back to article GCHQ v Privacy International: Computer hacking tribunal showdown begins

GCHQ is being challenged over its offensive hacking practices at a hearing that started on Tuesday morning. The challenge is being heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which is the only judicial body in the country with the authority to hear complaints about the intelligence agencies. Two complaints were filed last year …

  1. tiggity Silver badge

    a title is optional

    An independent, principled & competent evaluation by the tribunal would find against GCHQ for various obvious reasons.

    But, lets face reality, chances of that decision actually happening are so small as to be almost zero, especially in the current post Paris attacks headless chicken behaviour mode in UK & much of Europe.

    1. Valeyard

      Re: a title is optional

      I'm not confident that this won't just retrospectively legalise everything up until now

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: a title is optional

      All I can say is what comes around goes around and one day they will truly reap that which they have sewn, and no amount of legislating will save this shower of cunts and their minions.

      1. dogged
        Headmaster

        Re: a title is optional

        > "sewn"

        Sown. No needles were involved.

        1. John G Imrie

          No needles were involved.

          But they will be, oh yes they will be.

        2. Vic
          Joke

          Re: a title is optional

          No needles were involved

          [Citation needed]

          Vic.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: a title is optional

          @dogged: But it's a stitch-up

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Listening for 'won't someone think of the children'....

    ... and my personal favorite 'we need it for terrorists'.

    The fact they actually use it to snoop on all citizens, or to persecute whistle-blowers or journalists, shows this is actually an apparatus for State control, and has nothing to do with preventing terrorism or pedos.

    What next - monitoring all cars because terrorists used them to drive to cafes. Monitoring all mobile phones and texts because terrorists used them too. How about fitting every member of society with a mandatory video camera and sound recorder with built in GPS, and track everything they see, do, speak and hear, and where they go. Worried about what they say behind closed doors - easy fit every room in the house with a mandatory government surveillance device - camera and mic's for all.

    Get a fucking grip Government. Big Brother by George Orwell was a warning of a nightmare dystopian future, NOT an instruction manual!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Listening for 'won't someone think of the children'....

      "The fact they actually use it to snoop on all citizens, or to persecute whistle-blowers or journalists, shows this is actually an apparatus for State control, and has nothing to do with preventing terrorism or pedos."

      Of course not. If they used it for terrorists, they would have connected the dots pre Paris. They had all the data, and the offenders were known long in advance.

      So, either they had too much data already to cope with, or they were interested in other things. The whole war on terror nonsense is a disguise. The true motives seem to be rather sinister.

    2. Roo
      Windows

      Re: Listening for 'won't someone think of the children'....

      "What next - monitoring all cars because terrorists used them to drive to cafes."

      That's already done in the UK, just in case the terrorists have forgotten to pay their Vehicle Excise Duty or obtain car insurance.

      "Monitoring all mobile phones and texts because terrorists used them too."

      That's already done, they're just in the process of retrospectively legalizing it.

      "How about fitting every member of society with a mandatory video camera and sound recorder with built in GPS, and track everything they see, do, speak and hear, and where they go."

      I think that's what mobile phones are for.

      "Worried about what they say behind closed doors - easy fit every room in the house with a mandatory government surveillance device - camera and mic's for all."

      Again, mobile phones will cover that - as will any desktops or laptops lying about. New fangled smart televisions can do that too - although I suspect the spooks would prefer pwning phones.

      Good luck to Privacy International, but I fear they are effectively a side-show that is allowed to continue because it makes the gov look tolerant of protest while making protest itself look pointless.

      The thing that bothers me most is that the Government is legitimizing rebellion by treating citizens as chattel. In practical terms we are already at a point where law enforcement is so poor, oversight so weak and the laws so poorly thought out that it's easier, more profitable and in many cases less risky to ignore the laws of the land.

      To sum it up in the words of a friend of mine "Being a law abiding citizen is a mugs game.".

  3. Gordon 10
    Meh

    Im not clear on this

    Whats the hearing actually intending to achieve? Some rules of engagement covering when GCHQ and the like can use their tools - a good thing. A mandatory ban/repeal of those tools - a bad thing.

    There is a clear difference between the tools GCHQ uses to do its job and the way in which it deploys those tools.

    Given that part of its jobs is to hack "enemy" comms it seems reasonable to allow them to hoard some zero days for that purpose.

    It seems unreasonable to force them to publish every zero day they come across in the name of protecting the public. That's rather like giving the army guns but no bullets to go in them.

    I would support a publically available - independently audited "rules of engagement" for InfoSec spooks - but this seems like a bit of a distraction for achieving this. If the rules of engagement were unclear or non-existent - surely the fault lies with their political and civil service masters - not GCHQ themselves?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Im not clear on this

      Mmm... Cameron's current logic seems to be along the lines of: if the terrorists don't take any notice of the rules then we don't have to either.

      Music to the ears of the next dictator.

      Not sure what it says about British values when arguing that lawlessness is the moral high ground, but these days, I'm having a hard time figuring out what British values are, unless using dirty tricks and lying to achieve your ends, and discriminating against people less fortunate than yourself count as virtues.

  4. BenR

    Well, they've already been told that the bulk surviellence of the population that they were doing previously has been retrospectively made legal as the article alludes to - the only country where that has happened oddly enough.

    Even the Yanks made at least a 'show' of saying "No, it's illegal and the NSA will stop doing it, won't you, you naughty boys? Hmm. Yes. No more spying for them. Nosiree."

  5. Chris G

    ISP

    I can imagine part of the off record conversation going something like:

    Spook: "So you call yourselves Privacy International? I think you should change the Name.

    PI person: Why's that then?

    Spook: You don't actually have any privacy and while terrorists or any other threat to the nation exists , you won' t have no matter what laws are passed. We do things secretly, it's our job but we do it anyway.

    PI person: In that case we will call ourselves the International Search for Privacy

  6. Mark 85

    And I thought we had it bad from NSA...

    You on the right side of the pond seem it have just as bad or worse. I sometimes wonder who is following who's lead here although sometimes it seems it's a race to the bottom and both NSA and GCHQ are neck and neck, so far.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm clear on this @Gorden

    "Whats the hearing actually intending to achieve? Some rules of engagement covering when GCHQ and the like can use their tools - a good thing. A mandatory ban/repeal of those tools - a bad thing."

    A mandatory ban/repeal of those tools - a good thing, hacking into huge telecommunications providers is illegal, or maybe you believe they should have the power to conduct insider trading and complete control of the NASDEQ - Of course claiming whilst they're doing it that it's totally legal.

    "There is a clear difference between the tools GCHQ uses to do its job and the way in which it deploys those tools."

    I don't agree, I see no difference between what they're doing and what criminal Black-hat hackers do.

    "Given that part of its jobs is to hack "enemy" comms it seems reasonable to allow them to hoard some zero days for that purpose"

    Oh and I suppose you'd agree they should be allowed to weaken "Encryption" like there own RSA PKS11 Baton algorithm too.

    "It seems unreasonable to force them to publish every zero day they come across in the name of protecting the public. That's rather like giving the army guns but no bullets to go in them."

    Surely that should read, it's totally unreasonable to place backdoors into peoples handsets with default passwords and weak security whilst giving everybody a broken C++ compiler so zero days inject themselves into there operating system which criminals then harvest!

    "I would support a publically available - independently audited "rules of engagement" for InfoSec spooks - but this seems like a bit of a distraction for achieving this. If the rules of engagement were unclear or non-existent - surely the fault lies with their political and civil service masters - not GCHQ themselves?"

    I would support them being publicly prosecuted for criminal behaviour whilst attempting to give there political masters huge tax breaks whilst they sell war and gun's and tell people it's for there own safety that they need to look at you over your own device like some kind of pervert!

    1. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

      Re: I'm clear on this @Gorden

      > "There is a clear difference between the tools GCHQ uses to do its job and the way in which it deploys those tools."

      > I don't agree, I see no difference between what they're doing and what criminal Black-hat hackers do.

      I disagree.

      Lest take something much more down to earth and easily discussable - is it permissible under any circumstances to exceed the speed limit on a road ? So we have a law that says (to summarise) "though shalt not drive faster than the speed limit for that road".

      But what about Police ? We have laws that allow the Police, under certain circumstances only, to exceed the speed limit - and I think mostly the population support that. Lets face it, if (for example) all a robber needed to do to escape was to exceed the speed limit then I think we'd have something to say about it !

      But equally, if we saw coppers whizzing around all the time with no regard for speed limits regardless of what the reason is - and I don't think (to pick an old Jasper Carrott sketch) the canteen being about to run out of chips qualifies - then I think we'd have something to say about that too.

      So I think the analogy is that the security services are just ignoring the speed limits all the time "because they can". Some are arguing that they shouldn't be allowed to do that at any time which I think is wrong. But there needs to be clear rules on what they can and cannot due, and someone to enforce those rules.

      The big problem is that unlike a copper speeding without any good reason, it's not easy for "the man in the street" to see who is hacking what and report them. Thus there is great lack of visibility, and since the "spooks" have been caught having no regard to people's privacy or the law - we are inclined to assume that everything they do is bad.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: I'm clear on this @Gorden

    I suppose there next move will be to claim they need to back-door there own 9 eye's OS because it's security is almost too good, whilst they're hacking into init.rc... Hence the developers own comments in the code found in fbi.c "this is not OpenBSD!"

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like