- This topic has 4 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated July 1, 2005 at 10:11 am by globalloon.
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June 30, 2005 at 4:35 pm #1036554
didn’t want to hijack the partylines thread as its very important to be aware of the surveillance in the context of free parties; but now definitely seems the case in the post 9/11 that every form of electronic communication is routinely monitored….
my mum is in Malaysia teaching and I spoke to her on the phone a few days ago…
she was asking me “who are all those chinese people in the background”?
I said “what chinese people? I can’t hear them? I can hear my own voice coming back over the line a second later (common enough with international phone circuits)
Now I’m an IT engineer who has a lot of networks/telecoms experience and know there is a problem called “crosstalk” which can make you hear other voices on the line. This can happen when there are too many cable pairs close together in the “local loop” (the wires that go from your telephone at home to the exchange or concentrator [the BT building or the grey box in the street if you are on cable]
But she only hears the Chinese people in the background on international calls..
pretty much all countries now monitor international calls, particularly to neighbouring countries; usually to check for drugs deals and terrorism.
My relatives have friends who work for Telekom Malaysia, and they openly admit they monitor all the traffic to Thailand including the Government comms “because Thailand is too liberal on drugs and immigration; Malaysia’s government see them as a potential security risk”.
But this happens in the West as well – there is not so much voice monitoring within a country (or the security services would be overloaded with info) but traffic patterns (numbers called, websites visited) are scrutinised by cops as far less paperwork is needed to do this than voice monitoring…
There is no such thing as freedom of speech or anonimity on the net nowadays, as Indymedia found out.
Every bit of internet traffic in the world goes through at least one server where the authorities can monitor it, every server can eventually be traced.
The post 9/11 service disruptions on the internet were used by the powerful countries security services to get a foothold in internet monitoring.
The net may briefly have been “free” in the early days back in the 1990s when you had independent ISPs and the authorities not having technical knowledge; but now the power of the internet is concentrated in the hands of a few large telecoms corporates who are all “good corporate citizens” and will hand over whatever data Mr Dubya, Mr Blair, Mr Putin or Mr Zemin tell them to. Many ISPs and companies actively work with police and other organisations to provide comms services for law enforcement, surveillance of traffic and censorship/filtering.
You can use encrypt, but it creates easily noticed data patterns and if you are doing anything slightly questionable authorities can use this as an excuse to seize your computer and ask “what do you have to hide?”
and there are more and more “cyber grasses” – people who go on to sites where they do not like what is going on, but collect info to use against the sites users.
This all sounds heavy and is quite harsh – but yhe best policy to adopt is not to be frightened of the internet – but when you write a message (particularly for public forums assume the following people are reading as well)
– your employers or future employers
– your parents and other family members
– the police and security servicesAnd if you want total privacy and security, the only way to do so is at a face to face meeting where you are sure there is no surveillance or recording equipment present which is not under your direct control.
I suppose one positive aspect of this is it might encourage people to meet and talk to each other in real life a bit more…
June 30, 2005 at 5:34 pm #1066310what’s the name of that big golf ball-looking place? the US surveillance place that monitors European communications…they look like they’ve got plenty resources!
surveillance of anyone who challenge the status quo in any way has always been the norm the way the internet works has led to monitoring becoming easier
a friend of mine who is really a model citizen (he’s been a county councillor for a very progressive town in Devon for about a decade) used to get picked up by OB on spurious charges in the 80’s… then he’s be questioned about a whole load of dates… every date on their list would be a CND, Greenpeace or Green Party meeting
they wanted to know what he’d talked about at these meetings
he pointed out that they were all open, public meetings (like this forum) and if they wanted to know what CND / Green Party / Greenpeace were planning, they should drop in
even in those days (long before war on adjectives) the insinuation was that violence terrr were afoot.. irony upon irony when you consider that these organisations are about protection and not destruction
I know I’m a very open person and talk openly on this forum… but I guess that sometimes you have to take a step back and think “if i think the govt / police are assholes, what do they think of me?”
be a real shame if this site became totally impotent though
June 30, 2005 at 5:47 pm #1066308globalloon wrote:what’s the name of that big golf ball-looking place? the US surveillance place that monitors European communications…they look like they’ve got plenty resources!menwith hill
Quote:I know I’m a very open person and talk openly on this forum… but I guess that sometimes you have to take a step back and think “if i think the govt / police are assholes, what do they think of me?”TBH if youre not involved in any other crimes or anything violent there isn’t much they can do.
Its clear from your posts you are a responsible father in a solid family unit with a good job; same with your councillor friend. if he really was a threat they would have found some way to arrest him or break him by now…
and on the eco-movement what is “radical” one year even ends up being picked up as government policy in later years. Even tories are advocating non violent direct action, there was a tory MP bigging up Swampy on the news (although he has conveniently forgotten that Howard did everything possible to break swampy back in the 90)
Its a matter of being sensible though – and remembering that people who don’t agree with us are always listening.
The people who bragged about pelting stuff at the train on Indymedia are as much to blame as BTP for getting the server nicked – and TBH they (the vandals, not indymedia) deserve to be nicked – I use that particular train line and don’t think they have any right to put people in danger or delay me visiting my friends in the West of the country. (mind you its probably just chavs in brizzle and some stupid troll put the wrong post on at the wrong time.)
But I don’t need to be worried about some Chinese listening to me talking to my mum – I’ve got nothing to hide there and it may even make them realise that British Asians do have good family ties like in Malaysia and Singapore they aren’t the debauched drug dealers and womanisers they are thought to be in their ancestral countries…
Nor do I have to be worried about any posts I have made here – making a noise in a field may cause problems to neighbours if not done with consideration, but its hardly destroying the fabric of Great Britain…
Quote:be a real shame if this site became totally impotent thoughI don’t think thats a danger – we all talk very openly about drug use, and it is still legal to do so under British law (our server is registered in the UK)
The PEL problems only apply to the UK really, people in other countries can talk freely about their parties and we in Britain can still talk about free parties to an extent as long as we don’t incriminate ourselves or anyone else.
I bet the FBI are steaming angry about some of the advice we give to young Americans on here; and they have tried to make drug advice illegal but even then its difficult to prove that mere advice is encouraging an illegal act (and the posters here provide a very balanced view of drug use including the bad aspects).
June 30, 2005 at 8:27 pm #1066311indeed
we are lucky to have the freedom
this isn’t the first time indymedia has been inconvenienced though… and it’s not the only time someone has been arrested for nothing more serious than wanting to live in a peaceful world
July 1, 2005 at 10:11 am #1066309globalloon wrote:indeedwe are lucky to have the freedom
this isn’t the first time indymedia has been inconvenienced though… and it’s not the only time someone has been arrested for nothing more serious than wanting to live in a peaceful world
saddest thing is it just seems so much more like a co-incidence/cock-up rather than a conspiracy (although I guess the extreme right could set up such a situation) – but there is always the danger of so called “supporters of freedom” with nothing to lose trying to “test how far we can push it” but putting others at risk; thats a problem for all of us who run alternative media outlets.
Whatever the deeper details of this case may be, its clear that if you advocate violence against anybody or anything on a media forum, these messages are not removed by the editorial team and then a similar incident happens in the real world, the cops are going to stick their noses in. Even if the posts are jokes or just pissing about.
For instance if I had joked about covertly swapping David Blunkett’s guide dog for a serval (a wild cat about the size of a labrador) dosed with ketamine (think about what would happen when the drug wore off :bigsmile: ) – it may raise a few eyebrows amongst any authorities monitoring the post (and even the animal rights activists!) – but it would be an obvious joke… of course I would not do such a thing as it would be unfair on the cat to play such a trick.
However, if that night Regent’s Park Zoo or Whipsnade reported a serval had gone missing (even if was totally unrelated and the animal had escaped its own cage) I’d probably get at least a visit from the bobbies and/or the RSPCA, who would be taking a close interest in what pets I was currently looking after.
OTOH I do think the activist movement has made some progress (and its not like me to be that optimistic when it comes to activism)
In thatchers day (had the internet been active) indymedia would just have been shut down full stop – without having to find a reason such as a busted train window.
I first started going to infoshops/alternative bookshops back in the 80s – books regularly used to get “banned” (and/or denied their market via commercial pressures) because of content. Not just obvious stuff like “how to blow up things” type books, but factual stuff on drugs at the same level of this site or Erowid…
Even seeing a Tory advocating direct action and congratulating swampy is not only amusing but a sign of how things have changed.
There was a time when the Conservatives fully believed there was no place for any form of activism which challenged the actions of the elected Government through anything other than the proper channels. I know a councillor who left the Tory party because of this and other issues and became a psy-trance DJ!)
There’s still quite a few left in the party like that (particularly councillors) if you read the local rags – the anger they express at any form of protest is like a cartoon where a fat authority figure becomes so angry steam is coming out of their ears..
However, the fact that they are even attempting to change shows that they have become so discredited and have been forced into supporting direct action… (
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