There are some very unscrupulous people out there, and in this instance it isn’t the Russians, the Chinese or the North Koreans:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/how-bill-marczak-spyware-can-control-the-iphone
Thankfully, there are some very, very clever ones as well.

I’m not clicking that.

I realised it wasn’t an article to be taken seriously at this point.

A trim Ph.D. candidate with dense brown hair and a disciplined beard, Marczak wasn’t just another excitable, fast-talking Berkeley grad student.

😕

we are all being watched

mostly by 100s, 1000s? of civil servants

https://yiu.co.uk/blog/who-can-view-my-internet-history/

Who can view my stuff?
A list of who will have the power to access your internet connection records is set out in Schedule 4 of the Act. It’s longer than you might imagine:

Metropolitan police force
City of London police force
Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996
Police Service of Scotland
Police Service of Northern Ireland
British Transport Police
Ministry of Defence Police
Royal Navy Police
Royal Military Police
Royal Air Force Police
Security Service
Secret Intelligence Service
GCHQ
Ministry of Defence
Department of Health
Home Office
Ministry of Justice
National Crime Agency
HM Revenue & Customs
Department for Transport
Department for Work and Pensions
NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services
Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service
Competition and Markets Authority
Criminal Cases Review Commission
Department for Communities in Northern Ireland
Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland
Department of Justice in Northern Ireland
Financial Conduct Authority
Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
Food Standards Agency
Food Standards Scotland
Gambling Commission
Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority
Health and Safety Executive
Independent Police Complaints Commissioner
Information Commissioner
NHS Business Services Authority
Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board
Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Regional Business Services Organisation
Office of Communications
Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland
Police Investigations and Review Commissioner
Scottish Ambulance Service Board
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
Serious Fraud Office
Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust
I always wondered what it would feel like to be suffocated by the sort of state intrusion that citizens are subjected to in places like China, Russia and Iran. I guess we’re all about to find out.

Who else can view my stuff?
Bulk surveillance of the population and dozens of public authorities with the power to access your internet connection records is a grim turn of events for a democracy like ours.

Unfortunately, bulk collection and storage will also create an irresistible target for malicious actors, massively increasing the risk that your personal data will end up in the hands of:

People able to hack / infiltrate your ISP
People able to hack / infiltrate your Wi-Fi hotspot provider
People able to hack / infiltrate your mobile network operator
People able to hack / infiltrate a government department or agency
People able to hack / infiltrate the government’s new multi-database request filter
I’d wager that none of these people have your best interests at heart.

Sadly, if the events of the past few years are anything to go by, it won’t take long for one or more of these organisations to suffer a security breach. Assuming, of course, that the powers that be manage not to just lose all of our personal data in the post.

Just because they can doesn’t mean they do 🙂

It’s not a free for all in this data, it does go though rigorous application measures and the likes of proportionality and necessity are assessed. It’s nothing new.

Ah, I thought this thread was going to be about Goatse.

It’s not a free for all in this data, it does go though rigorous application measures and the likes of proportionality and necessity are assessed. It’s nothing new.

lol. Apart from the “nothing new”, that’s true.

I’ve worked for a couple of those, they are fairly dysfunctional and run by balloonatics, which doesn’t inspire confidence.

I did write something stronger and and self moderated it, but got pinged for attempting to circumvent the swear filter. Oops

Having read the article, it’s not about surveillance being carried out here so much as the devious software that’s been designed to side-load onto iPhones, and allow various governments who are not exactly known for their human rights records to spy on dissidents.
This particular malware is unique in that it contains three separate zero-day exploits, each requiring the one before to complete a set operation before the next can load, the ultimate result being subversion of the actual kernel in the OS, all done remotely, something it had never been thought possible.
The developers appear to be Israeli, with European involvement, which makes their client base even more disturbing.
I’m no conspiracy nut, my frequent comments on many threads by the usual suspects shows that; this is more about just how incredibly devious, and how very, very clever, the hackers are, and that it’s not the usual culprits who are involved.
Reminds me rather of a book I read years ago, Cuckoo’s Egg, about a group of Russian hackers discovered by accident by a sysadmin at an American university.

Ah, I thought this thread was going to be about Goatse.

I was thinking meatspin

Meatspin?

Meatspin?

Google it 😆

That was going back to the good old days of the internet when things like that and tubgirl where about the worse things you could click on 😯

Meatspin

It’s what happens at a lemon party.

It’s not a free for all in this data, it does go though rigorous application measures and the likes of proportionality and necessity are assessed. It’s nothing new.

You mean like the Investigatory Powers Act which was used by councils to spy on people who put their recycling in the wrong bin?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3333366/Half-of-councils-use-anti-terror-laws-to-spy-on-bin-crimes.html