When and how can I leave this crappy country?

[sleepyhead]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7819230.stm

oh yay for civil liberties...not.

[pumpman]

it won't happen this is all smoke and mirrors to make you forget about what really matters and what is really happening in the country and the world just now.

[Splash]

So... run your own mailserver and deliver direct through DNS (ie don't relay through your ISP mailserver).

[Lowe]

So... run your own mailserver and deliver direct through DNS (ie don't relay through your ISP mailserver).

Which is what anyone with a brain who doesn't want to be snooped on (i.e terrorists) will do. Just ruins the civil liberties of joe bloggs once again...

[Stringent]

"The Home Office insists the data, which does not include e-mails' content, is vital for crime and terror inquiries."

Right so all you have is a To and a From. No content. That makes lots of sense.

[Steve]

We need to move to an encrypted e-mail system, one that moves away from SMTP, does a key exchange for verification of the recipient and sender, then sends the mail. And from a user perspective, the only differences should be: 1. they need to create a key and 2. They should get big flashing lights when something looks dodgy.

Anyone got any ideas?

[TAKTAK]

But, surely the amount of spam mail and bumf sent everyday would mean that to find anything, they would have to trawl through billions of emails....

[bsodmike]

what about public-key cryptography; i.e. (PGP for example). Does this mean HMGC will be cracking all encrypted emails that pass through?

There was a recent film I watched (ugh, can't remember the name) where a terrorist cell saved their 'instructions' as a draft on an online email account. All the members of the various (independent) cells would simply log into the account and read the draft email. Pretty smart

Similarly, an email could be sent to your recipient saying check for the message on my "server". They log-in to their space on your mail account.

Tedious, but it's one way data isn't actually transferred over SMTP etc. Sorta like a wall-to-wall facebook session for each communication...hmm!!

[Splash]

My understanding from the article is that it's only storing the details of the sender and the addressee, not the content. As such encryption makes no odds.

[bsodmike]

Like Stringent pointed out though, that's about as real as Unicorns and Flying pigs, i.e. From/To isn't going to help "much" it's the content rather that's far more enticing...

[shaithis]

Like Stringent pointed out though, that's about as real as Unicorns and Flying pigs, i.e. From/To isn't going to help "much" it's the content rather that's far more enticing...

From/To information is good to pinpoint spammers.

Personally, I welcome the change if they do not store content (as they say) and they use it to actively reduce spam.

[mediaboy]

"I'm afraid, we just don't trust any government or any organisation to keep that much very sensitive information about us all and to keep it safe."

Hehe... nice article.

But yes, I guess that my email will be becoming obsolete soon as I start to use other methods of talking to people. God forbid.. I might actually have to talk to people!

And as for them only keeping the To and the From, how much would it take for that to change? Once there's a foot in the door, it gets easier to shove it open and then we won't have any privacy at all. Totalitarian state ftw I guess.


EDIT;

Reports have suggested the government has even bigger plans for data retention called the Interception Modernisation Programme.

It could involve one central database, gathering details on every text sent, e-mail sent, phone call made and website visited.

Consultation on the plans is due to begin later this year.

Anyone else notice this bit? I just reread article and it's right at the end.... Whatever happened to our human rights?

[Lucio]

What's interesting is despite all the "leaks" and "exposes" the government had, it somehow manages to keep the real news stories like this secret until it's much too late for anyone to put pressure on their MP to try and stop this.

[whoops]

Dont mean to sound cynical, but they probably already have access to what we all think they don't.
On a land line, or mobile phone you just have to say a certain key word and it is picked up, that is for sure, if you persist you will eventually attract attention. Email, well half the time email is a pile crap anyway, and there is nothing to suggest that they have not already been wading in amungst it.

I mean if I mention terrorism, or child porn in this post or perhaps terrorist, a search engine will pick it up !!
oops I have just done that !!

[Mblaster]

So... run your own mailserver and deliver direct through DNS (ie don't relay through your ISP mailserver).

I've been doing that for the last ~8 years, and everyone I know that doesn't do that, uses web mail of some sort, like hotmail or gmail etc. Is this really only going to log people using their @*ispname*.com email addresses? Cause that's gotta be a very small percentage of the emails being sent.

[DataMatrix]

This can't happen.

If you're sending email by, say, Outlook, then yes it could be monitored unless encrypted. However, with services such as GMail and Hotmail which are completely server-side, there is no way of monitoring this. Especially not if you're using SSL encryption on the webpage.