The judges identified two key problems with the law: that it does not provide for independent court or judicial scrutiny to ensure that only data deemed “strictly necessary” is examined; and that there is no definition of what constitutes “serious offences” in relation to which material can be investigated. For legal authority, the judges relied on an earlier decision, known as Digital Rights Ireland, by the European Court of Justice in Luxemburg, which is binding on UK courts.In their challenge, Davis and Watson argued that the law allowed the police and security services to spy on citizens without sufficient privacy safeguards.They said the legislation was incompatible with article eight of the European convention on human rights, the right to respect for private and family life, and articles seven and eight of the EU charter of fundamental rights, respect for private and family life and protection of personal data.The MPs complained that use of communications data was not limited to cases involving serious crime, that individual notices of data retention were kept secret, and that no provision was made for those under obligation of professional confidentiality, in particular lawyers and journalists. Nor, they argued, were there adequate safeguards against communications data leaving the EU.

Source: High court rules data retention and surveillance legislation unlawful | World news | The Guardian

Nice to see that at least EU courts can display sanity from time to time!

Sky News has found evidence that rogue mobile phone towers, which can listen in on people’s calls without their knowledge, are being operated in the UK.IMSI catchers, also known as Stingrays, mimic mobile phone masts and trick phones into logging on.The controversial surveillance technology is used by police agencies worldwide to target the communications of criminals.However, Stingrays also collect the data of all other phones in the area, meaning innocent people’s communications are spied on.

NB this means they can also collect en masse without a warrant…

get it here

MIAMI (AP) — Investigators do not need a search warrant to obtain cellphone tower location records in criminal prosecutions, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a closely-watched case involving the rules for changing technology.

via News from The Associated Press.

Moar grip on your hapless citizens, comrade?

His step-by-step instructions for making a clandestine phone call are as follows:

Analyze your daily movements, paying special attention to anchor points (basis of operation like home or work) and dormant periods in schedules (8-12 p.m. or when cell phones aren’t changing locations);
Leave your daily cell phone behind during dormant periods and purchase a prepaid no-contract cell phone (“burner phone”);
After storing burner phone in a Faraday bag, activate it using a clean computer connected to a public Wi-Fi network;
Encrypt the cell phone number using a onetime pad (OTP) system and rename an image file with the encrypted code. Using Tor to hide your web traffic, post the image to an agreed upon anonymous Twitter account, which signals a communications request to your partner;
Leave cell phone behind, avoid anchor points, and receive phone call from partner on burner phone at 9:30 p.m.—or another pre-arranged “dormant” time—on the following day;
Wipe down and destroy handset.

http://m.fastcompany.com/3044637/secret-phone-network

this is part of an art project which was looking at the surveillance state we live in

As Bloomberg reports, RadioShack is offering up more than 13 million email addresses and 65 million physical addresses to the highest bidder

via RadioShack Selling Customer Data In Bankruptcy Auction.

Didn’t see that coming…

This year, we are going to see the transformation of Uber into a big data company cut from the same cloth as Google, Facebook and Visa – using the wealth of information they know about me and you to deliver new services and generate revenue by selling this data to others.Starwood is Just the beginningRecently, Uber launched a service that lets its customers connect their Uber account to their Starwood Prefered Guest account. The benefit to customers: get points when you take Uber. The quid pro quo? Customers give Uber the right to share all Uber ride information with Starwood.

via Uber: The Big Data Company.

Graham told a confused Bloomberg News: "I’ve tried not to have a system where I can just say the first dumb thing that comes to my mind. I’ve always been concerned. I can get texts, and I call you back, if I want."

McCain meanwhile said this: "I’m afraid that if I was emailing, given my solid, always calm temperament that I might email something that I might regret. You could send out an email that you would regret later on and would be maybe taken out of context."

via We have no self-control: America's most powerful men explain why they're scared of email • The Register.

This makes perfect sense to me – people are people, not reasoning machines. People make mistakes and they don’t want their mistakes to be replayable through never deletable digital media. The article slams them for this, but basically the writers are saying there should be no expectation of people in power actually being humans. Because people can be called out for any infestimally stupid thing they ever do over email, far after the fact and without any context attached these people have been pushed out of using modern communications because the risks far outweigh the usefulness.

Dutch courts have decided that the ubiquitous tracking of every person in the nation is at variance with the right to having a private life and has to be stopped immediately.

Hopefully the NL Gov (of which the Justice department is very disappointed with the verdict, the house of commons less so) will not appeal this decision but instead make a different law that mandates the collection of this kind of data only after a judge has deemed it necessary on a case by case basis.

ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2015:2498, Rechtbank Den Haag, C/09/480009 / KG ZA 14/1575.

A Supreme Court decision handed down on Wednesday has given carte blanche to police forces to retain personal data they have collected for virtually any purpose and hold it as long as they like – even when the people targeted are not violent and have committed no crime.

via UK Supreme Court waves through indiscriminate police surveillance • The Register.

Stop de bewaarplicht » Eis dat jouw provider stopt met de bewaarplicht!.

via a piece of javascript, so using NoScript on Firefox negates it. Beware!

http://webwereld.nl/beveiliging/85263-webrtc-verklapt-je-verborgen-ip-adres

“If you do not enable Voice Recognition, you will not be able to use interactive voice recognition features, although you may be able to control your TV using certain predefined voice commands. While Samsung will not collect your spoken word, Samsung may still collect associated texts and other usage data so that we can evaluate the performance of the feature and improve it.”

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/09/samsung_listens_in_to_everything_you_say_to_your_smart_tellie/

Where is the microphone so we can put a sticker over it?

How is it possible these muffheads running Europe didn’t realise this? If you put stuff in American cloud it is giving it away to the NSA FBI and any other 3 letter US acronym you can think of. And these dozy fuckers are surprised it’s going badly with the economy? And that people don’t like politicians?
Glad someone cottoned on to this, even if it is a few years late.
go install Kolab please.

http://webwereld.nl/overheid/85329-outlook-app-europese-politici-lekt-data-naar-fbi–nsa

He wants to use it to couple databases such as the license plate data they gather everywhere in NL with the tax database, creating huge centralised databases. Because centralised databases are great! Especially when everyone can access them. Do people never learn? Centralised databases are a very very bad idea.

Privacy volgende slachtoffer van Charlie Hebdo-aanslag – Webwereld.

Refuse to just let it die and give people some form of privacy. Does the US never learn?

House Dem revives major cyber bill | TheHill.

By installing a back door into encrypted communications and storage, they not only allow the government unfettered access, but also criminals. Although I’m not sure where the distinction lies, nowadays.

WhatsApp and iMessage could be banned under new surveillance plans – News – Gadgets and Tech – The Independent.

Ah the wonders of big data. Needlessly scaring twice as many people as guilty people you find with a valid search warrant and invasion of innocent people’s privacy is being lauded as a success by the NL Government and will result in 30000 people’s houses being needlessly searched next year.
30.000 onschuldige Nederlanders opgejaagd door overheid – Webwereld.

This site looks at surprisingly few browser attributes to see how unique you are. Currently you are being compared to 37753 other browsers, but as more people check on the site, the representation will be more accurate. It’s pretty scary to see how individual your browser settings are, even with javascript disabled.

via Am I unique?.

The fourth reich is inevitable!

GOP rep attempted late bid to kill spy bill | TheHill.

Egocentric cameras are being worn by an increasing number of users, among them many security forces worldwide. GoPro cameras already penetrated the mass market, and Google Glass may follow soon. As head-worn cameras do not capture the face and body of the wearer, it may seem that the anonymity of the wearer can be preserved even when the video is publicly distributed.We show that motion features in egocentric video provide biometric information, and the identity of the user can be determined quite reliably from a few seconds of video. Biometrics are extracted by training Convolutional Neural Network CNN architectures on coarse optical flow.Egocentric video biometrics can prevent theft of wearable cameras by locking the camera when worn by people other than the owner. In video sharing services, this Biometric measure can help to locate automatically all videos shot by the same user. An important message in this paper is that people should be aware that sharing egocentric video will compromise their anonymity.

via [1411.7591] Egocentric Video Biometrics.

The European Parliament has reached a deal with national ministers to introduce a mandatory “eCall” system for all new cars from April 2018.

However, although the system would automatically call the 112 emergency number in the event of a crash, euro lawmakers say that cars will not be continuously tracked.

“It will be illegal to use eCall to track a driver’s movements or to misuse location data, which must be sent only to the emergency services,” said Olga Sehnalova, the Czech politician who helped broker the deal.

The proposed rules would also follow the principle of data-minimisation, with only basic details such as the class of vehicle, the type of fuel used, the time of the accident, and the exact location given to the emergency services.

Nor is any of the data gathered allowed to be passed on to third parties without the explicit consent of the person involved.

via EU law bods: New eCall crash system WON'T TRACK YOU. Really • The Register.

I’m very curious how the system knows you’re in a crash…

This site is a huge country and brand directory listing of surveillance cameras that are online and still have the default password or no protection set. It’s bizarre to see how many of them there are.

View net surveillance online cameras.