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The Internet may be a series of tubes, but those tubes have to be joined
together. That takes place at Internet exchanges (IXs), where
different ISPs can pass on and receive data. One of the largest and
most important such IXs is AMS-IX, which is based in the capital of the
Netherlands, Amsterdam. Techdirt reader Dirk Poot points out that AMS-IX has just made the following move:
On
Techdirt.
One of the unfortunate consequences of the revelations about NSA spying
on just about everyone is that it creates a false impression that such
activities are really quite normal these days, and nothing much to worry
about. This probably encourages nations that don't carry out such
comprehensive snooping on their populations to think about doing so. In
Nigeria, for example, a proposal is making its way through the
legislative process that would grant the Nigerian government wide-ranging surveillance powers, as reported here by Premium Times:
On
Techdirt.
A couple of weeks ago, Mike reported on the extraordinary turn of events
involving Edward Snowden's email supplier, Lavabit. The company's
owner, Ladar Levison, preferred to shut down the service rather than
hand over to the US government something that it wanted really badly --
exactly what, we don't know because of a gag order. We then learned that the mere act of shutting Lavabit down threatened to land Levison in big trouble anyway.
On Techdirt.
If you follow me on Twitter or elsewhere, you'll have noticed that I've been tweeting rather extensively about the NSA's spying, the most recent attacks on Glenn Greenwald and now the Guardian. If you were still wondering what any of this has to do with open source, this latest news might clarify things a little:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
The UK is famous for its abundant CCTV cameras, but it's also pretty
keen on the equally intrusive Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)
cameras that can identify cars and hence their owners as they pass.
Here, for example, is what's been going on in the town of Royston, whose
local police force has just had its knuckles rapped by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for the over-enthusiastic deployment of such ANPR systems there:
On
Techdirt.
Today, the European Parliament held a three-hour long debate on PRISM,
Tempora and what the EU response should be. Many wanted TAFTA/TTIP put on hold;
others didn't. But one theme cropped up again and again: the need for
strong data protection laws that would offer at least some legal
protection against massive and unregulated transfer of Europeans'
personal data to the US.
On
Techdirt.
As the growing number of Techdirt stories on the subject testify, drones
are becoming a more familiar part of modern life. But their presence
can add a new element to situations. An obvious example is during
demonstrations, where drones can be used to monitor those taking part --
but also the authorities' reaction. As with cases where members of the
public have used smartphones to capture police abuse, so drones offer the possibility of revealing questionable police activity that might in the past have gone unrecorded.
On
Techdirt.
So the revelations from Edward Snowden keep on coming, exposing
ever-more profound attacks on privacy and democracy in the UK and
elsewhere. News that GCHQ is essentially downloading, storing and searching
through the entire flow of Internet traffic that comes into and goes
out of the UK without any specific warrant to do so is one side of that.
That seems to be taking place through an extremely generous
interpretation of the out-of-date RIPA law
that is supposed to bring some level of accountability to just this sort
of thing. The fact that it doesn't shows that we must reform RIPA and make it fit for the Internet age.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
The extraordinary revelations about the NSA's global spying programme Prism
have only just started - was it really just last Thursday that things
began? So it would be extremely rash to attempt any kind of definitive
statement about what is going on. But that doesn't preclude a few
preliminary comments, as well as initial thoughts on what action those
of us in Europe might take in response.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
News that the NSA has unfettered access to most of the leading Internet
services inevitably has an international dimension. After all,
Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google and the rest of the Naughty Nine
all operate around the world, so spying on their users means spying on
people everywhere. Indeed, as Mike explained earlier today, the NSA is
actually trying to quell criticism by selling this news as something
that purely concerns non-Americans (although that's clearly rubbish.)
On
Techdirt.
One of the key flaws with the data retention schemes being proposed by
the UK and elsewhere, supposedly to catch terrorists and serious
criminals, is that they won't work. It is trivially easy to avoid
surveillance by using encrypted connections, for example those provided
by The Onion Router (Tor). This means that the only people who are likely to end up being spied on are innocent members of the public.
On
Techdirt.
Although New Zealand's decision not to allow patents for programs "as such"
was welcome, other moves there have been more problematic. For
example, after it became clear that the New Zealand intelligence
service, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), illegally
wiretapped and spied on Kim Dotcom, the New Zealand government
announced that it would change the law so as to make it legal in the
future to snoop
on New Zealanders as well as on foreigners. Judging by a major new
bill that has been unveiled, that was just the start of a thoroughgoing
plan to put in place the capability to spy on every New Zealander's
Internet activity at any moment.
Here's an excellent analysis of what the bill proposes, from Thomas Beagle, co-founder of the New Zealand digital rights organization Tech Liberty:
On
Techdirt.
There's a worrying trend around the world for governments to extend
online surveillance capabilities to encompass all citizens -- often
justified with the usual excuse of combatting terrorism and/or child
pornography. The latest to join this unhappy club is India, which has
put in place what sounds like a massively intrusive system, as this article from The Times of India makes clear:
On
Techdirt.
It seems that the UK government will be deciding what to do about the Snooper's Charter
this week. It is already under huge pressure as more and more problems
with the plans become evident. I urge you to write to your MP (perhaps
using WriteToThem.com) to express your own concerns.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
The Internet as a mass medium is still relatively young, so it's no
surprise that its function in society and in our daily lives is still
being defined. One important question concerns the nature of our
actions online: to what extent are they public? Here's one rather
extreme view, expressed by Jürgen Maurer, vice-president of Germany's
Federal Criminal Police Office, as reported by Der Spiegel (original in German):
On
Techdirt.