to put metric units on traffic signs, but gave up after receiving numerous complaints. So, we’re still what’s called a “soft metric” country. Here’s the link to the full explanation.

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