PUNK rock fan Mike Devine sent an innocent text message containing lyrics by The Clash — and was quizzed as a terror suspect after it was INTERCEPTED. He told how his tribute band London Calling — named after a Clash album — had been struggling to remember a line in Tommy Gun. His text to singer Reg Shaw, 35, read: “How about this for Tommy Gun? OK — SO LET’S AGREE ABOUT THE PRICE AND MAKE IT ONE JET AIRLINER FOR TEN PRISONERS.”

Full story at:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004252004,00.html

Be careful what you send - you never know who might read it!

You should assume that everythign gets read. Every email sent in the UK gets at least a scan for key words. And probably this forum too.

Try it, by sending email fro yourself at work. Send one titled 'Bush and Blair assassination' on the hour, and then 'Dinner on Thursday' ten minuites later. Check your home email when you get home, and they will have arrived in the opposite order. Big Brother really is watching you.

I wouldn't be at all suprised if our text messages were automatically anaylsed / scanned for certain key words and if certain words appear are then flagged for further investigation.

And if that is not the current situation ... then maybe it should be.

Originally posted by oxbeast
Try it, by sending email fro yourself at work. Send one titled 'Bush and Blair assassination' on the hour, and then 'Dinner on Thursday' ten minuites later. Check your home email when you get home, and they will have arrived in the opposite order. Big Brother really is watching you.
Hmm... sounds interesting? Will you bail me out if I get arrested by mistake? :P

Originally posted by Geoff
Hmm... sounds interesting? Will you bail me out if I get arrested by mistake? :P

No.

Reading your sig, can I suggest you contract out to GCHQ? Perhaps they CAN read every post.:thumbsup:

tell them your on sheff forum,they will understand:D ,only joking ,id send a cake with a file in :)

I'm currently working in a natural language processing department and alot of the conferences and so on are sponsored by the intelligence services and defence research people for automatic reading of messages and scanning for key terms and relationships - dont it make you feel safe!

Originally posted by oxbeast
You should assume that everythign gets read. Every email sent in the UK gets at least a scan for key words. And probably this forum too.

Try it, by sending email fro yourself at work. Send one titled 'Bush and Blair assassination' on the hour, and then 'Dinner on Thursday' ten minuites later. Check your home email when you get home, and they will have arrived in the opposite order. Big Brother really is watching you.

I would love to try it but I daren't

Originally posted by max
Reading your sig...
On a related note, lets hope GCHQ pick up the new part of my signature and ask the govt. to cut the flipping tax on petrol... :D

:o

Does no-one think it's a shocking invasion of privacy? If they tried to arrest you over this sort of evidence, you'd have a great human rights case (especially in european court)...

Originally posted by Agent Dan
:o

Does no-one think it's a shocking invasion of privacy? If they tried to arrest you over this sort of evidence, you'd have a great human rights case (especially in european court)...

Yes I do - but it is just one more sympton of the 'War On Terrorism' being used for an erosion of human rights. Besides which would you make it as far as court - perhaps the powers that be would just declare national security and have you shipped off to guantanamo bay!

*Thinks about the future*

"Grandad, we learnt about something called 'privacy' in History class..."

Originally posted by oxbeast

Try it, by sending email fro yourself at work. Send one titled 'Bush and Blair assassination' on the hour, and then 'Dinner on Thursday' ten minuites later. Check your home email when you get home, and they will have arrived in the opposite order. Big Brother really is watching you.

The above has probably already been flagged up :D

I would be far more worried if I found that messages weren't auto-scanned for keywords.

Be honest, a computer scanning your email or text message to your aunty in Grimsby is hardly a huge derogation of your human rights.

If you are so concerned about privacy then use PGP (http://www.pgp.com/products/freeware.html) which was once considered 'Weapons Grade Software' by the US Government. It's now available as freeware.

I don't use it because there is nothing in our emails that could ever compromise me.

Remember that this forum will have regular checks by scanning bots too - so careful what you post, especially as they will be able to positively identify you through your IP address right to your house and desk.

Not particularly worried. Any of the scanning monkeys/bots/spooks who read this page will not be coming round my place to arrest me. Send whatever email you like, just to wind them up.
I once emailed a friend in the US, and had it censored. 'They', (whoever they are) had deleted the line 'george bush is an ____hole', leaving the paragraph making not much sense. My mate emailed me back to explain what i meant, and I had to talk aroubnd the subject without mentioning the man.

Fighting terrorism is one thing, by censoring cheekiness??
Whats a beast to do?

Originally posted by Agent Dan
:o

Does no-one think it's a shocking invasion of privacy? If they tried to arrest you over this sort of evidence, you'd have a great human rights case (especially in european court)...
Why should anyone who doesn't have anything to hide be worried?

Originally posted by Sidla
Why should anyone who doesn't have anything to hide be worried?

By logical extension your happy for your mail to be read, your phone tapped, your medical, legal and financial records open to examination and all your activities monitored? After all if you have nothing to hide why should you be worried?

"Not being worried about ..." is not the same as "Your happy for ..." !!

Also (I am assuming) there is such a large volume of data to monitor that it's done on an automated basis ... and only triggered for further inspection if certain key words are present.

I guess this is much more feasable to do this with digital forms of communication (email texts etc).

The fact that it's done on an automated basis and unlikely to be seen by human eyes ... kinda makes it better ... than someone opening my postal mail and having a giggle at my ramblings ...

If the intelligence service were to open all postal mail and have some operative read each one ... well ... the work load is just unthinkable.

I guess that individuals who 'they' suspect engage in subversive activity are subject to extra levels of monitoring (monitoring of postal mail / phone calls).

I have 2 questions:

1) Would we be better off (safer) if big brother wasn't monitoring our digital communicaions !?

2) Could they be using all this gathered information for other darker purposes (i.e. not national security) !?

Originally posted by Jamie
1) Would we be better off (safer) if big brother wasn't monitoring our digital communicaions !?


Surely there should be demonstrative evidence that monitoring has aided national security? Or even that any terrorist group has co-ordinated activities via email??

A friend of mine worked at the GCHQ installing fibre. They listen to everything, text messages are nothing new. With mobile technology progressing so quickly I don't think it will be long untill there is a form of SMS encryption.

I also seem to remember something about hooking up a phone to a laptop and some software ... and you can listen in on calls made to / from another cell phone.

Fact or fiction !?

I am not a fan of big brother.....Carnivore has been going through e-mail for some time.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-522071.html?legacy=zdnn

Some would argue that it's a logical necessity in this day and age...I say its another tool for those in charge to control the masses and stay in charge.

Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist or anything... ;)

Why should I care though? As Jamie pointed out, I wouldn't be over the moon about it, but I wouldn't be too bothered about it either. I don't have anything to hide. Why should anyone have anything that they want to hide?

Originally posted by Jamie
I also seem to remember something about hooking up a phone to a laptop and some software ... and you can listen in on calls made to / from another cell phone.

Fact or fiction !?

You are refering to something called Snarfing. Back in the days of analogue phones it was possible to build something called a snarf box which sniffed out analogue cell frequencies and allowed you to operate on that frequency. So yes Fact.

Now however with digital cells its much harder to break into a frequency however a group of Russian scientists claim they have cracked digital cellular encryption.

Just a bog standard handheld scanner would have picked up old analogue mobile phones and cordless phones, like the cheap nasty argos specials.

The Echelon 'system' - it's not so much a technology as a project - has been around for ages and deals with listening in on as much electronic communication as is posisble.

It's centered on the NSA HQ in the US, with GCHQ and the Austrailan and Canadian equivalents (I think) also involved.

Here's a good item....

http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html

The act that it got an 'on screen' airing in the movie 'Clear and Present Danger' indicates that it's no longer viewed as that secret by the powers that be.

"Be seeing you" (or should that be "Be hearing you"....

Joe :-)

Menwith Hill north of Leeds is the UK Echelon monitoring point.

Also the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (http://www.stand.org.uk/ripnotes/) gives MI5 direct access to email and web browsing data; means they can tell network administrators to give them your data and to spy on you; makes it illegal for the administrator to tell you you've been spied on (even years after the event); you can be compelled to reveal your passwords (and forgetting them is a sign of guilt).

Add in the mobile telephone position data, where the mobile phone companies record your location constantly and save it for years.

Then there's the profusion of cameras watching the roads. If you combine those cameras with number plate reading software and joined them into one system you could follow a car around the country and store that data on disk. This is already done in London.

Big Brother is here. It knows where you are, where you've been and what you're thinking.

Duncan Campbell is an investigative journalist who has done a lot of work on Echelon and Menwith Hill here (http://jya.com/echelon-dc.htm)

Originally posted by oxbeast
Not particularly worried. Any of the scanning monkeys/bots/spooks who read this page will not be coming round my place to arrest me. Send whatever email you like, just to wind them up.
I once emailed a friend in the US, and had it censored. 'They', (whoever they are) had deleted the line 'george bush is an ____hole', leaving the paragraph making not much sense. My mate emailed me back to explain what i meant, and I had to talk aroubnd the subject without mentioning the man.

Fighting terrorism is one thing, by censoring cheekiness??
Whats a beast to do?

Try using encryption prehaps:P

Originally posted by Jamie
2) Could they be using all this gathered information for other darker purposes (i.e. not national security) !?

This was my point, Sidla. It's not that I have anything to hide, just that my private affairs are mine - I don't wish my personal thoughts and feelings to loved ones available for all to read. If I did, I'd take out a billboard.

If the government are reading the messages for 'security' how do we know they are storing the information in a completey safe way? or are using it only for the greater good?

I'm sure it would be very hard to scan the millions of text messages sent around the world every day. I'm sure odd words could be picked up, but who'd have the job to read through them all to make sense? You'd need a call centre full of people to keep on top of them. Same goes for emails and phone calls. Not really possible.....surely!

I can't help thinking that this scanning for keywords thing couldn't work. A terrorist isn't going to say something like, bring the guns, we'll start the revolution on thursday. This is why they are hard to catch. If they were all as obvious as the bloke in question in the first post, wouldnt' the coppers job be easy.
People will tend to talk around something if they know its naughty, and use codes. If so much spam can still get through spam filters, how are the forces of spook supposed to make much use of randomly searching for key words?

Originally posted by Sidla
Why should anyone who doesn't have anything to hide be worried?


They shouldn't - in fact if everyone who had nothing to hide simply made all their details public, then it would be very clear who all the devilish little lawbreakers are - the ones that don't.

Now that would solve crime at a stroke, n'est ce pas?

I'm sure you will oblige us sidla, as you have nothing to hide, by listing the following information about you: :D :D

Full name
Age
Sex
Current Location:
Current Bank Balance
Account Number
Sort code
Pin number
Internet and phone banking logins and passwords
Your national Security Number
Home address
Telephone number
Mobile Number
All email addresses you hold or use, the logins and passwords to all those accounts
Your parish of birth
Whether you or anyone you know has a criminal record
Your political affiliation.
The political affiliation of your family and known associates
Which groups or organisations you belong to
Any credit cards you may hold (nos. ccv nos. expiry etc)
Your current state of medical health
Your mothers maiden name
The size of your last bowel movement
Who you fantasize about

If you not disclose all this information you must have something to hide, and therefore should be considered suspect.

Failure to comply will result in your being spirited away in a black helicopter, only to emerge 10 years later, under an assumed name after lengthy and intensive "re-education".

Originally posted by oxbeast
I can't help thinking that this scanning for keywords thing couldn't work. A terrorist isn't going to say something like, bring the guns, we'll start the revolution on thursday.
Yep that's right. Terrorists lie low, have real identification, real documents and pay in cash. It's just a front for monitoring the population. There is already evidence that George Bush's Patriot Act (rushed through after 11/Sep) is being used to spy on people who happen to disagree with his policies (if you want proof, ask and I'll find some references).

Today we find that BT are censoring kiddie porn web sites. This may be desirable (although I don't know if the experts know whether looking at kiddie porn increases paedo's desire for the real thing, or if looking at the porn satisfies them so that they don't want real kids). It sets a precedent for censoring of the Internet - what will get censored next? If they try and visit a censored site, it doesn't say "That's censored" it just gives the standard "not found" message.

It would be pretty convenient for a government to be able to censor websites that disagree with them. China does it... but would the West?

Yep. As soon as the Iraq invasion kicked off, the AlJazeera English language site (http://english.aljazeera.net) disappeared from the web. I have a server in the same New Jersey data centre, so I asked them where the site gone the next time I talked to them. They had been put under pressure by the US Government to remove the site. It makes "The Land of the Free" seem bitterly ironic.

Watch out for all these new laws to protect us from terrorists, paedophiles and asylum seekers - a lot of the time it's just a cover for increasing their power over you.

All electronic mail entering the UK is scrutinised by the secret intelligence service MI5. This means that during the scrutiny there has to be a content alert which can only be certain words and code, the latter which causes a qualititively different response. But you knew this already because it says so on their website. Just consider the volumes of content

Hey you'll love the latest news article on BBC website - police are to monitor chatrooms 24 hours a day :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3789279.stm

Yep. As soon as the Iraq invasion kicked off, the AlJazeera English language site disappeared from the web

This is the least of it. Coalition troops bombed the building where al-Jazeera was reporting from, killing many journalists, declared them a banned organisation in Iraq and got their puppet government to try to persecute them. The American shave also been putting pressure on the Emir of Qatar, one of the most moderate and inclusive of Arab leaders, to expel the media organisation from the country. The US would prefer that all Iraqis listened to their own Arabic news service, which coincidentally puts across US gov't views.

The whole debacle between the BBC BBC and our own lovely government shows how delicate the freedom of the press could be. I was recently talking to a Chinese person about China, and she didn't even know what had happened in Tianenmen square 15 years ago.

I would resist being made to carry an ID card, much less pay up to £40 for it. And yes, I do have something to hide. My private thoughts and ideas.

P.S. hello to all the lovely spooks at GCHQ...

Read somewhere that in the u.s that since all this "terrorist" activity the government no has the rights to seize anything and anyone at anytime,so how can any american be free.Think it was an agency called FEMA deals with emergencies.
If this were true then it would support the idea that it is all just an excuse for more control and monitoring.
As for text message monitoring or any other sort of monitoring of personal data surely a serious criminal would be aware of these and not use such blatent wording
in which case the exercise would becopme pointless, except for people watching.
They should not be allowed to just read anything as they choose.In certain cases it may be necessary to monitor messages if there is evidence to suggest that person may be involved in illegal activity.
But certainly not all people all of the time.

Originally posted by Callassa
All electronic mail entering the UK is scrutinised by the secret intelligence service MI5. This means that during the scrutiny there has to be a content alert which can only be certain words and code, the latter which causes a qualititively different response. But you knew this already because it says so on their website. Just consider the volumes of content

Which is of course a complete waste of time - any terrorist consiritor worth his or her kalashnikov knows that electronic communication (at least) will be checked and so will use codes. Note the use of codes not encryption - encryption draws attention to yourself and makes it look like you have something to hide - and is crackable given enough time and compute power. Codes on the other hand aren't crackable without a code book and can be made to look totally innocuous.

Nice to know dear MI5 putting in all this time and effort to keep us safe isn't it *ahem*

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
If you not disclose all this information you must have something to hide, and therefore should be considered suspect.
I'm sure you know what I meant. I don't mind my information being available to those who need it, i.e. I don't mind the bank knowing my account number, and I don't really care if employee at hotmail knows my email address.

As long as my personal details are not misused, which in this case they were not, I don't see why I should care.

Originally posted by Sidla
I don't mind my information being available to those who need it ... as long as my personal details are not misused.

I agree with you Sidla, but what guarantees do you have they won't be misused in the personal interests of the government employees or financial interests of big business?

Do you have a lowly store card? credit card? bank acccount? National Insurance number? a car? a job? claim benefit? a mortgage?

If not, then you are safe(ish).

Otherwise all an ID card does it to amalgamate various bit of data that are already out there.

I'm not in favour of them, but I'm not afraid of them either. I can see the positive side of them too.

Originally posted by Sidla
I'm sure you know what I meant. I don't mind my information being available to those who need it, i.e. I don't mind the bank knowing my account number, and I don't really care if employee at hotmail knows my email address.

As long as my personal details are not misused, which in this case they were not, I don't see why I should care.

Well you don't have to care, because plenty of people do on your behalf. How do you know that your personal details are not being misused?

And what is wrong about putting the onus on you to maintain full public disclosure? Would this not help stop crime, fraud etc etc. If you have nothing to hide, then why would you not take the time to assist the powers that be, be keeping your public file up to date, as well as, of course, answering emails from the Ministry of Personal Information in case they wanted to know anything else, like whether you have any interesting sexual proclivities, or when you last ate food grown in Israel.



The idea of primacy of control over personal information is becoming increasingly important on several counts.

1.Personal Information is worth a lotmoney - for statistics compilation for industry. Your buying patterns are immensely valuable in deciding sales strategies and boosting profit. You have no control over the use of this information whatsoever, and nor are you asked whether you consent to it being used in this fashion.

2. As multiple locations record your personal information - and are becoming increasingly integrated, Your personal information can correlated to reveal things you don't even know about yourself.

3. Apart from a toothless DPR, there are is very little statutory protection against abuses of this sort of information - especially since you have no control at all about where your emails, telephone calls, texts and letters will end up being stored and for how long. And the longer they are stored the greater the risk of the data being compromised and abused.

No data system is 100% secure and when the systems are complex computer networks sharing information, the potential for abuse soars, in comparison to minimal paper record keeping.

An interesting concept. I see where you're coming from though. Everyone should be entitled to a bit of privacy, and the more I think about it the more I realise that there are some aspects of myself that I'd rather not disclose.

Although, I never put anything in text messages that is particularly sensitive. It's normally innocent things such as "fancy a drink tonight" or "are you around on Saturday?". The fact that potential terrorists could be caught out by the monitioring of text messages reassures me, although I'm sure that terrorists have probably wisened up to this now.

Originally posted by Tony
I'm not in favour of them, but I'm not afraid of them either. I can see the positive side of them too.

I am afraid, and not from a civil liberties perspective necessarily.

I am afraid it will be an unpopular, massively overbudget IT gravy train, just like most other technological mass system projects that have gone before it.

And it wont work.

And then another massively overbudget IT pullman gravy train will arrive and disgorge another tranche of execs who will charge the taxpayer an arm and a leg to fix it - which of course, they won't.

NIRS2 anyone - and that was simple by comparison.

Originally posted by oxbeast
Not particularly worried. Any of the scanning monkeys/bots/spooks who read this page will not be coming round my place to arrest me. Send whatever email you like, just to wind them up.
I once emailed a friend in the US, and had it censored. 'They', (whoever they are) had deleted the line 'george bush is an ____hole', leaving the paragraph making not much sense. My mate emailed me back to explain what i meant, and I had to talk aroubnd the subject without mentioning the man.

Fighting terrorism is one thing, by censoring cheekiness??
Whats a beast to do?

I find that hard to believe. Everyday there are printed press materials published and distributed to tens, hundreds, thousands even millions of people with far worse statements than that. No one runs around the news stands with a black marker, the post office doesn't censor paper letters, so I strongly doubt your email to one person is going to be censored by the oh so evil and paranoid Americans.

removed by spook

Spook, you're frightening the children :nono:

And some of the grownups...lol....it's not him it's only his uniform

Originally posted by Lindseyw
I would love to try it but I daren't

i always wanted to see what would come up on google if i typed in gary glitter but im too scared

Originally posted by spook
actually, we are watching. All of you.
and we are watching you.














:D

removed by spook

have not read through this thread but 'll assume it has probably veered off into a number of related issues judging by the amount of responses!

however, just wanted to add that i heard that the man that sent the text sent it to the wrong person, it was only when the woman mistakenly received the text that SHE alerted the police - it was then when GCHQ became involved so they did NOT 'monitor' the text as suggested - it was simply brought to their attention

If i were to send secret information via text to my so called terrorists friends all I would od is use that stupid text speak that all kids use..lets try and see MI5 decipher that rubbish.

eyup Osama..got sum gr8 news bout ur boms n stuff. wil meet up wiv u l8r 2 spk proper bout it all. Bush made me lol b4 talkin about war n stuff..wat duz he no..lol..pmsl..rofl

people talking about listening into mobile phone comms. I hold my hands up, i may possibly have done it when the analogue system was about. you lot would have done it too if you had access to a scanner. I tell you what, it was far more exciting that listening to the radio or watching tv. this was real big brother - and some of the stuff i heard people saying would be enough to 'freak your chicken'!!

I miss the days of 917.0000 to 926.0000 NFM