"Warrants authorising phone taps treble"

[Peter Fairbrother]

Caspar Bowden wrote:

> The upshot was a govt. drafted amendment inserting the rider to
> S.21(6)
> 
> "but that expression includes data identifying a computer file or
> computer program access to which is obtained, or which is run, by
> means of the communication to the extent only that the file or
> program is identified by reference to the apparatus in which it is
> stored."
> 
> (i.e. *if* CSPs happened to log full URLs or search strings, they are
> NOT obtainable as comms data. The IP/domain-name of the website
> fetched would be obtainable)

I'm not entirely sure that wording works for search strings.

First let me say I have no idea how Google actually works, except that 
they have lots and lots of computers, but it could be like this:

Suppose they have one computer with all the hits for "illegal" on it, 
and another with the hits for "interception". When someone searches for 
"illegal interception" a request-receiving computer routes the request 
to the two computers which compare files, or file numbers, and one of 
these outputs results which match, either directly or through the 
receiving computer.#

Now access to the files in both computers has been obtained, so maybe 
Google have to identify both computers, and maybe thereby the search 
string, uniquely so if each computer only contains the hits for one word 
- which is quite possible considering the number of computers Google has.

A bit fanciful perhaps, but it shows the difficulty.

-- Peter Fairbrother

# or maybe the computers are all-purpose, and the request-receiving 
computer also has the hits for "ripa" on it