22C3: Data Retention
Spying on 450 Million People in Europe seams to become a special hobby for lobbing groups of all kind. This end up in vast and ugly law about the Telco Data Retention in Europe [1]. For years, no for decades this domain of collecting connection data on all communications that flow through a telephone provider was covert by the ITU.
But the law that passed the EU parliament recently would also cover all communication that flows on the Internet. ISPs will get forced to collect all kinds of data from there costumers, and thus build a network of spy’s for the government.
Why this Retention? Oh sure, fighting terrorism, oh and child porn! To archive this the government try to account all digital movements of the European Citizens explained Brenno de Winder in his Talk 22C3: Hacking Data Retention. He outlined in an amusing way different techniques and methods to trick on these new monitoring installations. How inaccurate or even broken by design they are is the next big thing, there is basically no solid design pattern like they are usual in such big IT Projects. Even a contact to reality is missing in some cases.
This primary case, the fact that the EU is about to collecting connection data on all information exchange that occurs on the Internet is just the latest peak. Many other data snoopers emerged in the last decade, from the old schools like your Bank or Credit Card Supplier, to modern motorway accounting and all kinds of rebate systems for customer tracking.
Where does this is fashion come from? Why is it so chic and en vogue to strip of civil privacy for the small revenue of a safety simulation that will never stand for protecting the public from the evil of the world? It’s on us to ask this question. And I fear we have to ask this question often. Very often.
[1] EU-Parlament beschließt massive Überwachung der Telekommunikation