Indymedia Eire and terrorists!

by theMan - bigBro Fri Aug 30, 2002 14:59

SPREAD THE WORD BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

The Phoenix,
May 5, 2000, Vol. 18 No. 9, Pgs 20-21

PADDIES JOIN GLOBAL SPY NETWORK

http://www.xs4all.nl/~respub/afluisteren/ierland.htm

by DJ Rob Fri Aug 30, 2002 18:17

I note that said article is over two years old, and there is no explicit evidence that Ireland has joined the Echelon system (a rather foolish affront to our European partners, to do so, may I add, but foolishness is hardly an unknown trait in Irish politics).

However, where you are is irrelevant, secure email accounts are the way to go.

I also reccomend:

http://www.hushmail.com/ (an Irish company, respectable)

and the promotion of

http://www.freenetproject.org/

(Also somewhat Irish)

by Mr.Nice Fri Aug 30, 2002 18:50

I read some reviews of hushmail's secrecy saying it was only good for hushmail to hushmail accounts, whereas ziplip applies to all mail sent. Of course none are safe.

I respect your comments regarding proof of echelon etc., but I believe, at this stage, that it's well and truly out of the bag.

Plans for the 'security@!#$' of the state etc. don't exactly get published in government press releases or Sir Tony's Independent.

ECHELON DOUBTERS need only do some independent research.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/netprivacy/0,2759,329596,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/internetnews/story/0,7369,725204,00.html

by theMan - BigBroInc Fri Aug 30, 2002 18:50

Subject: [Spy News] EU battle lines drawn as security challenge grows

Friday, June 1, 2001

EU battle lines drawn as security challenge grows
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2001/0601/fin67.htm

There has been strong reaction in Europe to new bid by law enforcement
agencies to 'data snoop', writes Karlin Lillington

SURVEILLANCE: The European Parliament is advising citizens and businesses to
use encryption regularly to protect against snooping from a powerful
American and British electronic surveillance system called Echelon.

Conceived in the Cold War era, Echelon is a satellite- and land -based
spying network that can reportedly monitor billions of phone calls, e-mails
and faxes and search for specific words. The parliamentary report on
Echelon, released this week, is the first official government document to
acknowledge the existence of the system, which has been denied for decades
by the US and Britain.

After extensive hearings on Echelon, in which security experts and former
intelligence service members testified to the European Parliament, MEPs have
concluded that the primary purpose of Echelon is to "intercept private and
commercial communications and military communications".

At the same time, the European Union's strong privacy protections are under
siege by a secret Council of Europe recommendation that member-states should
make communications data available to law enforcement agencies. The
recommendation suggests member-states should require Internet service
providers and network operators to copy and archive all communications data
from phone calls, e-mails, faxes, Internet usage and websites for at least a
year in case security agencies want to search them.

The recommendation comes at the request of security agencies, which claim
they cannot combat cyber-crime without the provisions being included in all
future EU legislation. The proposal is contained in EU documents obtained by
British privacy advocate group Statewatch (www.statewatch.org), which leaked
an early draft version of Echelon report.

Similar provisions have been included in past draft versions of proposals
entitled ENFOPOL and have been strongly opposed by Europe's data protection
commissioners and privacy and civil rights organisations.

"All the protections for personal freedom and privacy put in place through
international data protection rules and privacy Directives would be fatally
undermined at a stroke," said a report on the matter by Statewatch.

"Authoritarian and totalitarian states would be condemned for violating
human rights and civil liberties if they initiated such practices. The fact
that it is being proposed in the `democratic' EU does not make it any less
authoritarian or totalitarian," said Mr Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, in a
statement.

According to Irish Data Protection Commissioner Mr Joe Meade, security
agencies initially proposed that all data be held for seven years and that
they be given "unfettered access" to all stored information. "What was being
proposed was basically to overturn all the data protection provisions," said
Mr Meade. "Every police force could snoop at will. For the 2 per cent of
people committing crimes, the other 98 per cent were in effect being
targeted."

Opponents feared law enforcement could use the data to go on "fishing
expeditions" for incriminating evidence. Under existing data protection law,
data may be held for four to six months but only for billing purposes. Law
enforcement can gain access to stored data but only for a specific criminal
investigation and with proper warrants, said Mr Meade.

The seven-year proposal was watered down in later drafts, but privacy
advocates such as Statewatch, Privacy International and the American Civil
Liberties Union believe the EU could attempt to expand the 12-month time
frame once data protection provisions are thrown out.

Already, Belgium is recommending that data be held for "at least" 12 months
and, along with Britain and France, has put in motion plans to approve a
12-month holding period, according to Statewatch.

At the same time, an EU parliamentary report notes that most EU countries do
not have adequate supervision of their intelligence services and
acknowledges that the privacy of Europeans could be severely compromised.
The report notes that Ireland has only the occasional supervision of Dáil
standing committees and no permanent, independent body to monitor
intelligence services.

"The situation for European citizens in Europe is unsatisfactory. The powers
of national intelligence services in the sphere of telecommunications
surveillance differ very substantially in scope, and the same applies to the
powers of the monitoring committees," according to the report.

"Not all those member states which operate an intelligence service have also
set up independent parliamentary monitoring bodies endowed with the
appropriate supervisory powers. A uniform level of protection is still a
distant objective."

by bitstream Fri Aug 30, 2002 22:25

Another interesting fact perhaps of interest to those of us with Pentium 3 chips in our computers as that each chip contains an individual serial number.

Typically, this can be disabled in the BIOS but is still readable by anyone with a decent understanding of PC hardware.

As far as I am aware, this has been disabled in the Pentium 4.

As to people accessing the internet on-line from work, as a former network administrator, I can tell you that in most medium to large sized firms *all* web traffic is logged and e-mail can be retained for checking based on keywords. These keywords are up to the admins on site, or the software company who design the filtering software.

In intel, for example, trying to access the www.2600.com site will give present the hapless worker with a very scary red STOP! sign with some accusation of attempting to access potentially dangerous information or somesuch drivel. It will also inform you that the IT department have been notified of your attempts to access the site.

How's that for freedom of speech and access to information? Intel management just don't happen to agree with the (mostly left-wing) politics of 2600. Now, 2600 is a purely informational site, and the magazine itself tends to deal more with the politics of IT and censorship and potential security holes than the hacking how-to the intel bosses seem to think it is.

Furthermore, I can tell you that once your typical IT dept. has recieved such an alert specific attention to your browsing will be paid. Technically, and according to most Intel contracts - although I am unsure if this has ever happened - accessing the 2600 site would allow the company to fire someone without warning of any kind.

So - we have a company attempting to make all the world's PC systems uniquely identifiable whilst also claims the right to track and potentially dismiss employees who view a site like 2600.com

It seems a little out of touch with the laid-back, socially responsible small-company values corporate image it likes to send out.

Anyone had similar experiances?

by noam Sat Aug 31, 2002 00:54

the chip you refer to is the infamous clipper chip which was apparently to be built into the pentium class processors. the idea was that your computer would have a special id of its own aside from your existing ip address this id could be used to validate that you were a real person or something to that effect. the idea was shopping on the net could be done much easier as the clipper would log all internet activity as well as maintaining a secure connection to the net. the actual reality was everything you accessed on the net would be logged to the clipper and probably readable by the likes amazon

by i Sat Aug 31, 2002 03:48

i cant get this link to open, but it is a dot com address anyway. is this stealth advertising? guerilla marketing?

by theMan - BigBroInc Sat Aug 31, 2002 13:12

I'm not selling this shit - just trying to help out fellow activists. I stumbled across a necessary piece of info for Irish activists and thought it might help. Link seems to change when you cut and paste but try www.ziplip.com and go to services on front page or try

http://www.ziplip.com/ps/app/services/home.jsp

SPREAD THE WORD!!!

by DJ Rob Sun Sep 01, 2002 16:16

Er, I never said that I didn't believe in Echelon. (I first heard about it at least 3 years ago). I said that there was no real proof that Ireland (Eire) was officially involved, and that it would be a strange move of the government here to do so, politically speaking.

A single meeting of Echelons criminal intelligence branch in Dublin doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Also will check out ziplip. lokmail is also good, apparently, requries payment though.