Re: [LUG] Bloody politicians! Rant.

A very interesting and well-written article, Martijn. I particularly liked the phrase "a 'Dave-in-the-middle' attack" :)

The only thing I disagree with - and it's off the main point and pedantic - is "Businesses dislike terrorism as much as everyone else â and as they thrive in stable societies,". Whilst that's broadly true, it's not entirely true. Every war, disagreement, panic has its profiters and profiteers. Our own country does famous trade in weapons and armaments abroad, profiting from such things. A scared public wants to protect themselves and theirs - panic buying consumables and looking for ways to make themselves safer and less scared.Â

Ultimately, the biggest winners in recent times are politicians. Power is a tradeable commodity and terrorism is making the public scared, who in turn look to those they have elected to protect them and grant them that power. Never more so than in a situation that the public doesn't fully understand or is fully informed about. (I still don't know why we went to war in Afghanistan. I have to trust my government that it was the right thing to do. Was it? I have no idea. Are we safer for doing it? Again, I have no idea and no way to find out. I have to believe what I'm told, and no government will admit that it Â37 billion pounds in an error that also resulted in the deaths of almost five hundred service personnel. In balance, it might have genuinely prevented many large scale attacks on our mainland. Who knows? And if they do, will they tell the truth? We, the public, have no option but to trust them in something like that.)

What we're seeing now is our government using that power we have granted and what worries me is that not only do the vast majority of politicians not understand what they are talking about on a technical level, but that the vast majority of the public are happily choosing to stay ignorant if somebody tells them it's for their own good.

On 15 January 2015 at 16:40, Martijn Grooten <martijn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 04:18:34PM +0000, Simon Avery wrote:
> I can't see how it can technically be achieved and even if it were, somehow, it
> would make a mockery of the idea of safe internet shopping.

People living in the UK accessing UK-based online shops shouldn't be
affected, as the government (i.e. law enforcement/intelligence agencies)
can already use a warrant to demend details on certain users (or even on
users looking for certai things).

This morning, I wrote a blog post about what would happen if it were
really implemented (and why it's a terrible idea, even if you don't
particularly care about privacy):

Â https://www.virusbtn.com/blog/2015/01_15.xml

Martijn.

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