Tag: UK

Make the Censors Watch ‘Paint Drying’ by Charlie Lyne — Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/charlielyne/make-the-censors-watch-paint-drying

The British Board of Film Certification (previously known as the British Board of Film Censors) was established in 1912 to ensure films remained free of ‘indecorous dancing’, ‘references to controversial politics’ and ‘men and women in bed together’, amongst other perceived indiscretions.

Today, it continues to censor and in some cases ban films, while UK law ensures that, in effect, a film cannot be released in British cinemas without a BBFC certificate.

Each certificate costs around £1000 for a feature film of average length. For many independent filmmakers, such a large upfront can prove prohibitively expensive.

 

Tolkien Lawyers Target “Hobbit House” With Copyright Threats – TorrentFreak

Hollywood studio Warner Bros. and the Tolkien Estate are cracking down on a British couple building a “Hobbit house” campsite. The pair are being forced to change the project’s name and remove all Hobbit references from their Kickstarter campaign. According to Tolkien’s lawyers even words that rhyme with Hobbit are not permitted.

Source: Tolkien Lawyers Target “Hobbit House” With Copyright Threats – TorrentFreak

Another Journalist Claims UK Law Enforcement Violated Anti-Terrorism Laws By Putting Him Under Surveillance | Techdirt

A BBC journalist suspects that Police Scotland snooped on him without judicial approval to try and find his sources while he was investigating the force.

Eamon O’Connor has claimed that a “very dependable source” believes he was targeted by the force’s Counter Corruption Unit.
The revelation comes after the Sunday Herald quoted an inside source as saying that Police Scotland was one of two forces to have accessed phone records, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), to find journalistic sources without judicial approval since the law was changed in March to prevent this.

Source: Another Journalist Claims UK Law Enforcement Violated Anti-Terrorism Laws By Putting Him Under Surveillance | Techdirt

Use snooped data in court? Nah, says UK.gov – folk might be cleared

British government snoops claimed it was too much hassle for them to use intercepted communications data in court proceedings because the accused could use the info to prove their innocence, it has emerged.

Police officers, spies and local council bin inspectors were all asked for their views of Blighty’s surveillance laws as part of the Independent Terrorism Legislation Reviewer’s, er, review of Blighty’s snooping laws, which was published on Thursday.
One of the questions asked was why, uniquely in the West, Britain’s state-sponsored snoopers do not use the evidence they gather against alleged criminals in legal proceedings. The response, at paragraph 9.16 was revealing:

Part of the reason for this is the extensive disclosure requirement in criminal proceedings: were it sought to rely on the product of intercept conducted over a period of several months, the defence could legitimately request a transcript of the entire intercept product with a view to searching it for exculpatory material.

In plain English, this meant the authorities were worried that using communications data hoovered up under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act would mean alleged crims could demand access to the same data – and use it to show they were innocent of the crimes they were charged with.

Link (The Register)

UK Government Goes Full Orwell: Snooper’s Charter, Encryption Backdoors, Free Speech Suppression

The old joke goes “George Orwell’s 1984 was a warning, not a ‘how to’ manual.” But that joke is increasingly less funny as the UK really seems to be doing everything it can to put in place Orwell’s fictitious vision — just a few decades later. Right after the election a few weeks ago, we noted the government’s plan to push forward with its “extremist disruption orders” (as had been promised). The basic idea is that if the government doesn’t like what you’re saying, it can define your statements as “extremist” and make them criminal. Prime Minister David Cameron did his best Orwell in flat out stating that the idea was to use these to go after people who were obeying the lawand then arguing that the UK needed to suppress free speech… in the name of protecting free speech. Really.

For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance.

This government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach. As the party of one nation, we will govern as one nation and bring our country together. That means actively promoting certain values.

Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights regardless of race, gender or sexuality.

We must say to our citizens: this is what defines us as a society.

Link (Techdirt)

NSA Planned to Hijack Google App Store to Hack Smartphones

The National Security Agency and its closest allies planned to hijack data links to Google and Samsung app stores to infect smartphones with spyware, a top-secret document reveals.

The surveillance project was launched by a joint electronic eavesdropping unit called the Network Tradecraft Advancement Team, which includes spies from each of the countries in the “Five Eyes” alliance — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

The top-secret document, obtained from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, was published Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept. The document outlines a series of tactics that the NSA and its counterparts in the Five Eyes were working on during workshops held in Australia and Canada between November 2011 and February 2012.

The main purpose of the workshops was to find new ways to exploit smartphone technology for surveillance. The agencies used the Internet spying system XKEYSCORE to identify smartphone traffic flowing across Internet cables and then to track down smartphone connections to app marketplace servers operated by Samsung and Google. (Google declined to comment for this story. Samsung said it would not be commenting “at this time.”)

As part of a pilot project codenamed IRRITANT HORN, the agencies were developing a method to hack and hijack phone users’ connections to app stores so that they would be able to send malicious “implants” to targeted devices. The implants could then be used to collect data from the phones without their users noticing.

Previous disclosures from the Snowden files have shown agencies in the Five Eyes alliance designed spyware for iPhones and Android smartphones, enabling them to infect targeted phones and grab emails, texts, web history, call records, videos, photos and other files stored on them. But methods used by the agencies to get the spyware onto phones in the first place have remained unclear.

The newly published document shows how the agencies wanted to “exploit” app store servers — using them to launch so-called “man-in-the-middle” attacks to infect phones with the implants. A man-in-the-middle attack is a technique in which hackers place themselves between computers as they are communicating with each other; it is a tactic sometimes used by criminal hackers to defraud people. In this instance, the method would have allowed the surveillance agencies to modify the content of data packets passing between targeted smartphones and the app servers while an app was being downloaded or updated, inserting spyware that would be covertly sent to the phones.

Link (The Intercept)

UK government quietly rewrites hacking laws to give GCHQ immunity

The UK government has quietly passed new legislation that exempts GCHQ, police, and other intelligence officers from prosecution for hacking into computers and mobile phones.

While major or controversial legislative changes usually go through normal parliamentary process (i.e. democratic debate) before being passed into law, in this case an amendment to the Computer Misuse Act was snuck in under the radar as secondary legislation. According to Privacy International, “It appears no regulators, commissioners responsible for overseeing the intelligence agencies, the Information Commissioner’s Office, industry, NGOs or the public were notified or consulted about the proposed legislative changes… There was no public debate.”

Privacy International also suggests that the change to the law was in direct response to a complaint that it filed last year. In May 2014, Privacy International and seven communications providers filed a complaint with the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), asserting that GCHQ’s hacking activities were unlawful under the Computer Misuse Act.

On June 6, just a few weeks after the complaint was filed, the UK government introduced the new legislation via the Serious Crime Bill that would allow GCHQ, intelligence officers, and the police to hack without criminal liability. The bill passed into law on March 3 this year, and it went into effect on May 3. Privacy International says there was no public debate before the law was enacted, with only a rather one-sided set of stakeholders being consulted (Ministry of Justice, Crown Prosecution Service, Scotland Office, Northern Ireland Office, GCHQ, police, and National Crime Agency).

Despite filing its complaint back way back in 2014, Privacy International wasn’t told about the changes to the Computer Misuse Act until last week—after the new legislation became effective. The UK government is allowed to do this, of course, but it’s a little more underhanded and undemocratic than usual.

Link (Ars Technica)