Government black boxes will 'collect every email'

[Clive D. W. Feather]

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In article <C1ljrSGuayFJFAkj@highwayman.com>, Richard Clayton 
<richard@highwayman.com> writes
>... it doesn't seem entirely likely to me that a system which is overt
>and whose traffic can be cheaply returned to a central site over the
>Internet is especially suitable for interception (as we know it today)
>where the requirements list includes things like it being impossible to
>tell whether anyone is being monitored; who is being monitored; and who
>is doing the monitoring...  [viz: the systems are not overt and deliver
>their results over private networks...]

I don't follow your logic.

Imagine an ISP with assorted cables and fibres running around it. A 
number of black boxes are delivered to the ISP and passive taps are 
installed into the appropriate cables and fibres such that all traffic 
passing through them goes to the black boxes. The boxes also have an 
overt connection into the Internet. They establish a single encrypted 
connection to (say) GCHQ which is constantly full of traffic at a fixed 
rate (dummy traffic if nothing else - I'm sure GCHQ know how to do 
this).

The only knowledge of who is being monitored - if anyone - and what 
monitoring is being done is in the targeting instructions of the black 
box, which come from GCHQ. The intercept product is sent to the 
appropriate place by GCHQ, so that deals with the "who is doing the 
monitoring" bit.

- -- 
Clive D.W. Feather                       | Home: <clive@davros.org>
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work)             | Web:  <http://www.davros.org>
Fax: +44 870 051 9937                    | Work: <clive@demon.net>
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