Data Retention About To Come To Ireland

by Terence Tue Jan 22, 2008 15:46

From next month on, the Irish govt, will be recording for all citizens when you login onto the Internet and to whom you send and receive emails and lots of other info.

Apparently this law was voted into the EU by the larger member states, but Ireland is going to be the first to implement. This may well be because the rest of the Orwellian forces in the EU want to use Ireland as a test bed to iron out the initial problems.

It is very likely that extensive monitoring already takes place throughout the EU on selected persons who threaten the system, i.e those involved in peace and justice movements and environmental organisations.

What is interesting is the way that this law is being rushed in at the behest of the EU. It's a pity the same urgency wasn't given to environmental protection and other measures to protect the welfare and health of people. It shows where their priorities lie.

by billy idle Tue Jan 22, 2008 22:31

No doubt will be used to further enhance covert operations against the likes of ShelltoSea and the Tara campaign etc.

by CodeMonkey Tue Jan 22, 2008 22:40

* rolls up sleeves *

heh...now how do I fake an email from a politician to kiddiepron site?

by concerned Tue Jan 22, 2008 23:08

Do indy keep logs of IP's and times on comments / posts?
It might be worth discussing in light of this.

They can find out who a poster is if they really want to with the info they are storing but why make it any easier.

Will using https help obscure activity?

Perhaps a practical "digital rights" / how to best optimise whats left of your anonymity FAQ might be a useful thing.

by wageslave Wed Jan 23, 2008 06:01

will they be able to access our IP addresses or not?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/22/eu_ip_numbers_p...onal/

by Datamine Wed Jan 23, 2008 07:18

'Surveillance On The Masses Of People' documentary by the National Geographic gives insight into the current and future surveillance technologies. Everyone should be aware of whats out there and how it is going to affect us in the future.

by DHB Wed Jan 23, 2008 09:29

Lads 'n Lassies -
your internet privacy is ended.
From now on you can take it that any comments to this or similar sites can easily be traced by matching the time of the comment to those who were logged on to the site at the same time. It seems your ip address will be stored and matched to your account.
The state (gardai) will have widespread and easy access to the stored data.
I believe this legislation was introduced specifically to trace contributors to this site.
Digital Rights Ireland is contesting this law in the High Court.

http://www.digitalrights.ie/

by Lurker Wed Jan 23, 2008 17:41

It is your internet provider who will be monitoring your activities, not indymedia.
indymedia.ie do not retain IP addresses.

by Aragon Wed Jan 23, 2008 20:39

How can we get around it? Good old fashioned meeting in person? That'd fuck 'em up. Revive the art of the smoke signal? Mobiles aint safe either.

There's little doubt that they've been doing all this already. They're just papering over their legally exposed arses.

by Freda Thu Jan 24, 2008 17:40

Start by using a proxy -e.g.

http://w2.hidemyass.com

by Feudal castrato Fri Jan 25, 2008 04:14

i noticed a sinister script "urchintracker"
also a reference to google analytics
I don't like the looks of it!!

suggest you shop around a bit more
anonymous proxies and tor servers use lots of expensive bandwidth. why would anyone but a utopian millionaire run one? unless you liked snooping for interesting sensitive info of course.

Seems to me that such services are often run by the very people you don't want near your info, as a recent swedish hacker case showed.

tread carefully folks!

by slightly informed Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:28

The fact is that to some degree use of all these tools is limited for a number of reasons which are:

1) Most people are never going to use them. So if the state is getting 98% of the traffic details that will be good enough for them, since if they don't get the email sent out by me, but pick up on the destination where is received, then it shows this net can catch all the fish.

2) There has been persistent reports over the years that some but not all anonymous emailers were front operations for various intelligence agencies. However it would depend on which agency was running what, because it is well known that they don't always share information amongst each other. For example in the recent history of Northern Ireland, the RUC, MI5 and Army/FRU frequently would run informants amongst the same groups, but each agency would not necessarily know of the others. So you can trust these entities.

3) Advertising cookies in the browser which track browsing across multiple websites, automatically get around the whole idea of anonymous proxies. Now you may think but who is going to go to that trouble to track all that? Well obviously it is done already for marketers.

As far as I know, there was a EU directive about 10+ years ago instructing all telecos in the EU to put in place hardware in each of their telephone exchanges to enable phones to be tapped. This was all done in the name of fighting crime and terrorism. This ability allows near instantaneous taps to be put in place and under remote control, with a copy of the tapped data-stream (of voice or data) to be redirected to another line and presumably to the appropriate authorities.

With these new capabilities, in reality it will be exceedingly hard to avoid them. Some people have suggested that there will be an overload of data and to some degree that will be true, but you can be sure that those fighting for a more equitable, healthy and sustainable world will be given the higher priority and so there will be no problem listening in to what these groups are doing and to nip all the campaigns in the bud before they ever come remotely to fruition or widespread awareness.

The bottom line is if there is the means and tools available to a small group at the top of the pyramid of various power structures, they will be used. They are just too irresistible not to use them. Overall what these new additions to the IT infrastructure do is that they enable an Orwellian repressive state apparatus. So it remains vital to get rid of it or make it unuseable through counter measures.

If in doubt look around, but read this for example:
Transcript: #19-99 Tools of Repression: Counter-intelligence and Activism
May 12, 1999
http://www.radioproject.org/transcript/1999/9919.html

by C Murray Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:49

Ok- Mary O Rourke brought in the Post 9-11 emergency data retention thing when she was in
communications, it was an emergency measure and not legislated for until Michael
Mc Dowell legislated for a three years data retention period in Ireland, on foot of threats
from the Information Commissioner to Bring the Dept of Justice to the courts.

This was covered by Karen Lillington in the Business pages of the Times
(over a quite considerable period of time).

We have the legislation for retention in this state for years.

Dept of Justice ensured that the records were retained but could only be accessed
by court order. All your data is therefore retained by the State.

This particular issue is the EU measure. It involves a statutory implement to
allow EU access and therefore does not need separate legislation- it had been
agreed by Justice Spokespople over the years.

The State has it.
The EU wants it.

Mc Dowell objected to the time period of the TDR in Europe and wanted a reduction
in retention period, but allowed the Highest internal TDR in Ireland (as part of the EU)
(!)

To research the issue;

1.Start with Mary O Rourke and Post 9-11 measures.
2.Information commissoner requesting that the 'emergency measure' is legislated for.
3.Mc Dowell Legislating for TDR in the irish State.
4.Mc Dowell opposed the three year EU period of retention.

Look at statutory implements and rights within the EU.

http://www.justice.ie

Keep writing, the issues are covered on the Newswire. We have already endured years of
data retention in this state.
The only saving grace is that maybe our politicians too are retained
under these measures.

Contact Digital Rights Ireland...

by snooper Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:16

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urchin_Tracker It seems if you're using an apple you can ...."To remove, go to your Safari Preferences>Security>Show Cookies. Enter Apple Insider in the spotlight panel. You can remove the entries from the search result list......." but then you come across "Little Snitch".
Jayzhus. http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

wouldn't it just be easier if we all stopped using computers? or promised to be good wholesome people with only pure & modest thoughts?

by Feudal castrato Fri Jan 25, 2008 21:38

all google users should check this out:

http://www.google-watch.org/gmail.html

by Sage & Thyme Fri Jan 25, 2008 21:45

Sure you know the answer we must all go back to using Pigeon Post :-) and get a tasty meal at the end!