Invasion of privacy or fighting terror?

[Taz]

Internet use and phone records will be kept for up to two years across the EU under new EU legislation.

Full story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4490936.stm

"Police would have access to information about calls, text messages and internet data, but not exact call content."

So, will this curtail terrorism or infringe our privacy?

[UltraMagnus]

terrorists arnt stupid, they will just encrypt their damny internet and phone comms, all it will do is invade privacy

[BEANFro Elite]

terrorists arnt stupid, they will just encrypt their damny internet and phone comms, all it will do is invade privacy

Ironically, encrypting emails etc. will only draw attention to oneself as Bush would probably say... "good people have nothing to hide"

[specofdust]

Yes but good enough encryption cannot be broken, so it makes no difference if you're a T and you encrypt, even if every supercomputer in the world was trying to break your encryption, from what I understand of it, there are some forms of encrpytion taht cannot be broken, at least not in any sane period of time(tens/hundreds of years).

I've just started ignoring this stuff, its too horrible to think about all the time, and I know the way government is set up these days there isn't jack poop I can do about it.

[TheAnimus]

encyrption methods are often more sumblime than to be easily noticed.

Say to encrypt a text message. You could use a picture and a polynomial, to work out the values of the pixel, if you use a relative method (based on 2 pictures been sent) the casual observer won't notice any difference.

Thats impratical for large data, and isn't that strong, but it won't be noticed by most.

The thing is encrypted or not, people leave a pattern, just looking at my phone bill will tell you who my best friend is, the overlay the pattern of which cell sites are in use, you can pretty much determine when we've had a strop, when we've been planning something. Even if the calls were completely encypted.

Think about it, i knew when my house mate's ex was giving him a hard time ending it. Based purely on the increased number of short communications. You'd be amazed what you can learn using some relativly shot (computaintional time wise) analysis.