Every breath you take and every move you make...
-Two UK ISPs are working with the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Home Office to test web spying powers, reports BBC News.
I don't recall reading much about this on El Reg. I may have missed it. Or perhaps it accidentally slipped through the net at the BBC.
I would guess that the govt. want as much data as is feasible and are trying to find out what the viable max is. They will also want to identify anyone who is using a lot of encryption, or a VPN. Perhaps with a view to banning VPNs in the near future.
Maybe they don't want to have to keep asking the NSA what we are all up to. Spying begins at home.
I wonder if the enforced retirement of copper (as bad an idea as Beeching's axe on the rail network) is only partly to reduce BT's costs. Is it also to move landline calls to VoIP, so they become data and can be monitored more easily?
Expect a lot more fuss over minor security issues in the next few months, to butter everyone up for government intervention (to protect the children, national security etc). We've lived with security issues for decades (I was getting a dozen fake calls a week courtesy of the TalkTalk fail, cheers Dido). Now they will be inflated as more serious than they are (like the cost of piracy to the music industry).
The added costs are not an issue. You will recall Boris's comment, 'F*ck business'. There will be a progressive movement to seal the digital borders as they have sealed the physical ones, and 'take back control', regardless of the cost. Brexit (not Covid) knocked 40% off exports in January. Time was when politicians would run around screaming if exports dipped 0.2%. The world has changed, and the next target for 'taking back control' is tech (generally) and the internet (specifically).
There may be trouble ahead for our sector.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
