Panic over
Amenable QC found. Wonder what GCHQ have on him?
PM wheels out snoop overseer minutes before latest snoops' charter bid lands
Sir Stanley Burnton has been unveiled as the UK's new Interception of Communications Commissioner, just minutes before the Home Secretary is set to deliver her draft Investigatory Powers Bill to the House of Commons. He replaces interim commish Sir Anthony May, who quit his post five months earlier than expected in May this …
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Wednesday 4th November 2015 13:01 GMT Richard Jones 1
Re: nice to see
His role should be to verify the legal status NOT the technobabble that went behind it.
Hopefully he will not fall for: their dog barked, crapped, went to the wrong school area, etc.
At least he should/ought to know what the legal position is along with the relevant legal precedent, though I am less confident that he will be there long enough at his age.
Mind you I did know a retired solicitor some years ago, he was 88 and after he got bored with running his own pension fund, he took on various semi official local roles. He was sharper than most of the other customers queuing at the bank. He came with a rich background of legal experience, though he did not dispense it freely and only talked about general issues.
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Wednesday 4th November 2015 13:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
@ Richard Jones 1 - Re: nice to see
His role should be to verify the legal status NOT the technobabble that went behind it.
Indeed. His understanding of the law as it was and the importance to us all of privacy of thought are far more important to his role than his understanding of encryption technology.
As far as the technology is concerned - if he understands "Encrypted=>gibberish and Decrypted/Not Encrypted => readable", then that should be enough.
What he does need to understand, perhaps, is the scope of information available for interception these days - and therefore the scope for abuse which he must know, given his experience, is likely unless he does his job properly.
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Wednesday 4th November 2015 14:02 GMT h4rm0ny
Re: nice to see
>>"Hopefully he will not fall for: their dog barked, crapped, went to the wrong school area, etc."
Well one would hope. But he is a political appointee held up as a "don't worry - you see we have someone who will check we behave" palliative to the electorate. On the off-chance he does turn out to be ethical, he will be ignored. If he turns out to be both ethical AND have a backbone, he will be replaced.
What was the name of that senior health advisor who spoke out against his own government about drug legalization? You know, the one that vanished immediately afterwards? He who pays the piper, and all that...
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Wednesday 4th November 2015 14:05 GMT h4rm0ny
>>"How are we doing with the "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about" argument?"
Turns out lots of us have something to hide but oddly enough, we don't like admitting it. What with the whole point of "hiding". It's a self-defeating question as the government well knows, which is why they kept using it.
Of course the real answer to "if you've done nothing wrong..." is to ask back "who decides what is wrong?" Because you can bet the answer isn't you.
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Wednesday 4th November 2015 13:18 GMT Uberseehandel
Only A Fool OR A Fraud Would Take Job
and the betting is......... an old fool.
If I need the services of a doctor or lawyer or engineer or accountant, I go to somebody with appropriate qualifications.
A patent attorney studies both engineering and law. Apparently an Interception of Communications Commissioner is only required to be a lawyer and pensionable.
If asked could anybody be certain that they could explain what metadata is (in a meaningful and relevant context) to this anomalous and creaking bauble of the legal establishment?
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Wednesday 4th November 2015 13:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Pretty much confirms what many have thought all along
The home secretary revealed for the first time in her statement that successive governments since 1994 have issued secret directions to internet and phone companies to hand over the communications data of British citizens in bulk to the security services. She said these secret “directions” had allowed the security services to thwart a number of attacks in Britain, including the plot to attack the London Stock Exchange in 2010. She said the use of these powers – which show that GCHQ was also engaged in mass surveillance programmes on British citizens using their communications data – under the 1984 Telecommunications Act will be put on a more explicit footing in the new legislation and be subject to the same safeguards as other bulk powers.
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Wednesday 4th November 2015 14:47 GMT hugo tyson
What will they log?
So what will the govmt require ISPs to log? DNS lookups? So use 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 - or will they snoop on DNS request packets en passent for all? Or do they log what IP addresses you open connections to, which reverse-DNS gives domains? So something like Tor or other onion router gets round it. Just curious if anyone knows, if the detail has come out yet. Because it seems likely that a determined operative could circumvent any obvious logging....
Separately, I too worry that someone out of touch will be prone to assertions about what can be done which are not realistic, such as "well force them to decrypt it" given a noisy image + allegation that it contains a steganographic code, for example. Point is old media (paper letters, morse code) are either plaintext or definitely something cryptographic. Modern media/messaging can be perfectly valid gibberish and still be your pictures/music: you can't prove the positive "there is encrypted data here" nor the negative "this is just a picture, no encrypted data present". That's what could cause the traditional legal profession's assumptions problems.
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Thursday 5th November 2015 12:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What will they log?
Don't be concerned, you are guilty, 'cause they say so
They dont have to have valid evidence to prove this because you are a Prole without enough power to be awkward. Besides, they can make up any evidence they want. Also, after they have had your PC for a while there wont be enough of it working for you to rebut anything.
None of this can be questioned (on Nat Sec grounds)
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
