GCHQ: We can't track crims any more thanks to Snowden The Snowden revelations harmed GCHQ’s ability to monitor the communications of crime lords, leading to some vanishing off the grid and the abandonment of other surveillance operations, sources have told a British newspaper. Intelligence officers claim to be blind to more than a quarter of the actions of the UK’s worst crime …
So we're going to see a vast dimunition of the hordes of crime lords, and such, being daily dragged before the couts. What crime lords, and such, I hear you say. So, shortly, the list of hospitals, libraries, schools, homes for the aged, will be swelled with the closure of prisons, too.
Ahem. Its a three fourths manouver AND you have to call it before making the ply.
No, ply - *you* know what I mean.
Oh, and whilst its all rather bad and unfortunate etc, am I the only one not crying in my beer and instead thinking, 'Well yes, but didn't they pull down the roof on their own heads by wholesale trawling which caused Snow Don to have a crisis of conscience or something which triggered the whole expose'?
No doubt that's just too niaive and there'll be a dark windowed van outside the house shortly to point out to me that's not what you're supposed to wonder about on a public forum or something.
> Communication suppliers – historically willing facilitators of wiretapping – are “refusing to hand over evidence on the likes of drug smugglers or fraudsters” because they do not pose a “direct threat to life”
OK, silly question, but if you have a warrent, signed by a Judge, won't that get the 'communication supplies' to hand over the info?
"OK, silly question, but if you have a warrent, signed by a Judge, won't that get the 'communication supplies' to hand over the info?"
I think they are saying that if communication suppliers have stopped illegal wiretapping then the security services can't boost their 'detection' figures by sending them to jail any more. Oh, wait ...
erm, Silly Question number two,
what the fuck are GCHQ doing getting involved in what the daily mail thinks the politicians should be telling consenting adults in private what they should and should not do? It's a public health concern, not a national security issue.
"OK, silly question, but if you have a warrent, signed by a Judge, won't that get the 'communication supplies' to hand over the info?"
Of course they'd have to hand over the information with a proper signed warrant, unless they want to see the inside of a prison cell.
Quote: Or, the stupid yanks should have played by the rules from the git-go
Sharepoint. Gets you every time. Now what exactly is Sharepoint and to be more precise a multi-agency sharepoint installation security certificate? C-inexistent?
Bazooka, aim at foot, look into exhaust pipe, fire.
If it was not for Snowden it would have been someone else, this was a disaster in the making all along so they should put the blame squarely whichever colonel Cathcart spec'ed and whichever General Scheisscopf authorized the system in the first place. He is guilty. Not the Snowdens of Yesteryear. They are a casualty on this battlefield, not someone who actually sets it up.
Why not start investing more in ACTUAL police and detective work such as building trust in the community so locals will be happy to tip you off to any wrongdoings, have cops actually walking a beat, and some good old-fashioned undercover work.
That way, you might catch some real criminals without snooping on everyone indiscriminately
Perhaps the authorities could take note of the findings of Professor Nutt, and the committee members who resigned when he was sacked. To decriminalise recreational drugs would free up a great deal of police time and reduce the volume of clutter on law enforcement radar. Also with fewer doors being kicked in to no real advantage there might over time be an improvement in public co-operation.
http://drugscience.org.uk/
As we all know drugs king pins do all their meeting in the open in the middle of streets so that everyone can see them. So if we have police walking the streets they could easily pick them out so that is bound to work well. Sadly in many communities many of the residents work for the drug sellers so that is bound to work well.
Of course no one knows or more like cares about the toll free numbers they can call to report a crime.
Does not one think before posting?
I can read what did you think interception was if no 'undercover'. Mind you your special pleading to continue whatever you like is noted.
Have you seen the stupid response to undercover work that has been running for years?
The last drugs free for all went so well back in the 1800s didn't it. Personally I would cut the drugs with something useful e.g. cyanide and sell that cheap for a while. It could clean up the drugs market and give the undertakers some useful business
The last drugs free for all went so well back in the 1800s didn't it. Personally I would cut the drugs with something useful e.g. cyanide and sell that cheap for a while. It could clean up the drugs market and give the undertakers some useful business
David Blunket!!! When did you become a register commentard? :O
"Machine gun the prisoners!"
P.S. Do you get some sort of satanic loyalty card for advocating mass extermination of people? Are they like nectar points?
AC: "Personally I would cut the drugs with something useful e.g. cyanide and sell that cheap for a while. It could clean up the drugs market and give the undertakers some useful business"
This was actually tried by the US government during Prohibition. It had zero affect of the usage of alcohol, but it DID certainly increase the undertakers business.
..."cut the drugs with something useful e.g. cyanide and sell that cheap for a while. It could clean up the drugs market and give the undertakers some useful business.
Damn bloody stupid idiotic response!
Trouble is we've already too many of the population and people in power who, like you, work on gut reaction and warped thinking rather than rational logic and sense. As with you Anonymous Coward, they hide in the shadows and contribute little or nothing to society except Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
This story quotes an unnamed official—surprise, surprise! It's not only Anonymous Cowards like you who hide and remain unaccountable but also the Secret State that's prepared to work underhandedly, unlawfully and without proper public accountability that's much of the cause of society's woes today. GCHQ, NSA, DSD etc. are just the current focus—tips of the iceberg that's the whole government edifice and infrastructure which is regularly underhanded and less than honest with the Citizenry.
It's small-minded people like you who really screw up our governance which often leads to stupid or unacceptable outcomes such as exacerbating/perpetuating the drug problem. Whilst the crims and con merchants are without doubt disreputable and antisocial, at least we can usually understand their logic and rationale.
In so very few words the great H.L. Mencken, famous journalist, critic and satirist, sums up with ease illogical and dangerous beliefs such as yours:
"For every difficult and complex problem, there's an obvious solution that's simple, easy—and wrong!"
"Maybe, just maybe, real crime is not the agenda?"
Of course they're after 'real' criminals!
It's just that, in the US at least, there's been enough laws passed to make everything you do a potential felony!
http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx
Therefore, monitor everyone, because they're all felons!
"Maybe, just maybe, real crime is not the agenda?"
Fighting crime is not what secret services do.
Crime fighting is the task of the police. The task of secret services is, obviously, secret.
However in the public image "fighting crime and terrorism" sounds much better than "spying on (foreign) people to know when to intervene in order to prevent a public uprising". So they now claim to do the former, even though they have to business in doing that.
I live in a city centre so get a lot of anti-social thuggery going on.
I once said the to the Police Inspector in charge of the city centre night time crime division at a public forum that I thought it would be a good idea to have a couple of officers on a Friday/Saturday night do a tour of the roads and residential back streets from the main nightclubs areas like security guards do.
Basically just making sure folks knew there was a Police presence keeping an eye on the darker streets and lanes in the residential areas in an effort to reduce the anti-social goings on. Drunks get up to all sorts when they see a dark alley or lane off the main street.
She looked puzzled and stated "I do not want officers patrolling in areas where there is nothing going on!"
I replied "With all due respect but as a resident living in this difficult area, 'nothing going on' is exactly what I want!"
She had no clue about preventative policing. All she understood was clocking up figures to slap on monthly performance reports. Creating a safe, crime free area just did not compute with her.
What are they teaching at Hendon these days?
"She had no clue about preventative policing. All she understood was clocking up figures to slap on monthly performance reports."
The Police has always been a club of insiders so it's always been difficult for the public to figure out how effective policing actually is. Ages ago, it occurred to me that along with regular police recruits we should have conscription to boost police force numbers. Police conscripts, say after six months training, would go on to perform basic policing tasks for another 12/18 months before being eligible to leave.
No only would this make more time available for regular police to solve major crime but a major and very significant side effect would be that eventually many thousands of ordinary citizens would know how the policing system works from the inside. Politically, this would be a very effective way to improve Police efficiency through increased public awareness and understanding of policing difficulties. But perhaps more importantly it would make the service more accountable and transparent (as both insiders and outsiders would always be watching with eager eyes).
Of course this would never happen: unlike the army whose objectives are more clear-cut, any now-knowledgeable ex-police conscripts who attempted to lobbied for changes would be instantly accused by permanent police insiders of attempting to undermine the Force, etc.
Shame it would never happen, as until the 'Them-and-Us' mentality barrier is broken down, policing cannot be truly efficient and effective--if for no other reason than the trust between the Police and the Public will never reach the level that it ought to be at.
Dead right - and now we have CCTV all over the place, and every time there is a crime all we get is grainy, out of focus hoodies doing it. I can't think of ONE instance that anyone gets caught from it, let alone stop crime.
All that money could have been spent on Bobbies on the beat (and not what you see now with car patrols (the only time I see them) filling up kebab shops at 20:00 hours).
Why not start investing more in ACTUAL police and detective work ...
In order to catch a fox, you have to think like a fox? To be clear, I am not defending the government overreach that has been well documented on this topic, but misuse of a tool does not mean that it lacks valid uses. The tools the various three letter agencies are lamenting the loss of or lessened effectiveness of often have legitimate uses which are now out of reach due to past misuse. It seems disingenuous, though, to simply complain that they can't do the job because the well has been poisoned while still holding the vial. As far as building trust in the community: that pooch has been thoroughly screwed.
I used to walk my dog in a London park at night. The cops and their dogs would patrol in a van. The electric fan on the van's radiator would kick in every few minutes making it really easy to hear them coming. I used to play the game of walking behind a tree at the same rate that the van slowly passed. They never saw me so if I had been a criminal I would not have been caught.
The cops were too lazy or stupid to actually walk with their dogs and get picked up at the perimeter.
"Why not start investing more in ACTUAL police and detective work"
Because the idiots up top listen to the bean counters and the sales people, who talk up "operational efficiency" and how "our software and solutions" can do all manner of made up BS.
It's the same with Police forces and most government agencies that save costs by firing people, payroll is the number one expense to any organisation, they don't understand that coppers in cars patrolling, cause people to pull their heads in, speed cameras don't.
Have to ask: does anyone know what policy change they're trying to sneak in while we're all too full of stuffing to notice? Why else would they be feeding rabble rousing scum like the Telegraph this recycled 'news'?
And does anyone believe they were successfully tracking anything but amateurs?
Assuming that being a drug lord is somewhat Darwinian, one would assume that the most successful ones are reasonably high tech - these are people who can afford private submarines, after all.
So the NSA and GCHQ were probably only increasing the fitness of the cleverest ones by eliminating the less competitive.
Tax and regulate, supply high quality drugs of known potency through legal outlets, and before you know where you are these guys will be legal CEOs. And with their ruthless efficiency, we can let them sort out the competition.
Prof. Nutt and the guy who wrote Freakonomics in charge of drugs policy. There's a thought.
Any dispute of the fact that such a transaction would offer a probable return of £3500 minus $350 and any postage and packing expenses. Now that is most certainly an absolutely fabulous ROI which would be hard to beat and decline in these sad and pathetic times of politically inept and badly engineered austerity and ponzi stock and intellectually bankrupt government bond market manipulation.
I'm sure that with modern technology we could design a society where it was virtually impossible to commit a crime without being caught. Such worlds have been considered many a time in fiction, and just think what some of the fascist regimes of the past could achieve with modern tech.
I presume this whitehall official will be volunteering to be the first to have the 24/7 monitored cameras installed in every room in his house?
There certainly are some horrible, nasty, exploitative people out there. Always have been and always will be. Some of them even work in government.
Get warrants, employ more people and treat everyone equally.
If the security services don't act within the law it makes them no better than the other criminals they are trying to catch.
Yes, and as you suggest the balance is in part between private and government crime. In the USA, it's known that government departments -- notably the CIA, but surely others -- have broken and continue to break national and international laws against torture, assassination, and bribery. Among other malfeasance.
The question for Brits may be, how much latitude does the GCHQ get to commit criminal acts in an effort to prevent criminal acts?
The CIA (or equivalent intelligence agencies) is up to it's neck in gun running and drug smuggling, as advisers and getting people out of trouble. Because it's more important for national security that the various organised smuggling groups carry on their trade, but keep an eye out for the "wrong" stuff being smuggled in.
Of course there is actual gun running to the various militant groups, but I'm pretty sure that's a fundamental part of your intelligence agency, support the faction that you prefer to win.
After abusing their powers for years they lose their easy catch-all abilities and have nobody but themselves to blame. I was wondering how long it would take them to throw out the two trump cards of terrorism and paedophiles and the answer is not too long. They'll have to go back to the older ways of spying now that involves more work than grabbing all communications sent over X network on Y days and hoping for something to stand out.
A senior security official said: “Being caught with our hand in the till illegally monitoring absolutely fucking everybody in case they might be guilty Snowden has been very damaging to our work. We have specific evidence of where key targets have changed their communication behaviour as a direct result of what they have read.”
FTFY
As they have conceded they can't readily read what the real baddies are doing, they should now stop spying on the rest of us. We all know they won't do that so although the innocent have nothing to hide, we do like our privacy so in order to maintain it we need to enhance our use of cryptography and start encrypting data at rest as well as in transit.
If they didn't want an arms race they shouldn't have carpet bombed us.
Precision strikes with minimum collateral damage would be the way to go. Mass surveillance just gives the baddies more places to hide.
I somehow think that drones equipped with hellfire missiles would be ineffective in the backstreets of Manchester, and consider that using them to take-out drug dealers in the City of London would meet with less meaningful collateral damage; damage that anyone cared about that is. While they're at the hellfire-and-drone, have a stab at Westminster as well. Absolutely no average Joe would give a monkeys at that.
The budgets of GCHQ et al should be at least tripled and new stiff penalties brought in for those that report any action of the security agencies. Jail for the reporters and heavy fines for anyone that reads such rubbish.
We must do all we can to help the security agencies bring to justice all the criminals, terrorists and paedophiles, then we can live in a safe protected society.
I wonder why they didn't catch them all before Snowden though?
"GCHQ could redeem themselves by spying on bankers and bringing a few to justice."
Or maybe just reveal what they now about Westminster paedophile rings (apparently now including alleged murders?) dating back as far as Cyril Smith, and as far back as the era of Jeremy Thorpe and maybe further.
Or Jimmy Saville.
Sorry GCHQ, you lose. Same goes for the police. Undercover police spying on peaceful protest organisations, police in general fiddling with evidence, from the Birmingham pub bombings via Hillsborough to Ian Tomlinson, dodgy phone "hacking" inquries promptly followed by the inquiry leader getting a job with the paper in question, etc, etc.
If these people want the public on their side (which currently appears to be dubious) they need to be seen to play a fair game.
Hmm, I don’t believe the ‘Intelligence Community’ when they wheel out the ‘we are here to save you from the paedophiles’ line.
Say, for example, an intelligence organisation uncovered conclusive evidence of paedophile abuse and even murder perpetrated by powerful individuals, are they going to ‘bring that person to justice’, or use what they know to control that person and the power the wield as an ‘asset’? Blackmail is major currency in intelligence.
On the other hand, say that individual is of no real consequence (as an asset, of course it is of major consequence to the victim(s)), would they bring them to justice and risk compromising their precious techniques?
"use what they know to control that person and the power the wield as an ‘asset’? Blackmail is major currency in intelligence."
Indeed.
Very shortly after the death of Jeremy Thorpe a couple of weeks ago, a clearly long-suppressed documentary went out on BBC Radio 4, with a couple of specific recent updates following his death.
You might like to listen to it. But you can probably guess the kind of thing that was going on in and around Westminster back then (in terms of the 'intelligence' services anyway), and is probably still going on now.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wz633
"Not sure about bankers, it would be popular but the far more popular choice would be for them to start monitoring all the FIFA execs."
The question is how much damage do they do? FIFA results in fairly local damage. Globally they only deal with a couple of billions so that's hardly a burden to society.
On the other hand banks have put whole countries into poverty. Just think of Spain or Greece or the UK. Banks are responsible for Austerity politics which do nothing else than making the problem worse.
However the big problem is, that banks mainly stay within their legal boundaries. Therefore it's near impossible to prosecute them.
Yes we have seen how well the yanks in general respect the laws of other countries, just look at injustice nut case trying to get information of Ireland by illegal means.
I'm sure Florida1920 will read that and realise the folly of their ways, or just be slightly disappointed that they got passive aggressively put down a little, purely because of what their government does. Good job my government (I'm on team Brit (fuck everyone else, yay!)) doesn't do anything bad.... Oh shit.
This post has been deleted by its author
Are you referring to a bear's choice of pooping locale or the Pope's Catholicity? Because in either case the apostrophisation looks pretty good to me.
'Cos on the other hand...now that is a crime against the apostrophe. The Greek island does not begin with a rough breathing.
So as a result of Snowden they say they are some percentage down in trackings and operations. Would it help their cause if they gave us some regular updates (in a general way) on how many operations they are running, how many succeed and so forth, so we can see what we are paying for.
Given that:
A) British public safety figures haven't gone to Hell in a handbasket in the year-and-a-half that the Snowden revelations have been coming out.
B) That GCHQ is completely opaque on who they are targeting and why.
Then I have to wonder how much targeting of criminals was really being done by the GCHQ in the first place.
Seems like more "We're not actually going to provide the public with accountability on the shit we pull, but maybe we can scare them back into compliance" bullshit.
They should do what all good Hollywood detectives do; They know that Top crims always meet in giant abandoned quarries or on deserted docks so they just have to stake out or install surveillance equipment at all places like that.
And leave the rest of us the fuck alone!
You forgot 'in a park, by a lake, feeding the ducks'.
Surely pre-pay phones and fairly innocuous chatter is going to be the best bet here.
Look at the legitimate (i.e. non-obfuscated) chatter going over the web on an average day, facebook,stack overflow, twitter, amazon etc.
How really can you determine "hello mate, pint and same again please" -> "sure, same place ?" -> "yes, bit later - say five?" -> "see you there ;)" relates to some illegal exchange of goods or services.
It's fantasy - the blatant point of all the trawling is to provide an ability to *retrospectively* throw every possible extra charge at someone under arrest to get them to give up, whomever they're associated with.
I'd be willing to bet that the big scale stuff is disguised as company purchases for intangibles (IP payments perhaps) and looks like any other sales ledger unless a forensic accountant gets her hands on the books.
The little stuff is just not hidden.
I seriously doubt a sophisticated infrastructure is required to work out what "got any weed?" -> "how much do you want?" could possibly relate to.
So what they mean is they can't track *suspected* criminals anymore. Suspected should mean nothing. Anyone could suspect anyone of anything, and say it loudly enough it can become true. I want evidence not presumption and if there's enough evidence of a crime having been committed then it should be trivial to obtain a warrant and poke that under the noses of communications providers.
They overstepped the limits of the legal framework, just like the baddies. And they know it.
Normal law-abiding peons and suspected criminals/transvestites/activists/terrorists/ghosts/aliens/jobsworth civil servants have got themselves their very own technological equivalent of the Wilson Doctrine. Seems only fair to me, even if I don't like the fact that bad people do bad things. Hurrah for normal law-abiding peons and suspected criminals/transvestites/activists/terrorists/ghosts/aliens/jobsworth civil servants everywhere!
Apparently the Wilson Doctrine (spies won't bug MPs) hasn't really been taken seriously for years:e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/14/spies-flouting-wilson-doctrine-bugging-mps
If Secret Intelligence Services and Security Services do not have an embarrassment of overflowing information for leveraging intelligence garnered from every one of Joe Public's representative in the Houses of Parliament and across Westminster and in the City, are they by such a crass self-defeating default, self-proven to be neither secure nor intelligent enough and totally unfit for Future Greater Virtual Games Play Purpose and Realities with Creative CyberIntelAIgent Command and Communicative Computer Control Lead in Media and IT Systems of Operation on Man Management Missions ...... Viably Imaginative Practical Projects in Virtually Perfect Endeavours.
But such a monumental fault and titanic blunder is easily fixed, is it not, with a smart wholesale rejection of such an obvious and easily abused and misused, self-servingly corrupt and contrived idiotic folly, to readily and practically virtually immediately expose a whole host of new ills for speedy supply of Secret Intelligence Services and Security Services remediation. Anything less is an arrant errant affront and ignorant arrogant fraud perpetrated against a nation and blows a huge hole in any notion that the national interest is being servered in any way by all of those involved and is being catastrophically compromised and undermined by the sharing of secrets which are so readily and often abused and seriously serially misused.
So what they mean is they can't track *suspected* criminals anymore. Suspected should mean nothing.
While I agree with the wider point you are making, I think *suspected* just means *not convicted*.
They absolutely should be going after suspected criminals, they should just apply to a judge for a warrant first, so they can convict them and turn them from *suspected* to convicted / or remove them from suspicion.
They overstepped the limits of the legal framework, just like the baddies. And they know it.
No, they flat out broke the law, in an industrialized manner, that's really quite different from a technical breach of process, it's the difference between shoplifting a mars bar and hijacking a confectionery truck.
if there's enough evidence of a crime having been committed then it should be trivial to obtain a warrant and poke that under the noses of communications providers.
Completely agree with you here, I don't object to the mass trawling in principle, but I do think a case *must* be made for each and every person affected, with the requisite paperwork filed with a judge. If that means that some dangerous evil people slip through the net, so be it, it's kind of the deal with being free, freedom doesn't translate to safety.
If that makes mass trawling unworkable, well again, that's the whole being free thing again.
Have a pint
Maybe a tangential/peripheral point, but here goes...
I've heard for years Facebook described as the FBI/NSA/GCHQ (take your pick) friend, since it contains such a fantastic wealth of personal information willingly handed over by the data owners themselves. I've always assumed that these snoopers would be monitoring it closely for the specific subject that is their primary purpose these days - terrorism. And yet...
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/25/lee-rigby-murder-internet-firm-could-have-picked-up-killers-message-report-says
If they are capable of reading every email, every post, every chat, every Whatsapp, every video call, and they miss people talking specifically about terrorist murder, what is the point of them?
Information overload. Big Data = big pile o' garbage. In the States, many overlapping intelligence agencies. Given the volume of data the NSA and GCHQ must be swallowing up, it's easier to collect it all and investigate an incident retroactively than stop an attack. These agencies would be in the market for a good AI. In the meantime, they will continue to swallow up everything they can like the vampire squids they are and whine about increased use of encryption while pouring millions into quantum computing research in order to break it.
Anyone who believes that Snow boy's illegal disclosure of security ops is a good thing will be thinking much differently soon when their bank account is emptied, their credit cards compromised, their personal identity information is stolen and they end up going through years of headaches trying to sort it all out.
The only ones that needed to be concerned about monitoring of communications by authorities was the crims. Now they get to operate with impunity while your next door neighbor can listen in on your communication any time they desire without you even knowing.
"when their bank account is emptied, their credit cards compromised, their personal identity information is stolen and they end up going through years of headaches trying to sort it all out"
Excellent! You only forgot to add "and won't somebody please think of the children!"
Leave off, Sec-ops have sweet fa to do with vulnerable (being charitable here) people giving their details to fraudsters, with companies under-investing in professional architectural assistance with software security.
Snowden just confirmed what most (for a given value of most) thought, as the cost of tapping everybody started to be less than working out who to tap, it became more likely it would happen.
The only ones that needed to be concerned about monitoring of communications by authorities was the crims. It's not about being concerned, it's about living in the kind of society where freedom is not a slogan, some people are rather attached to the idea, so much so they've paid very high prices in service of that idea.
"Anyone who believes that Snow boy's illegal disclosure of security ops is a good thing will be thinking much differently soon when their bank account is emptied, their credit cards compromised, their personal identity information is stolen and they end up going through years of headaches trying to sort it all out."
How many times did you bellow how the security services weren't interested in us as individuals? What makes you think they are now interested in helping me secure my data or bank account? Also, this is the sphere of the Stazsi....sorry, the NCA, these days and not GCHQ anyway.
Sloppy MB, very sloppy.
Seeing as we all got put on the hook for about twenty five grand a piece by the powers that be I"m not sure I'm all that worried.
It should also be noted that the filth are shit at dealing with identity theft or having your card skimmed. Thankfully the bank doesn't need a crime number to investigate, or sort out the ledger balance (your bank account isn't your money, it's the banks money which they promise to pay you at some point in the future). Try to get the police to take a report, with evidence, of your card being cloned. Not interested, will add to crime numbers, won't get solved. Worse than reporting a burglary, which at least here in the Netherlands has the police doing door-to-door enquirys.
It was nice to have the cops show up to try and solve a crime, rather than confiscate my lovely plants.
The big assumption here is that GCHQ were listening to *all* of the "crime lords", and that some of them have now stopped using unencrypted email or phone to communicate and have "disappeared".
How do GCHQ know that there were no "crime bosses" using communication methods that they weren't monitoring?
Personally I know plenty of low level dealers who wouldn't discuss their trade over any electronic communications, so at least one or two of the higher-ups must have been equally sensible.
"Personally I know plenty of low level dealers who wouldn't discuss their trade over any electronic communications, so at least one or two of the higher-ups must have been equally sensible."
The online dealers I know are quite au fait with the tech. They might not know the exact details of how encryption works, or exactly how TOR does it's stuff, but can use it well enough.
Most of the silk road bust seems to be actual old fashioned undercover work and physical detection of packages, rather than high tech survailing.
Awwww now the law agencies will have to do real work again.. The poor baby's wont have all their stuff handed to them on a silver platter. Besides, if they were doing their jobs in the first place, anyone of the high profile crims they were watching should have already been in jail.. I suppose they just dawdle along and let things happen because its job security.
Wasn't it GCQ that was turning a blind eye to the child prostitution running out of that boys home in Northern Ireland?
Even if it was being run by the army/special branch/RUC etc then the all-seeing GCHQ must have known about it before Private Eye - otherwise what's the point of them ?
ever tracking the low hanging fruit anyway. The smart criminals don't get caught, the really smart ones don't get detected. And the really, really rich ones simply buy politicians. I am far from expert in, well anything, to be honest. I am just old and hoping one day to be wise. Still I am smart enough to communicate with someone without state intervention of that communication.
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)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=BmQj
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----
So even though the Snowden revelations were supposed to be about stuff that was supposedly being used ONLY against terrorists, it must have been successfulyl used against organized crime and drug lords prior to Snowden? Otherwise revealing it wouldn't have hurt their ability to track those criminals.
So if it was being used against them, why not use it against suspected tax cheats, or someone violating the no-watering ban during a drought? I'm sure they'd say "no, this would only be used for serious crimes that threaten lives" but why should we believe that any more than when we were told the mass surveillance was only done to fight terrorism, or told before that there was no mass surveillance?
Here's why these damn nazis lost the ability to spy on criminals and terrorists, and Google and Apple took away your ability to request their help in decrypting the contents of someone's phone: They can't be trusted not to use it for EVERYTHING. If we did what they want and let it be used to fit all crime, you know damn well the next step would be that corporations can have access to it, to determine who is stealing cable or who has a dog in their hotel room they aren't supposed to have.
Why would a spy chief go on record to say "we can't spy any more"? That sounds counter-productive. So the obvious answer is that they can and do spy, ok maybe it's a bit harder, but it goes on nevertheless.
Maybe he is saying "now that you know we used to illegally spy on you, we can't do it". Well, you know, touch shit. The law applies to GCHQ as much as it applies to me - if I tried to wire tap GCHQ they would be down on me like a ton of bricks, so why not vice versa (hint: bring it on, I do actually have very little to hide!)
So, in all of this, I am reminded of the late Mandy Rice Davis - "He would say that, wouldn't he"
Why did Lloyds buy RBS one weekend ?
Tehran strip club
Why did HSBC launder Mexican money
Fast and Furious
Why did S&C get away
Spooks bank
Spooks knew all of this.
They don't work for you, they work for the State (and nice work it is), you just pay for it.
Now go back to sleep and pay your taxes like the good little sheeple they know you are, you wouldn't want them to focus their attentions (and their abilities to produce evidence) on you, would you ?
They cannot see how corrupt they have become because they epitomise the very word.
They do not protect ordinary people
They endanger ordinary people through their actions
They persecute ordinary people for voicing legitimate concerns to protect themselves
They have become Thatchers 'Enemy Within'
Ok, so, let's take a little look at the GCHQ claims....
"Intelligence officers claim to be blind to more than a quarter of the actions of the UK’s worst crime gangs following changes by crooks in their communication methods, which spooks attribute to leaks by the former NSA contractor, the Daily Telegraph reports."
So, you knew how they were communicating prior to the Snowdon Revelations, and yet you failed to act on that intelligence? Good...well done. You knew who they were, so no need for mass surveillance to find them then? Excellent. Good job!
Also, only one quarter? Have the rest not changed their methods? Do you know who they are? If you don't know who they are, then it follows you don't know how many there are, in which case how do you know that you've lost one quarter of them? If you DO know who they are, see my points above. Again, no need for mass surveillance is there? Oh, and please turn in your budget because you've clearly been a colossal waste of money if this is the case.
"citing unnamed “senior security officials”.
hmm...I wonder if that would be a certain Home Secretary, as she is now the head of the NCA and associated security services.
"Communication suppliers – historically willing facilitators of wiretapping – are “refusing to hand over evidence on the likes of drug smugglers or fraudsters” because they do not pose a “direct threat to life”
That is, they are *obeying* the law as it stands and not breaching DPA, RIPA or The Communications Act. They wait, as they have been told to, for a warrant to appear. Good job ISPs!
"One unnamed major drug smuggling gang has supposedly been able to operate “unimpeded for the last year” after changing their operations last autumn"
Why haven't you arrested them previously? Lack of evidence? Using them as an asset to find "bigger fish"? Either way, not protecting the public or state much there are you. No need for mass surveillance to find them either. Again.
"We have specific evidence of where key targets have changed their communication behaviour as a direct result of what they have read.”
Ah...if you know what they are reading on the interwebs you *must* have the evidence after all. Why no arrest? What was your budget again?
"“They have moved to more secure forms of communication"
An advert for crims! There are things that GCHQ can't break that is simple enough that 25% of all crims have already figured it out and adopted it! Splendid. Not. So, you're not very *good* at your jobs either...about that budget....
"Law enforcement figures on both sides of the Atlantic have complained that plans by Apple and Google to build improved encryption into smartphones is a gift to criminals, particularly terrorists and paedophiles."
Well, a free market economy and capitalist philosophy providing a product for a nascent market? No one expected that! Ahem. It also appears to be a market you've created GCHQ/NSA. If you'd not been trawling everyone for everything that consumer need might not be so strong.
"“We have techniques that need to be protected,” the source told the Telegraph. “The choice is not to pursue a network and we have decided not to press ahead where there is a possibility of being detected.”
So, you've given up being our stalwart defenders? Again, budget.
GCHQ operations are one part of a broadening network of social control, along with the unaccountable secret police called the NCA and the Home Secretary. They shout TerrorPedos....sorry DRUGGIE TerrorPedos now, and we're all supposed to run to mummy for protection. They think we're pathetic, weak and stupid, but Snowden shows we're not powerless.
More power to him and others that may yet emerge from the shadowed ranks of bullshit.
I think that Snowden's leaks have only sped up the process of protecting the end user. We would be there sooner or later. Just sooner in this scenario.
Like my dad always said to me: Your mom and I were going to get married, just not on your schedule, but since you were on the way, our schedule was pushed up.
In the United States, for the NSA to spend time hunting criminals - even ones operating outside the U.S. - would be highly controversial. Its job is to support national security and spy on foreign governments that are hostile to free nations - and terrorists by extension. So, aside from the issue of Snowden, the fact that these statements presuppose that the GCHQ chasing criminals is an entirely legitimate part of its mission is... interesting.
"Communication suppliers – historically willing facilitators of wiretapping – are “refusing to hand over evidence on the likes of drug smugglers or fraudsters” because they do not pose a “direct threat to life”, Telegraph security editor Tom Whitehead writes."
Yes. And the communications companies are right -- drug smugglers and fraudsters are not a direct threat to life. You want to track drug smugglers and fraudsters? GET A WARRANT.
A senior security official said: “Snowden has been very damaging to our work. We have specific evidence of where key targets have changed their communication behaviour as a direct result of what they have read.”
Something tells me that there will never be any evidence presented that shows this to be true
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
