LWN: Comments on "EU adopts data retention"

EU adopts data retention

jcm — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 14:57:42 +0000

Europe isn't the problem, in fact it's one of the solutions. Working together helps to reduce British xenophobia which still seems to pervade our society. Britain today is "moderately conservative" (read: the Republicans would probably get elected - especially with a bit of use of the T word).

Europe needs to overcome the need to regulate everything, this is what alienates people. They have mandates on the legal allowed height for rocking horses and a few million other directives which give the wrong impression. The Euro hasn't been implemented so well and there are other EU issues - but just think about it, isn't it cool that 25 member states with so much diverse history and culture can work together? We've half the member states of the US but many more issues to work out.

The main problem which affects the UK today is her Majesty's Government. They are the ones we should be taking aim at as well as the ones we should have thrown out of office for a continual errosion of our rights. At least the USians have a bill of rights, we just have a few hundred years of piecemeal bills and an apparent willingness to opt out of European Human Rights legislation on a whim - witness the comments of the (thankfully) former Home Secretary.

Jon.

Depressing as this is

kleptog — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 16:43:06 +0000

The irony about all of this is that data collected by corporates can't be just sold to anyone like in the US. In europe citizen's do own have rights over data about themselves. The difference here is that it wasn't required to be collected or stored before this (that's why it's a data retention directive).

So now the corporates are required to store this info for two years and law enforcement can get at it, but no-one else. Great. I wonder if all the member countries will actually implement this, that's always the other half of the battle...

U.S. hides actions

QuisUtDeus — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 16:13:26 +0000

Great articles. Thanks.

I guess those blogs will have to be in another country, with the complete text of such letters.

EU adopts data retention

mmarq — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 13:17:18 +0000

"" It is
indeed questionable which problems this directive intends to solve. ""

Havent you guessed yet ?
DRM protection and treacherous computing are as stupid as their strategists, and the ultimate goal can only be totalitariam control!

YES you can laugh, but take it seriously!...

http://www.wealth4freedom.com/money/ecr-pem/ch1.htm
http://www.savethemales.ca/000275.html
Do we really live in freedom ?
http://www.savethemales.ca/001102.html

...because under heavy DRM internet control posting those links above would probabily simply be not possible.

It dosent solve hollywood or the music industry problems, by the contrary,..., i guess that extrapolating by my purchasing habits if those industrys are dependent on a reasonable minimum sale volume they would be in big trouble,... and their general quality is so low that...

If and when only by DRM or other *centraly_controled* visible medium, then people will not buy them... Sonny faced a rejection recently, and things will trend to get worst about control, intrusion and piracy, to the point that now internet commerce is at the turning point to get extinct...

Music, Movies, Microsoft and other bigger software, Games are still largely based on boxed physical medium selling, so no big loss(if any at all) for the monopoly corja.

EU joins global spy network

grouch — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 12:36:50 +0000

The EU has decided to collect email addresses from around the world. Send an email to a European and be logged. Receive an email from a European and be logged.

I'm sure the U.S. spies, such as the F.B.I., will be happily sharing spyware and data with the new EU-created spies.

EU adopts data retention

csamuel — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 06:57:57 +0000

Sadly the UK is already way ahead of Europe on this. If you'd read the FFII summary PDF you'd have seen:

In the UK traffic data can already be accessed in any investigation, and authorised by a variety of public agencies beyond policing.

Prescription: EU to adopt data laxatives

xoddam — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 06:52:16 +0000

... at a later date.

EU adopts data retention

Richard_J_Neill — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 02:13:14 +0000

Unfortunately, it's mainly our infernal govenrment that is causing much of this. To some extent, Europe protected us from the SWPat directive - but this data retention has been at least partly driven by the UK.

Our state is corrupt: many of the things that should be illegal (Data Retention, Detention without charge/trial,CCTV,ID cards, biometrics) are being actively encouraged by the government.

Now, since we have this legislation, what are we going to do that screws it up? We (the techies) still run the Internet - so how do we build anonymisation and encryption into everything. Preferably by default.

U.S. hides actions

Max.Hyre — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:48:34 +0000

whenever you are forced to do something to comply with a law, it could be made public [...] That way, the Big Brothers cannot completely hide their actions and intentions.

Dear me---I'm sure you reside somewhere outside the Land of the Free.

We can't tell anyone about FBI requests for information, which should be called ``warrants'' and only issued by a judge on evidence of probable cause. It sez here right in the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution.

Alternatively, they can get a warrant, but not tell you about it. This allows the FBI to break into your house, office, rectum, ..., to see what they can see, without actually serving the warrant. See aforementioned Fourth Amendment.

[T]he Bill of Rights [is] all limitation---[it states] what the federal government cannot do. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court treats the Bill of Rights as a list of suggestions from a bunch of hippies.

--- Paladin128 (User #203968), on /.

EU adopts data retention

petegn — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:20:41 +0000

It is time for the people of the UK to do away with Europe as such and the jerks that got us in there to start with .

As a UK citizen i am getting sick of this crap we need a bit of what happened in Romania over here a bit of a clear out so to speak .

EU adopts data retention

jcm — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:56:37 +0000

My government is one of the reasons I'm planning to emigrate to Canada. We gave up on the notion of a UK/European Bill of Rights years ago.

Jon.

EU adopts data retention

jimbo — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:24:19 +0000

Certainly not! That's an extremely sensitive issue of notional security!!

Depressing as this is

epeeist — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 20:52:45 +0000

I have just been sold off (sorry, outsourced) from a large UK bank. While respondents are rightly concerned about the data that is scheduled to be collected here attention ought to be paid to the information that is collected on you by large corporates.

Did you buy something on your credit card, purchase something from a supermarket, travel by plane? All of this information gets logged and stored to be analysed and used. Did you buy some nappies (diapers), expect the supermarket to be targeting you for children's school clothes a few years down the line. Did you buy travellers cheques from your bank, expect an approach on travel insurance.

And none of this is regulated. At least with this data there is a small chance we could get the parliament to change it.

EU adopts data retention

Bjorn — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 20:13:17 +0000

This is depressing.

But what about webmail? Can they and will they register email sent
from a webmail account outside of the EU?

Look at the bright side: new markets!

chel — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:54:23 +0000

We can be quite sure this idea won't work: Almost everywhere you can use badly protected WiFi networks, anonymous prepayd cellphones sell for about E30,= here in THe Netherlands. The secret service that should use the information does not trust networks and is using floppies (and leaves them with unprotected information in the car when they sell it. The secret service agent that recovered the floppies even left his laptop in his car when he collected these floppies!)

I think this new directive will enable a new market for privacy services. There are a lot of services possible, within and outside Europe that will restore some privacy.

EU adopts data retention

QuisUtDeus — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:27:44 +0000

And on the other side, towards "transparent" government in the face of "orwellian" tactics like this, perhaps people could begin a client-side public log of all governmental interaction (with proper discretion for privacy of self and others), so that whenever you are forced to do something to comply with a law, it could be made public, along with commentary on how you were treated, what kind of injustice might have happened, etc.

That way, the Big Brothers cannot completely hide their actions and intentions.

These could be in the form of blogs, for example.

This would be greatly helpful for awakening people to their common plight at the hands of socialists.

EU adopts data retention

QuisUtDeus — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:15:05 +0000

Did they say anything about bogus data or misleading data?

Perhaps people should give their MPs (or whoever is asking that this data be kept) an idea of what an administrative burden and volume of data that they are imposing on people: People that are affected by this, send real or pretend data, in whatever format they like, with whatever obfuscation/embellishment they like to every electronic recipient that had a hand in approving this law.

Of course, if they send it by e-mail, they'll need to send data for this delivery as well in subsequent deliveries.

Feel free to use encryption, with info on how to obtain the keys (which would change from time to time for added security), links to the software needed, etc.

They say they want it. So give it to them.

EU adopts data retention

ninjaz — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:14:03 +0000

Even for large ISP's, saving all traffic that goes through high-speed lines for a period of six months sounds insanely expensive.

It will be interesting to see if Europeans will be forced to abandon high-speed Internet lines to go back 28.8Kbps modems which can be more affordably logged over that long of a period.

Here come the black helicopters...for real?

Max.Hyre — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:13:48 +0000

I've joked as much as the next guy about black helicopters, but with this you don't need a helicopter---a few patrol cars with laptops will do just fine. And this from the folks who object to what the U.S. government has been doing with airline passenger data.

Any chance enough people and companies will say ``Hell, no!'' actually make a difference in compliance and enforcement?

EU adopts data retention

rknop — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:04:53 +0000

I can see a lot of small ISPs going out of business.

...which, really, may be part of the goal of the legislation, if one is going to be cynical enough.

-Rob

EU adopts data retention

jrigg — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:51:42 +0000

Given that 80% of email traffic is spam, this presumably means that ISPs are going to have to swallow the expense of storing data that is 80% useless.
I can see a lot of small ISPs going out of business.

U.S.A. BIll of Rights Day is Dec 15th

cdmiller — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:43:56 +0000

Amazing. Meanwhile in the U.S.A. tomorrow Dec 15th is Bill of Rights Day. The anniversary of the ratification of the U.S. Bill of Rights in 1791.

EU adopts data retention

rknop — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:40:08 +0000

Ho, ho, you think the common man is going to have access to this data? No, only the government and "legitimate business interests" will have access to it, I'm very sure of that. This isn't David Brin's "The Transparent Society," this is 1984.

-Rob

Mobile tracking

tgb — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:29:59 +0000

True, but it's also trivial to change the IMEI number (the unique serial number) as I understand it. In the UK most independent mobile phone shops offer "unlocking" services and from a discussion I had with such a shop owner a few years ago, the cables and software they use allows them to change pretty much anything on the phone.

If someone wanted to protect themselves to the point of buying prepaid sim cards regularly, they could replace their mobile, e.g. via ebay, regularly too (it's just an example, I can see that given enough transactions then purchases could be linked together too...).

EU adopts data retention

iabervon — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:24:41 +0000

Does this mean that we can now find out exactly who memebers of EU Parliament talk to? And Microsoft employees? And media company representatives? This seems like the ideal tool to make any government look to the public like a criminal conspiracy. The canonical Big Brother scenario involves only the ministry of truth being able to track people. If just about anyone can track just about anyone, it's a very different, and probably completely untenable, situation.

Mobile tracking

rmayr — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:20:10 +0000

True, but IMEIs can also be changed if you know what you're doing (or just
use cheap throw-away phones the same way as the SIMs). My point is that
even that part of the directive will not catch professionals.

EU adopts data retention

rmstar — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:13:37 +0000

we are trying hard to make it very simple for users to activate them and use them transparently, without having to change the clients

Nice idea, but - the tor servers will probably stop working reliably under the aditional load, and so the whole thing will not be a nice experience. I don't expect many new servers appearing, as running tor servers yourself in europe will probably be costly and likey to make you a target of legislation and law-enforcement. Most people aren't that idealistic.

Mobile tracking

corbet — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:07:12 +0000

Unfortunately, GSM phones have a unique serial number which is tracked along with the information from the SIM. So it is trivially easy to tie together activity using multiple SIM cards on the same handset.

EU adopts data retention

ringlord — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 17:54:22 +0000

In several countries (most ?) you can't any longer buy prepaid SIM cards without registration.

EU adopts data retention

rmayr — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 17:06:06 +0000

Of course it will not - even the tracking of phone calls can be avoided by
buying lots of prepaid SIMs and using them only for a short time. It is
indeed questionable which problems this directive intends to solve.

The problem is that most users will not be aware of how much data is
collected about them, let alone how to retain their privacy.

EU adopts data retention

rmayr — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 17:02:26 +0000

This directive was the reason why Gibraltar firewall will include freenet,
anon-proxy, tor, and mixmaster in the next release. It will not be enabled
by default, but we are trying hard to make it very simple for users to
activate them and use them transparently, without having to change the
clients. Details can be found under
http://jupiter.gibraltar.at/pipermail/gibraltar-list/2005...

I have tested anon-proxy and freenet heavily in your test network over the
last 4 months, and both are stable. freenet still has some problems with
memory usage when running continuously for a long time, but I can
certainly recommend anon-proxy as a tool to preserve a bit of privacy
(there is even a Debian package available in the main archives).

Unfortunately, it is not much that we can do, but this is our small
contribution to preserving privacy in Europe.

EU adopts data retention

copsewood — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:59:46 +0000

The tech needed to take a users data outside the scope of this already exists: OpenVPN and using virtual machine servers, e.g. http://unixshell.com/ located outside the EU. Unless they make renting a VM outside the EU and operating a VPN illegal this directive will only harm the innocent and will be of no use in tracking smart criminals.

EU adopts data retention

pheldens — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:44:52 +0000

A sad day for human rights in europe.
Let's hope it will increase the usage and developement of anonymising tech.