Government

‘Snooper’s Charter’: Proposed U.K. Surveillance Program Will Know Who, What, Where, When and Could Infer Why

U.K. Wont Read Emails But There Is Quite a Lot You Can Learn Through Its Proposed Surveillance Program

(Photo: Shutterstock)

LONDON (The Blaze/AP) — British officials have given their word: “We won’t read your emails.”

But experts say that its proposed new surveillance program, unveiled last week as part of the government’s annual legislative program, will gather so much data that spooks won‘t have to read your messages to guess what you’re up to.

The U.K. Home Office stresses that it is not seeking to read the content of every Britons’ communications, saying the data it was seeking “is NOT the content of any communication.” It is, however, seeking information on who’s sending the message, whom it’s sent to, where it’s sent from, and potentially other details including a message’s length and its format.

The government’s proposal is just a draft bill, so it could be modified or scrapped. But if passed in its current form, it would put a huge amount of personal data at the government’s disposal, which it could potentially use to deduce a startling amount about Britons’ private life — from sleep patterns to driving habits or even infidelity.

“We’re really entering a whole new phase of analysis based on the data that we can collect,” said Gerald Kane, an information systems expert at Boston College. “There is quite a lot you can learn.”

The U.K. government began preparing these proposals in April and an anonymous Home Office official told Britain’s The Sunday Times, “It’s not about the content. It’s about the who, what, where and when.”

This same official said it was important for law enforcement to be able to be able to obtain such data in investigations.

The ocean of information is hard to fathom. Britons generate 4 billion hours of voice calls and 130 billion text messages annually, according to industry figures. In 2008 the BBC put the annual number of U.K.-linked emails at around 1 trillion. Then there are instant messaging services run by companies such as BlackBerry, Internet telephony services such as Skype, chat rooms, and in-game services liked those used by World of Warcraft.

Communications service providers, who would log the details of all that back-and-forth, believe that the government’s program would force them to process petabytes (1 quadrillion bytes) of information every day. It’s a mind-bogglingly large amount of data on the scale of every book, every movie, and every piece of music ever released.

So even without opening emails, how much can British spooks learn about who’s sending them?

They’ll see the red flags

Do you know how fast you were going?

Your phone does.

If you sent a first text from London before stepping behind the wheel, and a second one from a service station outside Manchester only three hours later, authorities could infer that you broke the speed limit to cover the roughly 200 miles which separate the two.

Crunching location data and communications patterns gives a remarkable rich view of a person’s lives — and their misadventures.

Ken Altshuler, of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, raves about the benefits which smartphones and social media have brought to savvy divorce attorneys. Lawyers don’t need sophisticated data mining software to spot evidence of infidelity or hints of hidden wealth when they review phone records or text traffic, he said.

“One name, one phone number that‘s not on our client’s radar, and our curiosity is piqued,” he said. The more the communication — a late-night text sent to a work colleague, an unexplained international phone call — is out of character, “the more of a red flag we see.”

They‘ll know when you’re sleeping

The ebb and flow of electronic communication —that call to your mother just before bed, that early-morning email to your boss saying you’ll be late — frames our waking lives.

“You can figure somebody’s sleep patterns, their weekly pattern of work,” said Tony Jebara, a Columbia University machine learning expert. In 2006, he helped found New York-based Sense Networks, which crunches phone data to do just that.

Jebara said that calls made from the same location between 9 and 5 are a good indication of where a person works; the frequency of email traffic to or from a person’s work account is a good hint of his or her work ethic; dramatic changes to a person’s electronic routine might suggest a promotion — or a redundancy.

“You can quickly figure out when somebody lost their job,” Jebara said, adding: “Credit card companies have been interested in that for a while.”

They‘ll know who’s the boss

Drill down, and communication can reveal remarkably rich information. For example, does office worker A answer office worker B’s missives within minutes of the message being sent? Does B often leave colleagues’ emails unanswered for hours on end? If so, B probably stands for “boss.”

That‘s an example of what Jebara’s Columbia colleagues described as “automated social hierarchy detection,” a technique which can infer who gives the orders, who’s respected, and who’s ignored based purely on whose emails get answered and how quickly. In 2007 four of them analyzed traffic taken from the Enron Corporation’s email archive to correctly guess the seniority of several top-level managers.

Intelligence agencies may not need such tools to untangle corporate flowcharts, but identifying ringleaders becomes more important when tracking a suspected terrorist cell.

“If you piece together the chain of influence, then you can find the central authority,” he said. “You can figure that out without looking at the content.”

They‘ll know who you’re talking to

Seeing how networks of people communicate isn’t just about finding your boss, it’s about figuring out who are your friends.

Programs already exist to determine the density of communications — something that can identify close groups of friends or family without even knowing who’s who. If one user is identified as suspicious, then the users closest to him or her might get a second look as well.

“Let’s say we find out somebody in the U.K. is a terrorist,” said Kane. “You know exactly who he talks to on almost every channel, so BOOM you know his 10 closest contacts. Knowing that information not only allows you to go to his house, but allows you to go to their houses as well.”

A snooper’s charter?

Detective work at the stroke of a key is clearly attractive to spy agencies. British officialdom has been pushing for the mass surveillance program for years, but civil libertarians are perturbed, branding the proposal a “snooper’s charter.”

Kane said that the surveillance regime had to be seen in the context of social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, where hundreds of millions of people were constantly volunteering information about themselves, their friends, their family and their colleagues.

“There’s no sense in getting all Big Brother-ish that there are legitimate safeguards in place,” he said. “The bottom line is that we’re all leaving digital trails, everywhere, all the time. The whole concept of privacy is shifting daily.”

Comments (36)

  • Godrulz
    Posted on May 21, 2012 at 7:14pm

    I just want the government to know everything about me and instruct me on a daily basis on when to sleep, when to wake, what to eat, what not to eat, what to speak, what not to speak, what to wear, and just everything else they can possibly control in my life so that I can feel safe, loved, and important.
    All praise the Federal government! All praise them!

    Report Post » Godrulz  
  • JEANNIEMAC
    Posted on May 21, 2012 at 12:44pm

    I wonder if the TV program, “Person of Interest” is indoctrinating us to the idea of a “machine” which sees all and knows all. “Watson” the IBM super computer which was on Jeopardy, is now in use by other corporations. An immense date collection center is being constructed by the government in Utah.
    It would be well for us to cancel our Facebook memberships, stop using Google, don’t sign up for YouTube memberships, and frequently clear our computer history and cookies.
    Use Ixquick.com as your search engine, because it does not record IP.

    Report Post »  
  • objectivetruth
    Posted on May 21, 2012 at 11:46am

    England is used as a backstop and layover for terrorists and criminals.I see why they may want the ability to do this.However implementing it across the board to everyone is fascist and useless.Imagine the amount of garbage information recieved.It costs money to gather process and warehouse the info.Aren’t they in the same boat as the rest of europe on the verge of collapse?This doesn’t make sense both fiscally or physically.Its impracticle.Unless it can be tailored I can’t see it being anything but an albatross.
    No I don’t want to see it here.Its getting to uncomfortably close to a fascist state without this nonsense.

    Report Post »  
  • nosharia
    Posted on May 21, 2012 at 10:11am

    Is this the location of the next socialist win in Europe?

    Report Post »  
  • raderby
    Posted on May 21, 2012 at 7:23am

    Never seen “Person of Interest”? Life imitating TV….. Except we do not have Finch and Reese looking out for us…… more of the same Glazi crapola….. big war coming someday – not real good.

    Report Post » raderby  
  • bharris0
    Posted on May 21, 2012 at 7:18am

    If their citizens believe the governments lies, they deserve what they get.

    Report Post »  
  • FromSeaToSea
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 11:48pm

    They are the minority. They run the criminal enterprises called police departments, Republicans, Democrats, Senate, Congress, Hous of Repres., and even criminal courts of gangsters. It’s all the citizens against the gangsters within our society. NEVER FORGET WE ARE THE MAJORITY. WE ARE 200 MILLION GUNS STRONG.
    If Nov. fails, it’s time to rethink and act. Remember, if the founding fathers had just peacefully demonstrated we would all be British subjects today owned by the Crown. Sometimes you have to stand up and defend the Constitution.

    Our loyalty is not to the Prez. Our loyalty is to the Constitution.

    “Stand by our country, not by the President, except to the degree that he stands by our country. IT IS UNPATRIOTIC NOT TO OPPOSE HIM to the extent he fails in his duty to stand by his country. IT IS UNPATRIOTIC NOT TO TELL THE TRUTH.” ― Pres. Theodore Roosevelt

    Report Post »  
    • raderby
      Posted on May 21, 2012 at 7:25am

      1. do not quote Teddy R…. I still do not why his head on at Rushmore.
      2. Be quite careful with current regime in power.
      3. I am right there with you.

      Report Post » raderby  
  • vox_populi
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 11:08pm

    This is what a Police State looks like.

    Report Post » vox_populi  
  • Linny
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 11:03pm

    People need to detox from all this digital cr-p which is so trackable by Big Brother! We need a new system to communicate to evade government. What is going on here? Something is wrong!

    Report Post » Linny  
    • raderby
      Posted on May 21, 2012 at 7:30am

      code with revolving keys and tube (valve) short wave radios. Use their sites as key billboards. Hide in plain sight. Use only library computers briefly, keep changing libraries. When internet goes down and is locked, brief short wave broadcasts and in person talk only.

      Report Post » raderby  
  • Walkabout
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 10:35pm

    They used computer databases & looked at utility records in the 1970s to find the Baader-Meinhof Gangster.

    That is they used the databases to find the ones in West Germany & not the ones living la vida loco in 5 star Hotels in East Germany or Moscow

    Report Post »  
  • deltaecho
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 10:31pm

    Keep a pleasant, non-threatnin’ smile on yer face, Brits. Always on camera, y’know. Hain‘t it great ya let’em disarm ya?

    Report Post »  
  • rickc34
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 10:00pm

    Stand up be brave our freedom is taken over. A new order is on the rise a global order . Hey if I told. You that GOD told us that the day would come you would call me a nut .whatever. be ready your rights will be taken left wing right wing or in the middle .Jesus called that cold hot and luke warm. the ones that do not choose a side the luke warm Christ said he would spit you out. Choose hot and be on the side of Christ . Cold well that speaks for itself. Do not think you are to smart to be decieved because your not we have all be decieved one time or another. Please read your bible pray for understanding . Get the king james version only it is the close to the origanile text.

    Report Post »  
  • LANE131
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 8:19pm

    Just a question, all this INFO the US and UK is getting, how are they kepping it? I mean what kind of computer tech to they have to do all this, is it just the same kinds of hard drive that everyday people and business use, or some more and better that the general public really does not know about yet.
    Anyone know what is going on with that? It seems to me that they can not keep such a lage amount of info on the “CLOUD”.

    Report Post »  
    • The-Monk
      Posted on May 20, 2012 at 8:51pm

      @LANE131

      They are called Server Farms. There is no such thing as “The Cloud”. “The Cloud” is just Server Farms or storage on the Internet just like Carbonite. All data is stored on hard drives and a single hard drive can store 3TB (Tera Bytes) of data currently. One TB = 1000 GB (Giga Bytes). A Server Farm can have 10′s of thousands of 3TB hard drives.

      Report Post » The-Monk  
    • Stoic one
      Posted on May 22, 2012 at 11:38pm

      Also institutions use mainframe computers to crunch the data at speeds of hundred’s or thousands of times faster than your pc.

      Report Post » Stoic one  
  • lassiegirldawn
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 8:10pm

    I hope people are not that stupid to buy into this. They can hear and see everything we are doing in our homes via our television sets; they can hear everything on our cell phones and land line phones. Try and say something the government doesn’t like and watch how fast those 30 second broadcasting tests quit.

    Report Post »  
  • Captain Crunch
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 7:25pm

    They have been doing this kind of thing for years…it’s just now growing in intensity and public revelation.
    They are going to use the technology to enslave everybody. Get rid of your cell phones, turn off the internet and cable television, and get the hell out of Dodge if you can. My posting on the Blaze has been acutely curtailed since I came to the understanding of what The Blaze really is. It is a website setup to attract patriots and other free thinking people so their names can be added to “the list”, and eventually apprehended and imprisoned or face execution if retraining isn’t a possibility for those individuals. You can go ahead and think I’m a nut case, or continue in your stupid illusion of anonymity and safety, but when The Blaze turned a person into the government, I learned a powerful lesson…they are not to be trusted. They are part of the system which will screw you with no grease to speak figuratively. If you haven’t seen the story or heard of the dirty betrayal The Blaze has been involved in, here is the link. Get smart!

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/why-is-a-hangin-truck-driving-around-nyc-with-president-obama-on-a-noose/

    Report Post »  
    • momrules
      Posted on May 20, 2012 at 7:46pm

      Captaincrunch……….I hear you. I think all of the conservative sites are being watched and names are being taken. I even thought about never posting again too but decided that I will not give in to them, to anyone.
      I may be carted away or killed but I don‘t ever want to be so scared that I won’t speak my mind. I don’t want to live that way.

      Report Post »  
    • The-Monk
      Posted on May 20, 2012 at 8:30pm

      @Captain Crunch

      Howdy Crunch,

      I’ve enjoyed many of your posts in the past. However, I think you’re being a bit paranoid believing that The Blaze is collecting data on patriots and adding their names to a list that will be given over to some task force that will eventually apprehended and imprison or execute Blaze posters.

      Have you gotten rid of your cell phone(s), turned off your internet and cable television and gotten the hell out of Dodge yet? No disrespect intended. Where are we to go to get out of Dodge? I’m hunkering down and fighting the good fight. No running away for me.

      Please pull yourself up by your own boot straps and vote ABO in Nov 2012. If you hide out in a cave; you are part of the problem and deserve to reap what you sow.

      Please ask one of your trusted friends to give you a big smack on the face to wake you back up.

      Report Post » The-Monk  
    • Captain Crunch
      Posted on May 20, 2012 at 9:17pm

      @Monk

      LOL…Yea my friends tell me they make drugs for beliefs and attitudes like mine. I refuse to let my kids have smart phones. That’s good for starters. They think I’m paranoid too. But I pay the bills. And my camper and supplies are ready to go at a moments notice. I’m preparing the best I can. Prepared to hit the road or hunker down for the long fight. Every man can only do the best he can. As far as “the list”???…the government already has that and doesn’t need assistance from the Blaze. The Blaze just made me very angry when they called the SS on that man for the effigy. Sorry a s s snitches in NYC. Ain’t gonna let anyone forget it! Godspeed to you Monk. We are all going to need His help.

      Report Post »  
    • FromSeaToSea
      Posted on May 20, 2012 at 11:58pm

      If we allow fear and intimadation to rule us, the marxist gov. wins. Yes we are being watched but I would rather die for the truth than to live as a imprisoned slave. “Eye hath not seen nor ear heard the thiings that are prepared for them that love Him.” – Jesus Christ. Right now the slaves are free range slaves. We need to speak up. Not everyone will speak up. In the American Revoluton only 20% fought the British. The rest were sidelined in fear.

      Report Post »  
    • EndTheFedNOW
      Posted on May 21, 2012 at 12:17am

      Thank you Captain Crunch

      Im done with this website.

      Report Post » EndTheFedNOW  
    • objectivetruth
      Posted on May 21, 2012 at 11:35am

      They have had those lists for many more years than obamma has been in office.You can‘t hide your head in the sand and think it will go away it won’t.Do what you can, stay strong.Tell your friends that just because you are paranoid doesn‘t mean that they aren’t out to get you.Your alledged friends are practicing a form of soviet dissuasion.Someone knowing the truth would start speaking it[usually it wasn't very flattering to the govt]They first would try to dissuade them from speech by making them seem crazy irrelevent stupid exc.The idea was to discredit them.if that failed they would send them to russian courts and commit them to a stay at a mental hospital[brainwashing reeducation camp]
      Forgive me here but you might want to pick better friends,gaurd your secrets from them or get a new set of friends.They aren’t going to help you.People with this mind set rarely change as they don’t see themselves as the problem.

      Report Post »  
  • chips1
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 7:08pm

    This could be…I think that….. In my opinion….Does the……Never mind!!!!!!!

    Report Post »  
  • Livia
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 7:05pm

    Boy, am I gonna be in trouble if they do that here and can tell whenever I phart, cause I offer it to odumba if it’s particularly fragrant.

    What can I say, it’s been a long, long day.

    Report Post »  
  • BBEV
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 6:39pm

    This is our end my friend.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGmAmJFUvzM

    Report Post »  
  • AB5r
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 6:29pm

    Liberals will hunt down anyone found to be visiting “hate” sites such as The Blaze!

    Report Post » AB5r  
    • RJJinGadsden
      Posted on May 20, 2012 at 8:23pm

      AB5R, Another HuffPo drama queen.

      Report Post » RJJinGadsden  
    • raderby
      Posted on May 21, 2012 at 7:35am

      just think, however. Unless progs use hired guns, they have no skills or strength to hunt down anyone. Using Hessian mercs brought down King 230+ years ago.

      Report Post » raderby  
  • possom
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 6:28pm

    We need that here so they could tell me which one of my neighbor‘s cat’s walk‘s across the hood of my car in the middle of the night and leave’s those dirty paw print’s.

    Report Post » possom  
  • Wringeaux
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 6:27pm

    A word of advice to my British friends. Be careful who you vote for. Buy a paintball gun to blind cameras. LOL

    Report Post » Wringeaux  
  • mcgrawactor1
    Posted on May 20, 2012 at 6:15pm

    I feel so much safer now, knowing I am being watched over. No wait…

    Report Post » mcgrawactor1  
    • CatB
      Posted on May 20, 2012 at 7:29pm

      Well I probably would never have gotten over there anyway (my parents went for a vacation in the 90′s) but now I definently would not go. I might accidentally talk to someone whom I do not know and end up in a heap of trouble .. not going to help tourism — my opinion.

      Report Post »  

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