Re: Will be struck down ....
@JohnBrownsBody
*Bzzzzzt* incorrect assumption.
The legal intercept is done remotely in a box connected by prisms (optical fibre taps) in the main transit links as mentioned above hence I upvoted it for being correct in technical detail, this box is NOT owned by the carrier, its owned by the gov and is entirely outside the knowledge of the people operating the network apart from the "it has to be there and fed power and this special fibre connection" facet.
If you take foriegn networks, they do have systems that backdoor the devices for law enforcement purposes rather than having additional equipment but that's not the way blighty implements big brother.
For the record, I consider the prisms + dedicated box a more secure way to do it. If we absolutely must have big brother monitoring its the way to go. I personally believe we do NOT need this, but its already here and live in the network.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
