Tag: Parliament

Cameron told to sling his hook on Tor

Posted on March 10, 2015 by - News

David CameronMonths after Prime Minister David “One is an Ordinary Bloke” Cameron said he wants to ban encryption and online anonymity, a Parliamentary report has told him to shutup.

A briefing issued by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology saying that the such an act is “neither acceptable nor technically feasible” which is about as close as you can get to telling Cameron to shut up short of a coup and a guillotine.

The briefing specifically referenced the Tor anonymity network and its ability to slide right around such censorship schemes.

While briefings from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology are not legally binding it does mean that if Cameron pushes through any censorship bill it will be without the science behind him.

The briefing does explicitly state that there is “widespread agreement” banning Tor is not acceptable policy nor is it feasible technologically.

Tor has about 100,000 users at any given moment within the United Kingdom.

“There is widespread agreement that banning online anonymity systems altogether is not seen as an acceptable policy option in the UK,” the briefing explained. “Even if it were, there would be technical challenges.”

In 2012, UK police moaned that the Tor anonymity service was used by “many” pedophiles in order to trade child abuse images. However now it appears that they have changed their minds.

The briefing, quoting Britain’s Parliament by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command (CEOP) of the UK National Crime Agency said that Tor “plays only a minor role in the online viewing and distribution of indecent images of children,” according to the briefing,

Coppers have worked out that Tor is less popular among offenders because it decreases the speed at which images can be downloaded.

Phwoarliament: over 50K MPs, peers, staff go on adultery quest

Posted on February 11, 2013 by - News

parliamentParliament delivers over 52,000 hits to a dating website that markets itself as a tool to solicit affairs, according to the company.

“Out Of Town Affairs” was allegedly clicked on over 52,000 times in just seven months from parliament, outpacing traffic to the Treasury, Ministry of Justice, and the Department for Education.

TaxPayers’ Alliance spokesperson Robert Oxley told the Metro that taxpayers “expect parliamentarians to spend time making laws and scrutinising the government, not trawling dating websites”. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Parliament said that over 5,000 people had access to its network, including MPs, peers and staff.

Out Of Town Affairs is the fourth Google hit for “extramarital affair UK”.

The website describes itself: “Number one for Adult Dating in the UK, Out of Town Affairs is a discreet and 100% safe adult dating service. We help connect married men and women who are looking for an extra-marital affair. Marital affairs in the UK or very popular – with more and more unsatisfied married men and marrited women looking to do the dirty of their partners whilst out of town”.

Speaking with ChannelEye, Emma Carr, deputy director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: “One of the key aims of the draft Communications Data Bill was to record exactly who is accessing websites and to be able to match online activity to a real person. It doesn’t take much imagination to think what could happen when MPs have their browsing history recorded and sites like this are cropping up.
“It’s exactly the same risk that was highlighted during the ID card debate. Valuable data becomes a ‘honeypot’ for hackers and just like MPs expenses it’s very likely that it will end up in the public domain either by being hacked, stolen or lost on a USB stick.”