After my post on ‘Shoes in the machines‘ I looked at what we can do to stop or cause inconvenience in each one of the areas I thought were key for us. These key areas were;
Name
Home
Financial
Health
Car
Travel
Phone
Internet
It quickly become apparent that we are already past the tipping point and that there is almost nothing we can do to stop the progress of the surveillance state. At the most we can cause mosquito bites and keep ourselves feeling a little bit happy that we have done what we can. Sadly the mosquito bites are on a tank not Gordos soft head.
We now are dependant on whoever gets into power sometime in the future repealing this legislation and when they do may I suggest the easiest way is to repeal all legislation between 1997 and when they start. Be much easier and quicker.
So, let’s look at each one in turn and see what can be done and why, imo, we are too late for anything really drastic.
Starting with Name. What can I say? Everyone knows your name from your neighbours to the council and it’s easily obtainable. From what I understand though it’s still legal to use a false name as long as the intent is not to defraud anyone. So feel free to give yourself a false name and, if it’s not illegal where you are, ensure you get yourself another passport for identification. When ID cards are forced on us one of those won’t go amiss either. They will come in handy in the future as unless the checker is wired up to some method of validation they will be OK. Plus PCSOs will be too scared to open them to check in case the bogey man is inside.
Home. Well this is a bit more of an issue. After all you cannot hide your house or change anything about it. It’s rateable value and details are not only held by estate agents but the council and undoubtedly central government. Not a lot you can do here and when the council snoops have been around to tax your views and how many windows, bedrooms, toilets and how nice it looks we can expect tailored council tax bills. We are screwed on this one. Nothing you can do at all.
Financial. This is the area where every penny is counted and recorded. Difficult for you to hide anything since carrying any significant amount of cash means it is stolen confiscated by plod as drug money. Cash arriving or leaving is monitored and greater control over foreign accounts is being sought by our government as it appears that we are not paying enough tax already. Seeing as all governments are desperate to gets their hands on more of your hard earned cash then they bandy together to stop you protecting your money. In the olden days you could get an account which would not be linked to you but nowadays they are all linked and government knows what accounts are yours. Only thing you can do, and it is an inconvenience, is to keep taking money out and paying for things by cash where you can. I like taking money from the hole in the wall outside the supermarket to pay for items I buy in that supermarket. Pay everyone in cash. Some of them will even give you a discount because they won’t be paying tax themselves. Bad people that they are. I also like transferring money around my accounts. OK. The government knows they are all mine but it make me happy and I can do it online.
Health. All our details are in our health records. Not long ago it was in a nice brown envelope covered in cryptic text decipherable only by arcane practitioners of dark arts. Nowadays they are all stored in computers on the N3 Spine. In some ways this is actually good for us because it means that when you go to other hospitals all your details are available for the new doctors. On the downside it also means all your data is available to those authorised to look. All 2 million of them. In this day and age it means practically anyone in government and personally I would be loath to be recorded now for something like depression or mild fainting spells when it could make a big difference to your ability to get a job or keep your driving license. Nothing is private with this government. However, there is nothing you can really do. Lying about your health is not a good thing to do from a practical point of view. You get the wrong treatment.
Car. Well we already have computerised road tax records and MOT records which are linked. We also have the wonderful ANPR where they can check each cars details automatically and speed cameras where they can monitor your speed automatically. Unfortunately, they have not reached the level yet of sending plod after what they detect but rely on snail mail to your home address. Which is fine, for them, if your car is all legal but not so good if you decide to take a chance on keeping an unregistered car. But besides that they are implementing policy that will monitor every trip you make so they know everywhere you have been and how you got there. Taxes will follow. Again, there is not much you can do about this as cars are easy targets for taxes because running a car means you have money and we have to have them to get to work. Public transport being ineffective unless you actually live and work close to the stations or bus route. I would imagine that due to the lack of Plod patrolling there must be a lot of untaxed, uninsured and unregistered cars out of the main cities who are saving a fortune. Sensible Criminal bastards. Not a lot else we can do though.
Travel. A more interesting one. Not that long ago you only needed to wave your passport to show entitlement and you were allowed to pass in and out of the country. They still searched you every now and again because most things are illegal here that are available elsewhere and they like to try and stop it and, if possible, tax it. Now of course in their insatiable taste for knowledge and sticking their nose in they want to know more details about you. The more interesting are where are you going, where are you staying, what credit cards did you use and your phone numbers and Email addresses. All these of course help our government stop terrorism and help the children by … err… well anyway they must do because they say so. Well here at least you can do something to protect yourself. After all on your return you don’t want an unexpected detour to a UK version of Gitmo do you? Well here you just put down the minimum you can get away with for your travel details and where you are staying. Changing them when you are out of the country due to a sudden change of plans. In addition you can create a phone number to give them, Email address and a credit card none of which you will ever use. Let them keep the data. Create a phone number by visiting somewhere like Yac and creating one for free. Give it on all your interactions with the government. It’s expensive to call but you won’t be calling it. Create Emails on Google or other free Email providers and forward them around. Make them have to go to other governments to get the details. So forward your US Email to a Russia one to a UK one etc. Apply for a new credit card, one you only use infrequently and not for everyday use you can apply for at any credit card company. Get one and just use it for things the government insists on knowing about and nothing else. A spare card.
Phone. Well, all our calls are logged. The contents listened to and passed on to any government body that is interested. Want your kid in another school? Don’t talk about it on the phone the KGB council are listening in. Well for most of us this won’t really be an issue but if you are a bad guy then the easy way to do this is to simply have an unregistered pre-pay mobile phone to make all your school arrangements on and don’t actually talk in the clear. Use code words such as boss for target school, your pad for the local pub and don’t forget to mix up dates and times so you are difficult to trace. So to meet at your pad at midday on Thursday. Actually means meeting them at the local pub at 15:00 on Wednesday. Don’t bother to take ciggies. When you buy the mobile phone use cash and use cash when you top it up. Have it switched off most of the time with the battery disconnected. I have no doubt that soon you will need to provide ID to get one.
Internet. The last bastion of freedom. Well not exactly. Our travel and Emails have been recorded and read for a long time. This new legislation just keeps the connection details for a year. As I’ve said before pretty useless really without keeping the data itself. (Which I’m sure will be next) Now there are things you can do here but they all bring little problems of their own, many require payment and many require the kindness of others and in some cases they would be putting themselves in the line of fire.
Every connection you type into your browser or FTP client will be recorded by your ISP. IM client or Skype will be recorded by the service provider. This data will be recorded with the date, time and your IP but not the data. Now without going into too much technical detail we fool the system all the time while we are by using technology such as NAT. So it is easy to do. For HTTP (Web browsing) and FTP we simply use services such as Proxy and Tor servers. Some will require payment. You configure your system as per the instructions and away you go. The connection data recorded will have the correct date, time and your IP but the destination address will be the Proxy or Tor server. From your perspectiveve there is a delay in loading the web pages or data but otherwise it’s exactly the same. IMs, Skype etc. are a different system but using the same principle. You will need to find systems that will not record the data or details and supply to Plod. Again, you may have to pay. Nothing is free and certainly not freedom. Google, Yahoo etc. will happily pass the data over. Find someone that won’t or set up your own.
Emails. This legislation will record the date, time and Email address of the sender, the recipients and the IP it was send from. The contents will again currently be unrecorded. It’s part of their magic database of who knows who and associations. As you will know from receiving lots of spam return addresses and IPs can be forged. All you need is a mail server on the web that accepts connections and you can send mail without using your ISPs server. This will leave no record of the Email. Alternatively you can send via a remailer who will send the message on so the recipient is recorded as the remailer and the true recipients are unrecorded. Again, you can use others or set up your own.
For HTTP, FTP, IM, Phone, Emails. You can find systems online. Some will charge. Some will not but limit the service. You chose what you want. In addition you can set up your own Proxy or Tor servers, set up your own IM or phone service and/or set up your own Email system or remailer. Bear in mind though that running your own costs money and has some risks. It’s your server that sends the emails on, your server that accesses the suspect files. So when Plod comes around in their hamfisted way it’s you they will talk to first. Best for those that are prepared for a visit from the KGB Plod. Just search for ‘set up your own ? server’
Now consider that nowadays doing something suspicious to protect your privacy is equivalent to actually having sex with seven year olds and treated in the same way you need to be very careful about what you do and why. In most cases to draw the attention of Plod to yourself is not worth it. If you do think it’s worth it there are several things you can do. To cover up most of these internet issues you can make a Cryptobook. Mine was using DOS it was so long ago. I made and sold a few of these many years ago for the firm I was working for. USB sticks are now available that you can put an entire OS on so you don’t need hard drives and can carry your secure systems around. I would imagine you can put an entire Cryptobook on one of them now. I’ll keep my eyes open and see what there is. If only there is a quick way to destroy the USB sticks. I’ve tried a few things but all have inconveniences of their own. In addition there is encryption and steganography. Read about them here.
Mosquito bites on a tank
After my post on ‘Shoes in the machines‘ I looked at what we can do to stop or cause inconvenience in each one of the areas I thought were key for us. These key areas were;
Name
Home
Financial
Health
Car
Travel
Phone
Internet
It quickly become apparent that we are already past the tipping point and that there is almost nothing we can do to stop the progress of the surveillance state. At the most we can cause mosquito bites and keep ourselves feeling a little bit happy that we have done what we can. Sadly the mosquito bites are on a tank not Gordos soft head.
We now are dependant on whoever gets into power sometime in the future repealing this legislation and when they do may I suggest the easiest way is to repeal all legislation between 1997 and when they start. Be much easier and quicker.
So, let’s look at each one in turn and see what can be done and why, imo, we are too late for anything really drastic.
Starting with Name. What can I say? Everyone knows your name from your neighbours to the council and it’s easily obtainable. From what I understand though it’s still legal to use a false name as long as the intent is not to defraud anyone. So feel free to give yourself a false name and, if it’s not illegal where you are, ensure you get yourself another passport for identification. When ID cards are forced on us one of those won’t go amiss either. They will come in handy in the future as unless the checker is wired up to some method of validation they will be OK. Plus PCSOs will be too scared to open them to check in case the bogey man is inside.
Home. Well this is a bit more of an issue. After all you cannot hide your house or change anything about it. It’s rateable value and details are not only held by estate agents but the council and undoubtedly central government. Not a lot you can do here and when the council snoops have been around to tax your views and how many windows, bedrooms, toilets and how nice it looks we can expect tailored council tax bills. We are screwed on this one. Nothing you can do at all.
Financial. This is the area where every penny is counted and recorded. Difficult for you to hide anything since carrying any significant amount of cash means it is stolen confiscated by plod as drug money. Cash arriving or leaving is monitored and greater control over foreign accounts is being sought by our government as it appears that we are not paying enough tax already. Seeing as all governments are desperate to gets their hands on more of your hard earned cash then they bandy together to stop you protecting your money. In the olden days you could get an account which would not be linked to you but nowadays they are all linked and government knows what accounts are yours. Only thing you can do, and it is an inconvenience, is to keep taking money out and paying for things by cash where you can. I like taking money from the hole in the wall outside the supermarket to pay for items I buy in that supermarket. Pay everyone in cash. Some of them will even give you a discount because they won’t be paying tax themselves. Bad people that they are. I also like transferring money around my accounts. OK. The government knows they are all mine but it make me happy and I can do it online.
Health. All our details are in our health records. Not long ago it was in a nice brown envelope covered in cryptic text decipherable only by arcane practitioners of dark arts. Nowadays they are all stored in computers on the N3 Spine. In some ways this is actually good for us because it means that when you go to other hospitals all your details are available for the new doctors. On the downside it also means all your data is available to those authorised to look. All 2 million of them. In this day and age it means practically anyone in government and personally I would be loath to be recorded now for something like depression or mild fainting spells when it could make a big difference to your ability to get a job or keep your driving license. Nothing is private with this government. However, there is nothing you can really do. Lying about your health is not a good thing to do from a practical point of view. You get the wrong treatment.
Car. Well we already have computerised road tax records and MOT records which are linked. We also have the wonderful ANPR where they can check each cars details automatically and speed cameras where they can monitor your speed automatically. Unfortunately, they have not reached the level yet of sending plod after what they detect but rely on snail mail to your home address. Which is fine, for them, if your car is all legal but not so good if you decide to take a chance on keeping an unregistered car. But besides that they are implementing policy that will monitor every trip you make so they know everywhere you have been and how you got there. Taxes will follow. Again, there is not much you can do about this as cars are easy targets for taxes because running a car means you have money and we have to have them to get to work. Public transport being ineffective unless you actually live and work close to the stations or bus route. I would imagine that due to the lack of Plod patrolling there must be a lot of untaxed, uninsured and unregistered cars out of the main cities who are saving a fortune. Sensible Criminal bastards. Not a lot else we can do though.
Travel. A more interesting one. Not that long ago you only needed to wave your passport to show entitlement and you were allowed to pass in and out of the country. They still searched you every now and again because most things are illegal here that are available elsewhere and they like to try and stop it and, if possible, tax it. Now of course in their insatiable taste for knowledge and sticking their nose in they want to know more details about you. The more interesting are where are you going, where are you staying, what credit cards did you use and your phone numbers and Email addresses. All these of course help our government stop terrorism and help the children by … err… well anyway they must do because they say so. Well here at least you can do something to protect yourself. After all on your return you don’t want an unexpected detour to a UK version of Gitmo do you? Well here you just put down the minimum you can get away with for your travel details and where you are staying. Changing them when you are out of the country due to a sudden change of plans. In addition you can create a phone number to give them, Email address and a credit card none of which you will ever use. Let them keep the data. Create a phone number by visiting somewhere like Yac and creating one for free. Give it on all your interactions with the government. It’s expensive to call but you won’t be calling it. Create Emails on Google or other free Email providers and forward them around. Make them have to go to other governments to get the details. So forward your US Email to a Russia one to a UK one etc. Apply for a new credit card, one you only use infrequently and not for everyday use you can apply for at any credit card company. Get one and just use it for things the government insists on knowing about and nothing else. A spare card.
Phone. Well, all our calls are logged. The contents listened to and passed on to any government body that is interested. Want your kid in another school? Don’t talk about it on the phone the KGB council are listening in. Well for most of us this won’t really be an issue but if you are a bad guy then the easy way to do this is to simply have an unregistered pre-pay mobile phone to make all your school arrangements on and don’t actually talk in the clear. Use code words such as boss for target school, your pad for the local pub and don’t forget to mix up dates and times so you are difficult to trace. So to meet at your pad at midday on Thursday. Actually means meeting them at the local pub at 15:00 on Wednesday. Don’t bother to take ciggies. When you buy the mobile phone use cash and use cash when you top it up. Have it switched off most of the time with the battery disconnected. I have no doubt that soon you will need to provide ID to get one.
Internet. The last bastion of freedom. Well not exactly. Our travel and Emails have been recorded and read for a long time. This new legislation just keeps the connection details for a year. As I’ve said before pretty useless really without keeping the data itself. (Which I’m sure will be next) Now there are things you can do here but they all bring little problems of their own, many require payment and many require the kindness of others and in some cases they would be putting themselves in the line of fire.
Every connection you type into your browser or FTP client will be recorded by your ISP. IM client or Skype will be recorded by the service provider. This data will be recorded with the date, time and your IP but not the data. Now without going into too much technical detail we fool the system all the time while we are by using technology such as NAT. So it is easy to do. For HTTP (Web browsing) and FTP we simply use services such as Proxy and Tor servers. Some will require payment. You configure your system as per the instructions and away you go. The connection data recorded will have the correct date, time and your IP but the destination address will be the Proxy or Tor server. From your perspectiveve there is a delay in loading the web pages or data but otherwise it’s exactly the same. IMs, Skype etc. are a different system but using the same principle. You will need to find systems that will not record the data or details and supply to Plod. Again, you may have to pay. Nothing is free and certainly not freedom. Google, Yahoo etc. will happily pass the data over. Find someone that won’t or set up your own.
Emails. This legislation will record the date, time and Email address of the sender, the recipients and the IP it was send from. The contents will again currently be unrecorded. It’s part of their magic database of who knows who and associations. As you will know from receiving lots of spam return addresses and IPs can be forged. All you need is a mail server on the web that accepts connections and you can send mail without using your ISPs server. This will leave no record of the Email. Alternatively you can send via a remailer who will send the message on so the recipient is recorded as the remailer and the true recipients are unrecorded. Again, you can use others or set up your own.
For HTTP, FTP, IM, Phone, Emails. You can find systems online. Some will charge. Some will not but limit the service. You chose what you want. In addition you can set up your own Proxy or Tor servers, set up your own IM or phone service and/or set up your own Email system or remailer. Bear in mind though that running your own costs money and has some risks. It’s your server that sends the emails on, your server that accesses the suspect files. So when Plod comes around in their hamfisted way it’s you they will talk to first. Best for those that are prepared for a visit from the KGB Plod. Just search for ‘set up your own ? server’
Now consider that nowadays doing something suspicious to protect your privacy is equivalent to actually having sex with seven year olds and treated in the same way you need to be very careful about what you do and why. In most cases to draw the attention of Plod to yourself is not worth it. If you do think it’s worth it there are several things you can do. To cover up most of these internet issues you can make a Cryptobook. Mine was using DOS it was so long ago. I made and sold a few of these many years ago for the firm I was working for. USB sticks are now available that you can put an entire OS on so you don’t need hard drives and can carry your secure systems around. I would imagine you can put an entire Cryptobook on one of them now. I’ll keep my eyes open and see what there is. If only there is a quick way to destroy the USB sticks. I’ve tried a few things but all have inconveniences of their own. In addition there is encryption and steganography. Read about them here.