Police set to step up hacking of home PCs

[CorNokZ]

Police set to step up hacking of home PCs - Times Online

This sorta sucks for you british ppl, huh?

 

[aika]

1984? Police State?

on a serious note, why such measures are needed? Is crime rate that high in the UK?

 

[CorNokZ]

No no aika.. It's to protect and serve the public! *nods*

 

[Lamp]

This is just a public acknowledgement of something that the security services & police have been doing for years and will continue to do so.

Any 14 year old geek clued up on hacking can easily bypass your crappy firewalls if he wants to. You think you're secure ? Think again

 

[CorNokZ]

Any hacker can get into my computer, but I'd very much like it if he didn't.. And if my own government were to start snooping around my computer, I'd be well pissed off

 

[Lamp]

Take your point completely but

1. What have you got to hide ? Personal financial information ? Sure its personal and confidential, but what you earn, how much tax you've paid (or not paid), what you have in your savings and checking accounts - all this can be found out in minutes. Illegal films / games / music ? Government couldn't give a shit about those. Porn ? Again, they couldn't care less unless its kiddie stuff.

2. What are you going to do about it. Any software you can buy to secure or encrypt your system can be easily bypassed.


Its like National ID cards. Everyone's going to have to have one. If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about.

 

[Shagrat]

god, sad state of affairs this country has fallen into.

terrorists use scare tactics to make us afraid, looks like thats worked wonders on the labour government hasnt it.


Wonder how long it is before we have 9pm curfews and fingermen patrolling the streets.

Im off to buy a job lot of guy fawkes masks

 

[CorNokZ]

They can read all my emails, msn convos, which websites I visit, all my finincial infos etc.

They can arrest you if you have extreme porn on your computer? When did that become illegal? And what is extreme porn exactly? Everyone knows child pornography is illegal and should stay FAR FAR FAR away from that shit, but some people have wierd fetisches which might be considered extreme, by the law enforcers, because they don't share the same fetisches and thinks "wow, that shit is fucked up", and the person which possesses the porn can get fined or even jailed in extreme cases?

Stay away from peoples porn, as long as it's not illegal(children, necrophealia, killing etc)

IMO

 

[Ormorof]

Take your point completely but

1. What have you got to hide ? Personal financial information ? Sure its personal and confidential, but what you earn, how much tax you've paid (or not paid), what you have in your savings and checking accounts - all this can be found out in minutes. Illegal films / games / music ? Government couldn't give a shit about those. Porn ? Again, they couldn't care less unless its kiddie stuff.

2. What are you going to do about it. Any software you can buy to secure or encrypt your system can be easily bypassed.


Its like National ID cards. Everyone's going to have to have one. If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about.

the only thing we have to worry about is some dumbass civil servant putting it all on a laptop and leaving all our personall information, bank details, online banking passwords/whatever lying on the tube :lol:

 

[Lamp]

Yep, very true, Ormo.

 

[crispy]

Guess you wouldnt have any problem with the police snooping around in your house then by that reasoning Lamp? After all you got nothing to hide anyways..

 

[Thorwyn]

What have you got to hide ? Personal financial information ?

That´s a pretty common argument... if you have nothing to hide, then what are you affraid of?

But that´s not the point. The point is, that hacking into innocent people´s computer is a complete reversion of the "presumtion of innocence", which is a basic column of our legal system (I think that´s true for the UK as well). You don´t have to prove that you have nothing to hide. Not until you´ve been accused of a criminal act. The police can´t just browse people´s computer out of the blue, hoping to find "something" illegal. Doing so is simply against the rules of law and it´s the first step towards totalitarianism.

Would you allow the police to step into your house at any given time, searching your rooms and then say "hey, I´ve got nothing to hide... just go on and remember to close the door when you´re done."?

 

[Olgaline]

back in the days "aka 90's" there was something called the black widow or some such,
wich activated if someone tried to hack you, or targetted some specific files, it would piggie back on that package back to the hacker and create meyhem on his Hard drive,

..would be a fine soloution anyway..

 

[Jeremiah]

Its just another thing in a step of useless measures by the state in the name of "security". While I agree with "If you have nothing to hide, why worry about it" my problem is what do they hope to achieve with it? Its easier to go through someone's ISP to track their email and browsing habits.

If you are planning something illegal using email you aren't going to keep it on your home PC, using web-based email is far more useful if you want to stay hidden. Similarly, if you are visiting illegal or suspicious websites you aren't going to keep that information on your PC for any longer than your browsing session. Spying on IM chat is rather silly as well, its far easier to intercept chat outside the home than stalking someone's chat history. So yeah, where is the value of being able to hack into someone's PC? I don't see the need at all.

Oh, I should add - I am NOT talking from experience here hehe.

 

[Lamp]

Guess you wouldnt have any problem with the police snooping around in your house then by that reasoning Lamp? After all you got nothing to hide anyways..

Actually, I wouldn't mind. Like you say, got nothing to hide.

 

[Thorwyn]

Wow.. you´ve got a lot of faith in other people, eh?

 

[Mey]

Pointless waste of public funds.

This has absolutely nothing to do with modern day policing.

 

[Ormorof]

its a complete waste of time and money for them to have free rein to "browse" through peoples computers, if they suspect someone of terrorism or serious fraud, which is when they might want to check your computers, why not just get in there and nab them physically?

 

[Huntingtons]

i know that alot of coppers will start snooping through your private stuff coz they're bored. you know how YOU are when you're at a computer at work...

 

[Billargh]

They can read all my emails, msn convos, which websites I visit, all my finincial infos etc.

They can arrest you if you have extreme porn on your computer? When did that become illegal? And what is extreme porn exactly? Everyone knows child pornography is illegal and should stay FAR FAR FAR away from that shit, but some people have wierd fetisches which might be considered extreme, by the law enforcers, because they don't share the same fetisches and thinks "wow, that shit is fucked up", and the person which possesses the porn can get fined or even jailed in extreme cases?

Stay away from peoples porn, as long as it's not illegal(children, necrophealia, killing etc)

IMO

Afaik 'Extreme Porn' is porn where peoples lives, well being, health etc (something along those lines) are at risk. I mean, I just read it somewhere :|

 

[Zede]

Im guessing they are going to be targeting big torrent downloaders & possible pedos.

Besides, its not the fact they can do it, its what they do with the spyed info when they do. Information is power.

 

[Olgaline]

Simple fact is,
even if you have nothing to hide, or how you can agrue to justify it...
one simple fact remains..without a reson for suspecion, they have no buisness roaming around on private peoples computers, it's unwarented invasion of privacy. simple as that

 

[Lamp]

How do you know they've not already looked into your computer without you even knowing, completely bypassing your commercial firewall etc software ?

 

[Ormorof]

Im guessing they are going to be targeting big torrent downloaders & possible pedos.

Besides, its not the fact they can do it, its what they do with the spyed info when they do. Information is power.

they going to start selling our details on ebay to make up for lost tax revenue?

 

[Huntingtons]

How do you know they've not already looked into your computer without you even knowing, completely bypassing your commercial firewall etc software ?

then they would be breaking the law...
and therefore anything they find cant be used. but there's no way of proofing it, just have to trust in their common courtesy

 

[Olgaline]

How do you know they've not already looked into your computer without you even knowing, completely bypassing your commercial firewall etc software ?

you dont,
but you'd also have to ponder what they'd have to gain from doing so, to random citizens, without some form of selection or profiling having taken place prior to such an intrusion.

everything that anyone dose is always driven by motive and potential gain.

 

[kirennia]

I've got nothing to hide either but to be honest I don't give a fuck about that side of it. I'm sure anyone who keeps a diary wouldn't like people to pick that up and read it...how is this any different? Personal e-mails? And for people who are suspected of commiting a crime which can hold 3 years or higher jail sentence. I don't think most people will know just how potentially small a crime CAN be classed as a potential 3+ year jail sentence.

Guilty until proven innocent, this is just yet another step towards removing our freedoms as 'serfs'. I'm sure that a hell of a lot of the police would use this responsibly but some wouldn't and as far as I'm concerned, the less people who are actively able to read through my personal life better, especially when you're looking at doing it via such a dangerous method. This isn't like a house search which you know is happening, you wont even know if they're reading everything you type for a week or whether you're never picked, it's plain disgraceful spying.

I'm sure as an example some of you clicked on the link in a previous thread showing the sick site whereby people were keeping statistics of mass murderers... random pop-ups, anything like that could be seen as potential for terrorism or well... basically, any excuse springs to mind.


Ultimately these decisions, working out who is going to make individual decisions, it will boil down to individuals making the choice in this. Perhaps I should have more faith in humans but to be honest, I just don't. Totalitarian state here we come!

 

[kirennia]

you dont,
but you'd also have to ponder what they'd have to gain from doing so, to random citizens, without some form of selection or profiling having taken place prior to such an intrusion.

everything that anyone dose is always driven by motive and potential gain.

An example:

You, utilising a right as a UK citizen exercise through freedom of speech that you don't agree with the governments decisions on the latest event which has taken place. Suspected terrorism, lets have a look into his computer...

All this is doing is removing human rights from us, the public. The problem being that I know I'll be in a minority in complaining; most just don't give a fuck. I wonder how the german public felt back in the 1930s...

 

[Olgaline]

aye Kir, but in your example, it's no longer random...
some form of profiling/suspecion has been established, even if it might be
crude at best.

 

[kiliarien]

I wouldn't necessarily be bothered about my information being snooped through. I wouldn't like it, but I could cope with it. What I am against is some twat then leaving the disk of inforrmation on a train/underground service or whatever.



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