Here’s an interesting story of a Russian military intelligence officer deployed into Ukraine, apparently under plausibly-deniable cover, whose communications were meant to hide in plain sight among the chaotic noise of the Internet. Specifically, he’s a gamer and re-enactor in private life and he tried to use the channels of this subculture. Unfortunately for him,…
Read More The problems of Puffin Party securityAh! Found it: although Yates told the House he had the mobile operators inform the hacked, and named Vodafone and Orange, he didn’t. Specifically, Orange identified about 45 victims but didn’t tell anyone. Vodafone identified 40 and only told a few who were considered VIPs. T-Mobile UK claims not to have found any. 3UK isn’t…
Read More Who’s got the logs?Am I right in understanding the legal comments in the NYT piece to mean that the only way to get the police to disgorge whether or not your phone was monitored is to sue the Screws and serve a notice on the Yard for disclosure of relevant documents? It seems that the primary barrier to…
Read More there’s a catch…Let me count the ways. If you think Phorm – the evil advert-spooking system practically all the UK’s eyeball ISPs want to force on you – isn’t so bad, I’ve got news for you. First of all, let’s have a look at this Grauniad Tech article. BT’s 2006 trials certainly involved some sort of interception,…
Read More Phorm, how do I hack thee?This is interesting. Jim Bates, an expert witness for the defence in some of the Operation Ore cases we discussed, has been convicted of misrepresenting his qualifications. Specifically, the charges relate to whether or not he claimed to be an electronics engineer, despite not being one, and to his career in the Royal Air Force.…
Read More The PaybackAll right, I said I’d held Sir Ian’s comments on the Today programme on Christmas Eve for treatment. What he did this time was to complain at length about the extra paperwork a cop has to complete after making an arrest. He reckons it’s increased by a factor of three since his wild youth. But…
Read More Ian Blair: Still IgnorantDid I say I loved the Financial Times? When everyone else was frontpaging with Princess Diana, the paper had the following stories on the front: the BAE investigation kibosh (this was the lead), Blair grilled by the rozzers (number two, opposite the lead and separated by a photo of the man), then the OPEC meeting…
Read More Say yes and let’s enjoy the…“How would a Galileo-based road pricing scheme fit into the code of practice requirement of a direct relationship with the user?” Good fucking question. We’ve got David Smith, the deputy information commissioner, and among others Richard Clayton of the Cambridge Computer Lab’s security engineering group – that’s right, the guy from Light Blue Touchpaper –…
Read More Confoblogging: Trust, consent, and standardsGareth Crossman of Liberty: “The only way the National Identity Register can fight terrorism is if the amount of information on it is increased to make profiling possible.” Next up: Simon Watkin. Former head of David Blunkett’s private office at the Home Office, he now runs the HO’s Covert Investigations Policy team and the ACPO…
Read More Confoblogging: The NIR and the surveillance that goes with itI’m currently at the Royal Society’s “Privacy: A Fine Balance” conference, a DTI-sponsored shindig for eggheads, ubergeeks, cash grabbers and Home Office/defence industry control bureaucrats to thrash out digital rights issues. First speaker is Stephen Hailes of UCL, who’s talking about embedded computing. He says that we need to realise that statistically, most multicellular life…
Read More Privacy: A Fine Balance