Starmer dumps doormat?

[John Young]

With technologial limitations to understand the fine grains of packet 
transmission I am biting off more than chewable:

In nearly instantaneous, but not quite, action the first ACK of a 
transmittal may be seen as part of transmission or of receipt 
since it must go to the receiver's system for indication of correct 
target as well as a useful path to the target. 

Hand properly shook by a battery of indicators associated with 
the ACK and its system-required follow-ups, content transmittal 
begins but is not instantaneous despite analogue-world appearances 
by miserably limited human sensors. Multiple packets are generated 
and hurled to distant processors before gradual reassembly as 
an analogue-perceptible content.

Among the packet processors are caches of previously used
routes stored for expediting the packet distribution and reassembly.
Bits of the content may be stored as well, that is not clear, but
would make efficiency sense. Algorithms exist for identifying
often used phrases for encapsulation, condensation and re-use.
"I love you beyond compare, cupcake." "Sell immediately," and
so on.

And you thought garble and incoherency was attributable not 
deliberate.

The snarl between service providers and authorities in changing
from analogue interception to digital is based, I understand, on the 
different means of transmittal as well as how content is coded and
decoded.

The split between analogue pen register access and interception of
message allowed authorities to trace connections without accessing
content, the latter requiring a more stringent court approval (so it
is asserted despite regular abuse).

Splitting digital transmission from digital content was considerably

more difficult due to the continuous interplay between the two and
packet technology requirements. What seems to have been done 
is to establish a kind of analogy for legal dummies between two 
comms that are not accurately analogizable. That is, to assert
a separation of transmission from received content which was
actually not quite possible except with suspension of disbelief,
always a prime undergirding of law if not science. 

Transmission and receipt unfolded, if you will, as Peter Tomlinson 
suggested, in near simultaneity but actually in rapid fire alternation:
every packet carried code to tell it where to wind up no matter
how far bounced through multiple kinds of transmitters. And not 
just between the origin and destination but at a large number of 
way stations -- switches, cabling and hubs, satellites, wireless 
hubs and tracking gadgets galore scattered widely but operated 
by humans and their precious gear all happily concealed by the 
greatly expansible term "system administration."

A favorite interception technique is to exploit access to the
way stations without the originator or the receiver, and most
importantly, the regulators, having a clue this is being done.
Sysadmins are crucial to this for they know just how to do
this without being detected. A couple of whistleblown on
the practice but most keep quiet.

What is wondrous is how suspension of disbelief in sysadmins
is sustained. They constitute a covert priesthood almost as
unregulated as hackers and cybersecurity experts, well, to
some credulous sacks of blood and bones they are indistinguishable.
A law and science unto themselves, beware, or revere as if
Assange walking the earth.



At 09:38 AM 1/17/2011 +0000, you wrote:
>On 17/01/2011 01:58, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
>> John Young wrote:
>>>> it's hard to take the step to a message which can be both in 
>>>> transmission and not in transmission at the same time.
>>>
>>> Quite philosophically challenging and not altogether unprecedented
>>> in the reletivaty of simultaneity.
>>>
>>> Mistakes in interpretation by officials and citizens might be eased
>>> by describing this state of simultaneily more understandably.
>>>
>>
>> Actually I misspoke slightly, my apologies, and strictly speaking 
>> under RIPA a message can't be both in transmission and not in 
>> transmission at once {note1}.
>>
>> However a communication can still be in transmission even after it has 
>> been transmitted.
>>
>>
>> An example: I have received an email, and released a copy to the 
>> public to do with as they please. There is also a copy of the email 
>> stored in my ISP's server, which I can access.
>>
>> Because there is a copy at my ISP which I can access, as far as RIPA 
>> is concerned the email is still in transmission.
>>
>> It's not just the copy at the ISP which is still in transmission, it's 
>> the entire "communication" which is still in transmission - including 
>> the copy which I have received, read and released to the public.
>Which satisfies my concern that, unlike a snail mail letter, voicemail 
>and email messages are simultaneously already heard or seen by me and 
>stored in the service provider's system. I just wish that regulators and 
>prosecutors would understand and abide by that, but it seems that we are 
>still fighting the battle.
>
>Peter
>