bloke reckoned its [i]impossible[/i] to make a mobile call, browse a web page or send an email without it being traced by the authorities - by any methods, ie mobiles, 3g, etc. he has a beard and works in IT though. therefore is he talking complete Daily Mail bollox, as I suggested.....
Maybe not yet.... The issue is partly storage, partly processing power.
Sooner or later this will outweigh our capacity to produce emails, phone messages etc.
traced by the authorities
Not as yet
But all that information is held by the individual organisations concerned - so all ISPs have data about all sites visited by their customers
It's just that Big Brother can not (yet) pull all this information together
But GCHQ is working on it!
The storage is there, but the people are not. Electronic communications are stored, but nobody will bother looking at them unless they're flagged or unless you end up being 'under investigation' for whatever reason.
If you start using a lot of trigger word such as bomb, plot, terrorist, plastic explosive etc in your emaila and telephone calls, or become a regular visitor to www.diysuicidebomber.com you probably don't have much to fear.
Unless you're having an affair with the wife of someone who works at GCHQ/NSA...
I doubt there's even the processing power available to be able to monitor every single email, phone call, web search etc etc for 'trigger' words... I think they'd only bother doing that sort of monitoring once you are already on a security list somewhere.
However, there are moves afoot to get all the ISP's to store all email, web page requests etc for a period of two years... although am not sure how close to that we are currently.
Everything leaves a trail, but how that trail can be traced is the crucial thing. Using unregistered mobile phones so that the number can't be attributed to particular people is one way, or bouncing around cell towers. Hiding web traffic by using Trojans and other warez to get access to a computer and use it to access other computers is another. There's lots of ways savvy people can hack systems and hide their tracks in all the other traffic, or disguise it, but equally clever people can often unravel the trail. Given time, and knowing where to start looking. As PJM1974 rightly says, storage and processing power are the issues, when you consider the billions of text messages and emails and tweets and mobile calls made every month worldwide. In Japan, for example, it's illegal to have PAYG mobiles, because of their use by criminals. In the States, on the other hand, I believe you can just go into a convenience store and buy several ‘burners’, disposable pre-paid phones which you just bin when the credit's used up. If the likes of [i]The Wire[/i] and [i]Numbers[/i] are to be believed, these phones are easy to trace, but can't be attributed to a particular address or owner.
[edit] found this on Doubletongued Dictionary:
On HBO’s “The Wire” the term burner is used to describe prepaid cell phones the drug dealers use and discard when the minutes run out, to circumvent the possibility of wire-tapping.
by burny5 12 Jan 05, 0104 GMT
That’s a good use of “burner,” a clear off-shoot of the old phreaking days when all cell phones were analog and it was easier to clone them. A “burner” then was a cell phone you “burned” with the new identifying information stolen from elsewhere, which you had to do because there were no SIM chips. There was a bit of reinforcement of the word because you “burned right through” those phones: you used them as long as you thought they were safe, then threw out the info and burned new info into the chip.
[/edit]
OK, cool, sounds like Beardy Weirdy loses the argument - for now...
It depends if you mean traced in history or traced at the time. If you know someone is doing something at that moment and want to trace who/where and how, then yes everything is tracable if you have access to the communications medium (as the authorities could get). If you're talking did bob view this porn 4 years ago, then no - no-one will have kept a record of his IP address against his real address against his computer ID and linked it to the servers logs. But most servers don't keep logs that long, and most ISPs don't link logs to houses routinely AFAIK etc etc.
Echelon system exists, apparently, but it seems is for international communication?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/503224.stm
bloke reckoned its impossible to make a mobile call, browse a web page or send an email without it being traced by the authorities - by any methods, ie mobiles, 3g, etc. he has a beard and works in IT though. therefore is he talking complete Daily Mail bollox, as I suggested.....
To answer your question - it is not impossible at all. How far they can track it back will vary - for example a pre-pay mobile you can get to a geographic location and possibly you may be able to find corroborating info to ID a PERSON. Maybe. Internet - easy to get to a specific location, 3G broadband same issue applies in ID as its cell specific location tracking.
However, to get a truly accurate picture of what is and what is not tracked requires someone with a very high security clearance to blurt it all out and lose their job 🙂 However it is truly difficult to be absolutely anonymous.
Bloke down the pub is allegedly correct.
Fylingdales are apparently able to read any email and listen to any call in the interests of National Security. There was a website on t'internet run by some chap.
I also remember some article years ago where mobile phones could have been totally encripted when digital came in but the CIA objected so calls can always be 'cracked'.
All that stuff CAN be traced and the government has the right to install monitoring equipment in any ISP if they choose to. It's enough of a ballache to set up and run that they don't monitor people unless they're "persons of interest".
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rmssw/GCHQ_Cracking_the_Code/ ]Radio 4 had a program on GCHQ[/url] a few weeks ago, GCHQ bloke reckons no (from memory) but he would say that wouldn't he
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[url= http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/08/gone-forever-what-does-it-take-to-really-disappear/ ]Evan Ratcliff's[/url] story is quite interesting, in terms of how much you can pry on people electronically without having to be Big Brother, and also in terms of how many tools are marketed aside from 'burners' (pre-payment 'gift cards' which allow you to purchase goods and services online or in person without having a bank or address for instance) which seem to exist principally for shady purposes.
Unless you're having an affair with the [b]spouse[/b] of someone who works at GCHQ/NSA..
Fixed that for you.
As for being anonymous - lots of ways of doing that I am sure. For example, buy a laptop cash, go round and look for unsecured wifi (or check into a hotel with false name or somewhere else with free wifi) and bob's your uncle.
Or just use a cybercafe. Preferably a different one every day.
Do you need ID to buy a PAYG phone?
I wonder how much the electonic surveillance is displacing other sorts. If you write letters to people and put them in the post with stamps on them, presumably the chance of them being intercepted is now pretty close to nil. 🙂
i worked at a company doing this kind of thing and they had a rather scray demo where they'd search for the word cocaine in emails, and it would automatically understand the slang terms and the context they were used in and link the emails together finding the gang leader. It could then find the date of a meet up, look for phonecalls made in the geogrpahical areas, and even match these up with numberplates caught by ANPR. The next stage was face recognition by CCTV cameras outside shops and the like, which are now linked to 'intelligent' network video recorders that could correlate the faces with peoples names, phonecalls and numberplates (most CCTV camera can do ANPR now) thus catching the drug dealer.
HH - sounds great... makes it easier to catch drug dealers...
or check into a hotel with false name or somewhere else with free wifi
I was at a hotel recently and a guy was trying to check in and pay using cash as he was a tourist. They insisted on seeing his passport before allowing it...
I'm sure it's technically more-or-less possible and does go on if you've come to the attention of the authorities, but as wheelz said:
The storage is there, but the people are not. Electronic communications are stored, but nobody will bother looking at them
So I reckon the odds of your bloke in the pub's conversations/emails etc actually ever being heard/read by a person (or a program that can understand them) are pretty slim unless he's talking about a lot of iffy stuff all the time.
i'd say "Yes he's right" however you will have to have a lawful reason to do so, such as under police investigation. I think you can with my knowledge of investigation and tracing things. I haven't bothered reading any of the above comments though, so may have been said and discussed already.
I seriously doubt theres the processing power avaialble to crack a vpn tunnel, on the fly, and re assemble the packets into something useful. Have a read about encryption, authentication and non repudiation and using open source stuff (i.e. freely available) you could encrypt your communciations beyond any useful message life, which is all you have to do.
Unlikely to change until quantum computing kicks off, then all bets are off for probably just about anything.
Funny how easy it is now for each of us to be given the level of surveillence previously reserved for drug smugglers & the IRA!
Jeez, of course they can, have non of you seen Enemy of the State? It's all there
Funny how easy it is now for each of us to be given the level of surveillence previously reserved for drug smugglers & the IRA!
Not sure what you mean. I daresay if people are careless then surveillance might be easier to do than it used to be, but I don't think each of us is constantly under that sort of surveillance.
If you mean that each of us [i]could[/i] have that sort of surveillance brought to bear on us then nothing's changed has it?
Well if GCHQ are doing their job properly then you'd like to think that it is entirely possible.
or check into a hotel with false name or somewhere else with free wifiI was at a hotel recently and a guy was trying to check in and pay using cash as he was a tourist. They insisted on seeing his passport before allowing it...
A lot of the major hotels will only accept bookings with a major credit card now.
You can't travel these days without a bank card. Some used car dealers won't take cash either. Didn't a website registered at an address in Manchester cream £2m off people buying Christmas gifts oct-nov, then disappeared? Surely if Beardy is right there would have been a HUGE electronic paper trail? But it seems not.
If you mean that each of us could have that sort of surveillance brought to bear on us then nothing's changed has it?
If all it takes is a few clicks of a mouse, that is a world away from setting up covert analogue cameras, tailing cars, analogue wiretaps, intercepting post etc. etc.
If you mean that each of us could have that sort of surveillance brought to bear on us then nothing's changed has it?If all it takes is a few clicks of a mouse, that is a world away from setting up covert analogue cameras, tailing cars, analogue wiretaps, intercepting post etc. etc.
I'm sure it's easier, but wouldn't you still have to set up the cameras and tail the cars etc?
But the bit I was picking up on was the 'each of us'. I thought there was an implication that whereas surveillance used to be restricted to the bad guys now it's brought to bear on everybody and I'm not sure that's the case.
You wouldn't have to set up the cameras because the infrastucture is there!
Feature creep. So much more is possible without being near the target.
You're probably right about still needing to be picked on.
I guess with twitter, google buzz, etc people are quote happy putting their location out in cyberspace anyway
A lot of the major hotels will only accept bookings with a major credit card now.
Which you can steal or clone...
Funny how easy it is now for each of us to be given the level of surveillence previously reserved for drug smugglers & the IRA!
Just had a quick look outside and I can't see any blokes called Bob, wearing combat jackets and hiding in an OP contructed of chicken wire and horse dung...
But then, if they were there, would I see them anyway?
I will just assume that they are there and act accordingly 😯