Encrypting the web

I'm still keeping my tin-foil hat on though...

I'm not sure what I think about this.
I get VB's point that we should be allowed unfettered private communication.
But, dog's is right as well, this is a public forum and anyone who cares to, can read the tosh that I, and the rest of you post.

SSL or not? I don't think I mind

Not everything on this site is public - PM's, the phone numbers thread and everything else in the 'Private' section etc..

And anyway, that is beside the point. VB believes(as far as I can see) that internet traffic of any kind should not be open to snooping by 3rd parties, including governmental ones. Since he has control over the way that some information flows across the net then he is proposing putting his opinion into reality. The fact that he has even asked us our opinion shows what a community minded fellow he is.

VB, I'm in favour.

Has anyone been following the British and US government desires to monitor all web traffic? It's something out of a scary future, but the problem is that it is technically feasible and to some extent it's here already if not coming very soon.

I'm rather protective of personal privacy, and I don't subscribe to the view that "If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide."...

100% agreement !

We have been the most surveilled society on earth for almost a decade now and it only seems to be accelerating with plans to make records of every landline and mobile telephone call we make (and in the case of mobile phones where you were when we make them) as well as a record of our web use.

I think the state crossed the line of what was safe a long time ago.

I would be up for a secure site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Complete technodimwit question, but if military technology is that far advanced, is SSL actually going to stop them monitoring?

Possibly not, but it will likely make it harder for some cunt from local government to trawl through various communities looking for MP3 swapping, people sending copies of OS X and Vista to each other, stories of road indiscretion and red light jumping and "Hate Speech" amongst other things.

"If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear" is, I feel, well answered by asking the person who has just said it "I presume that you have no curtains in your house, and wear see-through clothing?"

I think encryption is the way forward.

I'm not sure what I think about this.
I get VB's point that we should be allowed unfettered private communication.
But, dog's is right as well, this is a public forum and anyone who cares to, can read the tosh that I, and the rest of you post.

SSL or not? I don't think I mind

+1.

I don't have a problem people seeing what I post on this site - they're my opinions after all, and anything I wouldn't say to anyone in person, I wouldn't post on this site. My problem is more to do with which sites I visit.

I'm an inquisitive person - I spend a lot of time simply browsing the internet soaking up information - I'll spend some time on Youtube maybe, come on this site, read the Guardian, find a few stories I'm unfamiliar with and look them up on Wikipedia, which in turn leads to more browsing.

I'll spend time looking at the BNP, National Front and Combat 18 websites because I'm simply fascinated by the people behind the organisations. I'll go searching for the al Qaeda websites because I'm interested to see for myself what is on them and, in short, what the fuss is all about.

I'll look up information on riots, subversion, global political movements, freedom of speech, terrorist activity and so on - not because I intend to do anything 'bad', but because I just want to find out more about them - to understand them.

In the end, I just don't want to feel nervous about what I do when I'm online. I don't want to think that I can't go to certain sites without being labelled the threat that I'm not.

But just as I'm likely to refuse to have an ID card on the grounds that I don't have anything to hide, and therefore shouldn't be required to have one, I would take steps to ensure records of my internet activity are not easily available - whether I'm checking my e-mails on Hotmail or downloading the Anarchist's Cookbook.

yeah mooks! you described pretty much everything I've been doing for the last week.

SSL or otherwise - I'm indifferent. I only come to the site at work/home.

I'm sure other *LFGSScustomers *have phone/mobile requirements.

If you are seriously concerned about what you access and when, consider using some sort of proxy (like http://www.anonymizer.com/)

At present my wife thinks that I spend my evenings looking at Redtube and Youporn. Imagine how shocked she would be if a civil servant were to tell her that I spent my time chatting away with you lot.

Your wife knows!
Splitter!

We have been the most surveilled society on earth for almost a decade now

can you explain why this is in over 300 world....your time starts now!

At present my wife thinks that I spend my evenings looking at Redtube and Youporn. Imagine how shocked she would be if a civil servant were to tell her that I spent my time chatting away with you lot.

Teehee! I always tell my girlfriend that I'm surfing pron. She always replyss "bollocks no your not your looking at bikes you sad nerdy git"

Seriously though, nought wrong with https anyone bored enough to read what we're banging on about need only open the site and browse. Its just more difficult to monitor.

can you explain why this is in over 300 world....your time starts now!

"in over 300 world" ?

"in over 300 world" ?

sorry i got too excited...i meant '300 words'.

tick tock tick tock...

Well I have less than no idea about the techy stuff, but I'm very happy not to have The Man looking over my shoulder any more than he does already with CCTV 'n' shit.

The https site didn't seem to work before (for me at work), but now seems fine so I'm happy.

We just need to be vigilant for 'JacquiSmith01' or 'GovSpy' starting to get their 5 posts in on the nursery thread.

I think the state crossed the line of what was safe a long time ago.

I would be up for a secure site.

I'm in complete agreement with you. How can it be made secure?
If VB thinks that SSl will help then I'm all for it.
Mooks, I agree, it's probably not so much about this forum, it's about the state infringing on our liberty to do what we want to. As VB said in the Op, it's a point of principle.
Go secure, VB

tick tock tick tock...

Sorry I really can't be bothered writing up you a 300 word summation of the UK's surveillance culture, do some Google farming, there is a lot of very good information out there - and not the usual internet conspiracy theories, good factual information.

In the words of the government's own information commissioner:

"We have sleep-walked into a surveillance society".

i fucking hate governmental interfering and snooping into my private affairs. governments have proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted with personal data, the fuckers keep losing it or letting people who shouldn't see it get access. the thought of some petty bureaucrat having access to my emails and personal data is horrifying. and what about businesses? i'm sure companies that have sensitive commercial information would be resistant to having their communications snooped on.

at least the government here is not planning to censor the whole internet like the Australian government seems intent on doing: http://nocleanfeed.com/

it really shits me when governments forget that they exist to provide services to citizens, and decide to become the thought police. fuck interfering governments. fuck them right in the eye.

I've used nothing but the https:// version since you first told me about it early this year.

Our stuff is very uninteresting, but that's not really the point. The point is that we have a right to privacy in our communications and if we're not exercising that right we will likely end up losing it.

+1

I'm for it, let's https

more on this shit...

i fucking hate governmental interfering and snooping into my private affairs. governments have proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted with personal data, the fuckers keep losing it or letting people who shouldn't see it get access. the thought of some petty bureaucrat having access to my emails and personal data is horrifying. and what about businesses? i'm sure companies that have sensitive commercial information would be resistant to having their communications snopped on.

at least the government here is not planning to censor the whole internet like the Australian government seems intent on doing: http://nocleanfeed.com/

it really shits me when governments forget that they exist to provide services to citizens, and decide to become the thought police. fuck interfering governments. fuck them right in the eye.

Agreed... this is a load of fucking shit. The Australian government are making the censorship decisions on a moral basis. Euthenasia advocacy sites, for example, will be banned. What right do they have to tell me what I can look at? Its about fucking subservience. Makes me really angry.

I'd like to really understand the legalities of this - i.e what laws are being passed in order force the ISP's to subscribe, how they're voted for and passed etc. I dont really understand how the system works. I mean, its the internet... Australia doesnt own it.

might it cause problems with google spidering the site though might'en it?

Seriously though, nought wrong with https anyone bored enough to read what we're banging on about need only open the site and browse. Its just more difficult to monitor.

That's spot on.

The difference is really a fine line. We'd be stopping third parties being able to see what we were up to by looking at the traffic to and from the server, but in no way would be stopping people visiting the site and reading everything.

So why bother? Well beyond the principal of being snooped upon, the comparison is that it is the difference between having someone bug a conversation without your say-so, and them coming up to you after the event and asking what was said. The bugging is intrusive and real-time, the approaching to ask what has been said is un-intrusive and allowed us to choose how to present ourselves.

As someone else pointed out, there is stuff on here that we wouldn't necessarily want to be made public at all (private threads, private messages, phone numbers, etc). Not that anything we do on here is interesting to anyone (let's face it, on a grand scale we're as dull as dishwater), but at least we have the right to have that conversation in private.

Does it need to be private? No. But do we have the right to privacy? Yes. This is an on principal approach to our rights, simply saying that we should exercise the rights that we have, and in doing so protect those rights... rather than just give them up.

And yeah, my little stance, enforced upon you guys, isn't really going to change the world. But at least I'll have felt I have done something, a little thing. I already donate regularly to a few online groups like the Open Rights Group, Electronic Frontier Foundation and a few others... I'm probably already classified as a crank or something.

I ask mostly to ensure that: 1) You guys aren't of strong opposition to my using the site like this. 2) That it won't prevent any of you from accessing the site (that I'm not cutting off my nose to spite my face, or however that saying goes).

I'm really glad that by and large you guys agree with my views.