Data retention question

[James Harrison]

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On 25/07/2014 20:40, Roland Perry wrote:
> 
> But being able to show where emailed death-threats (eg from an
> estranged ex-partner) were coming from might help.

It's also very useful for the Chinese or Iranian authorities to know
who is searching for nasty filth like "democracy".

It doesn't take a genius to see that by having these systems permitted
by law, a rogue actor, particularly nasty government or intelligence
agency can be much more effective in supressing the populace.

Do you value your safety more than you value your liberty?

Of course, networks like Tor, I2P, Freenet et al fundamentally make
logging useless and connections practically untraceable
(fingerprinting and the like aside - properly used, it's irrelevant).
So should we ban this sick filth? Ignore all the good it brings and
focus on the negative uses? By extension we can't trace letters -
let's ban the postal service. We can't trace in-person visits... where
_do_ you draw the line, hm? Are you happy with the government
installing microphones and cameras in every room of every house, with
the proviso that they won't listen to the recordings (that they keep
for a year) unless you become "of interest"? Because for people whose
lives are increasingly online, DRIP/RIPA's retention laws are
equivalent to almost precisely that (metadata ~= content, in the
context of things like addresses of websites you visit - "oh, visited
http://some-specific-page.com/path.html - but that's all we know, no
way we can get the content of the message there").

- -- 
Cheers,
James Harrison
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