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Personal Data On The Internet

Are you on Twitter or Facebook?

  • Yes, both

    Votes: 11 20.4%

  • Twitter only

    Votes: 6 11.1%

  • Facebook only

    Votes: 15 27.8%

  • Neither

    Votes: 20 37.0%

  • Neither, but some other 'social networking' site(s)

    Votes: 2 3.7%
  • Total voters
    54
This list may interest those who publish every move they make on the Internet:

http://nannyknowsbest.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/big-brother-and-his-mates-are-watching.html

And I would be very surprised if that list is exhaustive. If one organisation can read your data, I'd be fairly certain that other unauthorised organisations will have managed to do so as well. After all, technology has no moral compass. It's equally accessible to the good and the bad.

Isn't 'fake news' a) of incredibly ancient lineage and b) a relative judgement?

Degree holders call it propaganda.
 
You can add another 40 or so police forces to that list, they are all covered under the item "Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996".

"Which government agencies have access to the internet history of all British citizens?" isn't strictly correct though. It's only a rolling twelve months, so that unusual interest site you looked at two years ago is still a secret.

Honest.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
You can add another 40 or so police forces to that list, they are all covered under the item "Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996".

"Which government agencies have access to the internet history of all British citizens?" isn't strictly correct though. It's only a rolling twelve months, so that unusual interest site you looked at two years ago is still a secret.

Honest.
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Under what circumstances would the listed bodies get access to your history?
 
ramonmercado said:
Under what circumstances would the listed bodies get access to your history?
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I know next to nothing about it, but I did find this....

"Security services can acquire and analyse bulk collections of communications data. For example, this could mean a bulk data set such as NHS health records.


Oversight for these operations will come with a new “double-lock”, where any intercept warrants will need ministerial authorisation before being judged by a panel of judges, who will be given power of veto. This panel will be overseen by a single senior judge, the newly created Investigatory Powers Commissioner."

http://www.computerworlduk.com/security/draft-investigatory-powers-bill-what-you-need-know-3629116/

So, I'd imagine that it works in the same way as a police warrant to search your home, for example.

It might stop a terrorist, but it might show your Pornhub history to your boss.

It's the age old conundrum. Death or embarrassment. I'm British, so I'll take death every time.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
I know next to nothing about it, but I did find this....

"Security services can acquire and analyse bulk collections of communications data. For example, this could mean a bulk data set such as NHS health records.


Oversight for these operations will come with a new “double-lock”, where any intercept warrants will need ministerial authorisation before being judged by a panel of judges, who will be given power of veto. This panel will be overseen by a single senior judge, the newly created Investigatory Powers Commissioner."

http://www.computerworlduk.com/security/draft-investigatory-powers-bill-what-you-need-know-3629116/

So, I'd imagine that it works in the same way as a police warrant to search your home, for example.

It might stop a terrorist, but it might show your Pornhub history to your boss.

It's the age old conundrum. Death or embarrassment. I'm British, so I'll take death every time.
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Thats the spirit: maintain the stiff... er, upper lip.
 
The economic effect of this is likely to be severe. London is the Clapham Junction of internet exchanges. Now its likely ways will be sought route data around the UK.

Why would IT companies now find the UK attractive? Facebook, Microsoft, Apple & Google all opposed the bill. How will the UK's indigenous technology sector be developed? Who will want to buy goods or services from UK ITC firms when they could include weakened encryption and/or government mandated backdoor access?

Thats just for starters!
 
Peripart said:
Well, someone recently managed to set up a fraudulent direct debit on my account, and apparently, they didn't need any of my online passwords or user PINs. Santander told me that all the fraudsters needed was my account number and sort code, which isn't the sort of thing I'd normally be terrified about giving away. So maybe, in this case, there wasn't a mass stealing of passwords. Sounds a bit fishy, all the same - "my" fraudster got just over £200 (now refunded to me), but I think a fraud on Tesco's scale would require a bit more "proper" hacking.
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This is why I don't bank online ..
 
A few years ago, I was heavily involved in the threads here on the police state and the surveillance society. I said then we were at a pretty crucial point in time but now it's too late. Most ran happily to Facebook, revealing the minute details of their lives. Many signed up for online banking believing the technology can protect them from fraud.
Despite being open to just about anyone with the nous to access online data, people flocked to the internet like kids following the Pied Piper not realising that mostly, today's technology simply IS NOT READY. Rushed to market, to budget and to deadlines, we now see exploding phones on top of failed state computer projects, leaked and sold-on customer details, hacks on ISP providers, lost records and corrupted information.

Why anyone has the faith to bank online is beyond me.
 
It's a concern, I agree, but online banking is so darned convenient. Obviously, after the experience I mentioned above, I'm now more alert for suspicious activity, but I don't think I'll be going back to bank statements in the post.

On the other hand, I can't foresee any circumstances which would persuade me to sign up to Facebook. Quite apart from it being pointless, IMO, people seem quite happy to share any personal information on it, yet are perplexed when their boss finds out what they've been up to when they're supposed to be off sick!
 
Peripart said:
It's a concern, I agree, but online banking is so darned convenient. Obviously, after the experience I mentioned above, I'm now more alert for suspicious activity, but I don't think I'll be going back to bank statements in the post.

On the other hand, I can't foresee any circumstances which would persuade me to sign up to Facebook. Quite apart from it being pointless, IMO, people seem quite happy to share any personal information on it, yet are perplexed when their boss finds out what they've been up to when they're supposed to be off sick!
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Agree on the first point - it's much easier for someone to go through a bin than it is to hack a bank website.

As for Facebook...it's certainly not pointless, personally it's the best way to keep it touch with my family and friends that are spread around the globe, and it's a great way of promoting my DJing. From a work point of view, we've found countless missing people and solved numerous crimes thanks to people spreading the word on social media. It can be pointless and inane, but that's what the real world is like. It is what you make of it.
 
Fair enough! I was perhaps a bit strong - Facebook may be pointless for me personally, but I will cheerfully concede that many people find it very useful. However, I am still staggered at how many people post all kinds of personal stuff there, thinking it's somehow private.
 
For some reason I was thinking we had a Snooper's Charter thread, aybe I was mixing it up with this one.

Mods to move if we have, it's just a funny anyway, The Iain Duncan Smiths present

Snooper Furry Animals - Snupascharta

Have you heard about the bill?
It's just like terry Gilliam's Brazil

:rofl:

And since I missed this one the first time and it's a goody, from the same bods

Kurt Corbyn - The Man Who Broke the World
 
OneWingedBird said:
For some reason I was thinking we had a Snooper's Charter thread, maybe I was mixing it up with this one.
Click to expand...
I did suggest to our young heavy metal-loving friend that he might consider starting one, as the "post-election UK politics" thread was getting bogged down by talk of Mrs May and her unloved Bill, but I don't think it happened.
 
Following government advice, I never use my real name or my own personal details on the internet.

A senior government official has sparked anger by advising internet users to give fake details to websites to protect their security.
Andy Smith, an internet security chief at the Cabinet Office, said people should only give accurate details to trusted sites such as government ones.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20082493
 
I think a good proportion of people on Facebook with any sense do that already.

Sometimes I stop by a group for cats in my local area, most of the posters seem to be students, looks like the tendency is to use a real first name and a made up surname that's still a word so it gets through the Facebook fake name filtering.
 
Interesting.

I'm noticing that I'm receiving targeted advertising content that appears to be associated with the Subject Titles of emails that I've sent/received.

Just let that one sink-in. Has also happened a couple of times at work (which is even worse, of course).

Any theories? Cookie generation from within browser-based mail access? (Is that legal?)

Hopefully this is all just a paranoid delusion....
 
I think G-mail confessed to scanning for keywords a long time back - is this a Google account?
 
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Absolutely not. Which makes it all the odder (unless it is now standard approach for every provider)
 
Ermintrude said:
Interesting.

I'm noticing that I'm receiving targeted advertising content that appears to be associated with the Subject Titles of emails that I've sent/received.

Just let that one sink-in. Has also happened a couple of times at work (which is even worse, of course).

Any theories? Cookie generation from within browser-based mail access? (Is that legal?)

Hopefully this is all just a paranoid delusion....
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If it's a gmail account, then it's advertising based on key words.

I realized this a few years ago, when receiving an email from an old friend named Bentley. What should appear at the top of the page but an ad from a Bentley dealership :p That made me laugh, but then I didn't really expect privacy from Google.

If it's another email client, you may want to check their privacy policy.
 
If you use the internet then your personal data is accessible and you have no privacy.
 
Coastaljames said:
If you use the internet then your personal data is accessible and you have no privacy.
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And there is nothing you can do about it - once its there its there, probably for decades.

The Internet was designed for people in universities and working in specialist fields generally to be able to exchange information, do joint projects etc. It's architecture is entirely unsuited to either the current volume of traffic or the security that some people - including governments - expect of it. Why do you suppose the original tools for creating stuff on the Web were called web publishing tools?

It's also impossible to directly replace it - are we going to bring the Internet down for a year while we move all the information across? - though at some point I expect someone will come up with a better alternative which will gradually take over.
 
Cochise said:
And there is nothing you can do about it - once its there its there, probably for decades.
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Totally and definitely.

Coal said:
Accept it and if you don't want it on the internet, don't put it anywhere on the internet.
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Or better yet don't even use the internet! It's tentacles are intrusive and growing more so every day...even data that you haven't directly yourself put on there eventually will find a home there...it's the ultimate and total surveillance device. The USSR would have wet their pants at the effiecency of it and the way citizens flock to sign up and sign in. Quite incredible.
 
Peripart said:
Well, someone recently managed to set up a fraudulent direct debit on my account, and apparently, they didn't need any of my online passwords or user PINs. Santander told me that all the fraudsters needed was my account number and sort code, which isn't the sort of thing I'd normally be terrified about giving away. So maybe, in this case, there wasn't a mass stealing of passwords. Sounds a bit fishy, all the same - "my" fraudster got just over £200 (now refunded to me), but I think a fraud on Tesco's scale would require a bit more "proper" hacking.
Click to expand...

Very pissed off today. Got a text alert from my bank to confirm that a payment had been made from my account (I've got it set to let me know if anything more than a couple of hundred quid goes out), amounting to just under £1000. Needless to say, I know nothing about this, but at least the text alert warned me quickly. Rang the bank straight away, apparently it wasn't a DD this time, but another kind of payment which had been set up on my account. Looking at my online statement, it even shows the account number that the money's gone into, and the recipient's name. Hopefully, that means that the thief is incredibly stupid, and they nail the fucker to a wall somewhere.

Anyway, the bank are launching an investigation (sounds very grand, probably isn't), and have frozen my account in the meantime. I can't imagine a scenario where I don't get my money back, and quite quickly, but it's a concern that this has happened twice in a matter of a couple of months. Presumably, this time, the transaction can simply be reversed, as the receiving account details are known?

Once again, I wonder how easy it was for someone to pluck my details from the ether? Did they need access to my online account itself, or were a few bare details - sort code, name & DOB - all that were needed? On this occasion, when the bank call me back, I will be asking them what steps they will be taking to get the police onto the suspect. I shall also be asking for a very good reason not to switch banks immediately.
 
Even though I find it really convenient, a few weeks ago paranoia got the better of me and I looked into stopping my online banking. Not closing the account, just the online part of it and going back to paper statements.
I can't find out how to do it. It's like they really don't want me to stop using it. The help forums suggested entering false passwords until the account was frozen but this could lead to all sorts of problems. I suppose I could ask at my local branch but what's the odds of them looking at me like I just stepped off a spaceship? It was hard enough trying to pay money in without being harassed into using the machine on the wall instead of queuing for a real person to do it.
 
no wonder, as its far cheaper to run an online banking portal than a bunch of call centres ... if you have telephone banking they should be able to mark your account as opted out of online banking ... depends on your bank, mine can
 
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