RIP s22 notices SI

[Peter Fairbrother]

> Owen Lewis wrote:
[snip] 
> We are not at the top of a slippery slope toward the entire subordination of
> the individual to the state but started down that slope some while back.
> Even now, only a minority of us have that queasy feeling in the pit of the
> stomach as we pick up speed towards where we are headed. Can the headlong
> slide be stopped? It would be nice to think so.
> 

While I usually disagree with much of what Owen says, I can't do so here.
Combined with the recent UK-led EU Parliament decision to allow blanket data
retention - and I suspect, if any are needed, that UK laws permitting that
are being drafted as we speak: I can't see anything in RIPA that would
prevent the HO from just demanding all traffic data with a "blanket"
warrant: adding the Home Office to the list gives us a hint of things to
come - this gives an enormous and unprecedented amount of power to anyone
who is authorised to demand data.

I mentioned 'public anonymity" here a while ago, I'm getting close to a
working solution now, but have had to stop work to work on m-o-o-t instead.
This would provide computationally-secure anonymity for email, and perhaps
eventually voice-over-IP, though the latter is far harder to achieve and I'm
nowhere near doing so now.

Technology can "render nugatory" these laws in a fairly open society, but if
society gets much more observed then we will be heading straight for 1984,
if we aren't already.