On Thursday 01 July 2010 23:09:20 Rony wrote:
On Thursday 01 July 2010 04:51 PM, Nishit Dave wrote:
What do the informed Linuxers make of the Government threatening to clamp down on Blackberry, Skype, etc. again, unless they get a back door into the protocols?
I support it. If I was in the govt., I would not allow these services to start itself, without access to the protocol. Foreign companies comply with strict laws in developed nations and try to arm twist their way in developing ones assuming everyone to be up for sale.
Tightly bound by equally strict laws on snooping.
The govt. is not going to snoop on every TD&H's blackberry but if it has information on criminals, it should be able to discretely monitor them.
If it has information on criminals, It can act on such info within the more than adequate existing laws, including ordering a foreign company to provide details. Most of the time the GOI fails miserably on these phishing expeditions. Governments are always angling for more snooping powers and without exception misuse them. While the developed countries get shafted for such misuse, we do not have recourse to such luxuries. gitmo held "very important" security suspects. The vast majority of those are busy suing the US and UK governments. The last inquiry by a UK commission has told the government to bargain and accept a settlemnt, as a court case will be even more damaging to the government.
Take the case of the Bhatkal "terrorist". The government went on a phising expedition by trying to include the persons name in a case for which an FIR is already filed and the person not being mentioned anywhere at all.
Surveillance requires extremely specific information, not reading the whole worlds emails.