Recently in Computer hackers Category

If the much heralded Distributed Denial of Service DDoS attack by #Anonymous cult followers #OpTrialAtHome actually succeeds in really bring down, or making unavailable to most users, the GCHQ website,
then senior officials and politicians must be sacked, because they will have shown that they are not fit and proper people to be in charge of the United Kingdom's internet cyber defence (or attack) systems.

If GCHQ fail to defend themselves, there must be sackings or resignations

If there really is a "successful" Denial of Service, noticeable even by technically illiterate journalists around the world, for more than 1 hour, then the GCHQ / CESG / British telecom managers in charge must resign or be sacked and they should be publicly named and shamed, so that other potential employers and the electorate can be made aware of their complacency or incompetence.

If the DDoS actually lasts into Sunday morning, then Iain Lobban, the Director of GCHQ must resign or be sacked

If the DDoS actually last into Monday morning, then Robert Hannigan, Director General, Defence and Intelligence at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office must resign or be sacked

James Quinault CBE, Director, Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance, at the Cabinet Office must resign or be sacked

If the DDoS actually lasts into Monday afternoon, then Simon Fraser CMG, the Permanant Secretary at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office must resign or be sacked.

If the DDoS actually lasts into Tuesday morning, then Rt.Hon. William Hague MP Secretary of State for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office must resign or be sacked.

No doubt William Hagues's SPADs and spin doctors would then try to shift the blame onto bRt.Hon. Francis Muade, the Minister at the Cabinet Office,
because is supposed to be in charge of the Office of Cyber Security & Information Assurance (OCSIA) and he has already been politically damaged by his stupid "jerry cans" remarks during the recent petrol buying panic.

However, Spy Blog predicts that the ferocious grip on power and job security which these officials and politicians spend millions of pounds of taxpayers money to preserve,
will not be weakened by the #Anonymous #OpTrialAtHome cult followers.

A second week of entrapment ?

For the second week in a row, they have deliberately set the appointed time of their attack: 8pm on a Saturday night to miss the print deadlines for the Sunday newspapers, which set the political news / pressure agenda for the following week. Nobody will be ringing up the GCHQ or Foreign Office switchboard to complain that the website is unavailable on a Saturday night, which they might do during normal office hours.

Even though this has been pointed out to them (not just by Spy Blog), the fact that they did not choose a better media coverage time, shows either boneheaded incompetence or a more sinister Agent Provocateur agenda e.g. to fake "evidence" of a cyber threat, to help
justify the evil Communication Capabilities Development Programme #CCDP, whilst doing no real damage.

http://twitpic.com/9al20u

OpTrialAtHome_21April_GCHQ.jpg

#Anonymous
#OpTrialAtHome
Plan #DDOS
on GCHQ on Saturday 21st April
at 8pm BST & 3pm EDt
@AnonAteam is asking
all Anons to fire lazers
at http://gchq.gov.uk
IP 195.171.165.115

This weeks message is a little clearer on the the timing, but observers should still expect some of the attackers to be confused by the hour's difference between British Summer Time and Greenwich Mean Time / UTC


Many claims of "Tango Down" are untrue

Sadly, there have been several online journalists and commentators who have taken the claims of "#TangoDown" i.e. a successful DDoS attack as being true, without independently verifying this for themselves.

Watch out again for stupidly premature Twitter cries of "#TangoDown" whenever an #Anonymous cultist fails to connect their web browser to http://gchq.gov.uk
as advertised above, even for reasons which have nothing to do with any DDoS at all.

N.B. none of the following URLS actually point to web servers and they have not done so for at least the last couple of years:

http://gchq.gov.uk
http://mi6.gov.uk
http://sis.gov.uk
http://mi5.gov.uk

Either in order to align with their https//: SSl / TLS Encryption Digital Certificates, or because they do not understand
or care that the shorter the web URL the better to attract visitors, all of these websites need the full "www." in their URLs:

http://www.gchq.gov.uk (GCHQ)
http://www.mi6.gov.uk (Secret Intelligence Service MI6)
http://www.sis.gov.uk (Secret Intelligence Service MI6)
http://www.mi5.gov.uk (Security Service MI5)

Remember also that Twitter tends to "shorten" both the URLS http://www.gchq.gov.uk and http://gchq.gov.uk into a link which displays as "gchq.gov.uk"

Note also, that just like last week, the www.gchq.gov.uk website does not actually run off a webserver on the advertised 195.171.165.115 address anymore, there
is a 302 temporary redirect to random looking urls e.g.

http://213.121.151.40/NjQbR/c3aba573/43de84c1/www.gchq.gov.uk/

Watch out for the "Bait and Switch", like last week, when the puppet masters controlling the sheeple who are participating in this attack will try, without any proper coordination or planning, to switch their "lazers" to other , softer targets than GCHQ, whilst still somehow claiming this to be part of the same publicity stunt.

What exactly are they claiming to protest about this time ?

Can anyone detect what the #Anonymous cult followers are pretending to / claiming to be protesting against GCHQ about this week ? Is it about the
unfair Extradition Act 2003 extraditions to the USA or is it about Communications Capabilities Development Programme #CCDP or what ?

Their online ramblings are, probably deliberately, unclear.

No warnings about the illegality of DDoS, again

Yet again, the #Anonymous cult followers are being advised either by idiots or by Agent Provocateurs, to use DDoS tools like LOIC or HOIC, neither of which
do anything to anonymise the source computers participating in the DoS attack.

How many gullible people will be arrested as a result of this DDoS attack against GCHQ ?

Exactly as with last week, there are no warnings about the risk of legal prosecution which participants in this DDoS attack on GCHQ are facing - up to 10 years in prison - see the previous Spy Blog article.

OpTrialAtHome Anonymous Distributed Denial of Service attack on GCHQ website - who will fail first ?

If people choose to participate in this attack, in spite of being fully aware of the risks, then they are free to do so. The devious lack of legal warnings, coupled with calls for lots of new participants, smacks of entrapment or the typical contempt for their "expendable" followers which cult leaders so often display.


20:40 BST

As expected, so far, there has been no noticeable interruption of service when Spy Blog has tried to access the GCHQ website since 8pm


Last weekend there were some suspiciously timed Distributed Denial of Service attack against the Home Office website (offline for about 12 hours until Sunday morning) and to a lesser extent the Ministry of Justice and the Prime Minister's Number 10 Downing Street (about an hour's disruption each, on and off) .

None of these websites are vital to the running of the country, especially not on a Saturday evening on a Bank Holiday weekend, when nobody is visiting them, but they are symbolic targets.

The organisers of this supposed "hactivism" were some self appointed faction under the hydra headed #Anonymous twitter hive mind.

See the Twitter hashtag #OpTrialAtHome

The "justification" they claimed was to somehow "support" the controversial Extradition cases of Gary McKinnon, Richard O'Dwyer and Chris Tappin, something which they have not achieved..

Nevertheless these people declared the event a success and then, on the Sunday, they threatened to do the same to the GCHQ website , starting at 8pm GMT on Saturday 14th April 2012.

This "news" has been reported by IT trade publications and picke dup by the national newspapers and broadcast media, especially following the arrests of a couple of teenagers in the West midlands, who may be the vaguely associated with the #teampoison attacks on the Metropolitan Police Anti-terrorism hotline.
(misreported by the "hackers" and far too many other online "news" sources as somehow being MI6 the Secret intelligence Service, who have nothing to do with any public hotlines whatsoever)

As with MI5 and the MI6/SIS websites, only http://www.gchq.gov.uk is valid, not http://gchq.gov.uk on its own

A few hours before the announced attack time, the default GCHQ web page started to be re-directed down a level to:

http://www.gchq.gov.uk/Pages/homepage.aspx

At about 19:40 BST i.e. 18:40 GMT British Telecom , on whose servers this public website appears to be running, put a temporary 302 redirect to e.g.

http://213.121.151.40/TPpRO/c3aba573/43de84c1/www.gchq.gov.uk/

instead of the previous IP address of http://195.171.165.115 which was advertised ahead of time on a Twitter Twitpic graphic:

gchq_ddos_graphic.jpg

http://twitpic.com/97d6yn

Note the ambiguous slogan: "Fight Online Privacy" - are the anonymous organisers / manipulators behind this DDoS attack actually on the same side as GCHQ - both of them appear to be fighting against your right to online privacy.

Note also the inevitable confusion - many of the "script kiddies" and gullible journalists will not have read the announcement properly and will assume that 8 PM British Summer Time is somehow the same as 8pm Greenwich Mean Time. (9pm BST)

Much more seriously, the published comment on this web page is actively encouraging the "hactivists" to download a scritpt kiddy "point and click" Denial of Service attack tool called "High Orbit Ion Cannon" - hence the "pew pew pew - fire your Laz0rs" instructions to the exploited cult followers.

There are no warnings whatsover about the fact that participating in this DDoS attack or even just downloading the HOIC tool is a criminal offence in the UK, with up to ten years and two year in prison respectively.

See the control freak Labour government's amendments to the Computer Misuse Act 1990 which came into force in October 2008 and which claims worldwide legal jurisdiction:

The timing of these DDoS attacks appears to have been deliberately (or utterly incompetently) chosen to minimise any political impact on the Government or civil servants i.e. on a Saturday evening when nobody in the Government department concerned is likely to have anyone ringing up to complain that their website is unavailable, and well past the print run deadlines for the Sunday newspapers.

If people want to protest by accessing a Government website, then they should be able to, but they must also be made aware of the risks of legal prosecution and potential punishments.

The fact that the organisers of these attacks have not done so, smells of Entrapment by Agents Provocateurs, perhaps like the notorious #Sabu, who are under the control of an intelligence or law enforcement agency and who are actually helping to jusify the repressive Communications Capabalities Development Programme being promoted by the securocrats in Whitehall to the bumbling Coalition politicians.
.

20:05 BST - the GCHQ website seems to be running smoothly


The BBC reports that

21 June 2011 Last updated at 16:32

Teenager arrested on suspicion of hacking

A teenager has been arrested in the UK in a joint Scotland Yard and FBI probe into the hacking of websites.

The man, named locally as Ryan Cleary, 19, was arrested in Wickford, Essex. Police have not identified him.

Make your mind up BBC - is he a "teenager" or a "man" aged 19 ?

Scotland Yard said the raid followed a series of distributed denial of service attacks.

It comes days after hackers from a group called Lulz Security (LulzSec) attacked a number of websites both in Britain and the United States.

Scotland Yard would not say if Tuesday's raid was connected to LulzSec but said it had been a "pre-planned, intelligence-led" operation.

However, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said the Metropolitan Police's e-crimes unit had confirmed the raid was linked to the recent intrusion attacks on the websites of the CIA and Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

It says the teenager's computer was being examined for data linked to Sony, which recently came under cyber attack.

Mr Cleary was arrested under the Computer Misuse Act and Fraud Act and is being questioned at a central London police station.

Earlier a Scotland Yard spokesman said: "The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and distributed denial of service attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group.

"Searches at a residential address in Wickford, Essex, following the arrest last night, have led to the examination of a significant amount of material. These forensic examinations remain ongoing."

Mr Cleary's mother spoke to BBC Essex and confirmed her son had been arrested at 0330 BST on Tuesday.

She said he had been obsessed with computers since he was 12 and added: "Computers were his world."

It is one of the more disgraceful aspects of the mainstream and tabloid media, that they "name and shame" people who have been merely arrested, but who have not yet actually been charged with any offence and who may never charged or convicted of anything i.e. before the sub judice contempt of court rules apply.

What happened to the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" ?

Why did the BBC send a tv satellite outside broadcast van around to the family home in Wickford, Essex and broadcast voyeuristic pictures of it around the world ?

See this Teenager arrested on suspicion of hacking video clip, which was broadcast repeatedly by BBC televeison news, around the world.

BBC_satellite_OB_van_450.jpg

Note the BBC satellite Outside Broadcast van

BBC_Wickford_Essex_1_450.jpg

The number plate of this parked car is clearly visible in the broadcast, although it probably has nothing to do with the house and the alleged computer hacker. - this is "guilt through association".

BBC_snoops_bedroom_windows_450.jpg

What genuine news value is there in the slow pan across all three upper floor bedroom windows ?

Are the BBC complicit in police / government harassment and intimidation, or are they just uncaringly voyeuristic, or both ?

For what it is worth, the inherently untrustworthy @LulzSec Twitter feed claims that :

Clearly the UK police are so desperate to catch us that they've gone and arrested someone who is, at best, mildly associated with us. Lame.
7:54PM June 21st 2011

@superbus We use Ryan's server, we also use Efnet, 2600, Rizon and AnonOps IRC
servers. That doesn't mean they're all part of our group.
7:53 PM June 21st 2011

Ryan Cleary is not part of LulzSec; we house one of our many legitimate chatrooms on his IRC server, but that's it. youtube.com/watch?v=Jf7iBS...
7:48PM June 21st 2011

Will the UK Police actually charge and prosecute Ryan Cleary, or will this become Yet Another Extradition to the USA saga, like that of Gary McKinnon ?

About this blog

This United Kingdom based blog attempts to draw public attention to, and comments on, some of the current trends in ever cheaper and more widespread surveillance technology being deployed to satisfy the rapacious demand by state and corporate bureaucracies and criminals for your private details, and the technological ignorance of our politicians and civil servants who frame our legal systems.

The hope is that you the readers, will help to insist that strong safeguards for the privacy of the individual are implemented, especially in these times of increased alert over possible terrorist or criminal activity. If the systems which should help to protect us can be easily abused to supress our freedoms, then the terrorists will have won.

We know that there are decent, honest, trustworthy individual politicians, civil servants, law enforcement, intelligence agency personnel and broadcast, print and internet journalists etc., who often feel powerless or trapped in the system. They need the assistance of external, detailed, informed, public scrutiny to help them to resist deliberate or unthinking policies, which erode our freedoms and liberties.

Email & PGP Contact

Please feel free to email your views about this blog, or news about the issues it tries to comment on.

blog@spy[dot]org[dot]uk

Our PGP public encryption key is available for those correspondents who wish to send us news or information in confidence, and also for those of you who value your privacy, even if you have got nothing to hide.

We offer this verifiable GPG / PGP public key (the ID is available on several keyservers, twitter etc.) as one possible method to establish initial contact with whistleblowers and other confidential sources, if it suits their Threat Model or Risk Appetite, but will then try to establish other secure, anonymous communications channels e.g. encrypted Signal Messenger via burner devices,or face to face meetings, postal mail or dead drops etc. as appropriate.

Current PGP Key ID: 0x1DBD6A9F0FACAD30 which will expire on 29th August 2021.

pgp-now.gif
You can download a free copy of the PGP encryption software from www.pgpi.org
(available for most of the common computer operating systems, and also in various Open Source versions like GPG)

We look forward to the day when UK Government Legislation, Press Releases and Emails etc. are Digitally Signed so that we can be assured that they are not fakes. Trusting that the digitally signed content makes any sense, is another matter entirely.

Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers and Political Dissidents

Please take the appropriate precautions if you are planning to blow the whistle on shadowy and powerful people in Government or commerce, and their dubious policies. The mainstream media and bloggers also need to take simple precautions to help preserve the anonymity of their sources e.g. see Spy Blog's Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers - or use this easier to remember link: http://ht4w.co.uk

BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

Digital Security & Privacy for Human Rights Defenders manual, by Irish NGO Frontline Defenders.

Everyone’s Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship for Citizens Worldwide (.pdf - 31 pages), by the Citizenlab at the University of Toronto.

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents - March 2008 version - (2.2 Mb - 80 pages .pdf) by Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Guide to Covering the Beijing Olympics by Human Rights Watch.

A Practical Security Handbook for Activists and Campaigns (v 2.6) (.doc - 62 pages), by experienced UK direct action political activists

Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress & Tor - useful step by step guide with software configuration screenshots by Ethan Zuckerman at Global Voices Advocacy. (updated March 10th 2009 with the latest Tor / Vidalia bundle details)

Links

Watching Them, Watching Us

London 2600

Our UK Freedom of Information Act request tracking blog

WikiLeak.org - ethical and technical discussion about the WikiLeaks.org project for anonymous mass leaking of documents etc.

Privacy and Security

Privacy International
United Kingdom Privacy Profile (2011)

Cryptome - censored or leaked government documents etc.

Identity Project report by the London School of Economics
Surveillance & Society the fully peer-reviewed transdisciplinary online surveillance studies journal

Statewatch - monitoring the state and civil liberties in the European Union

The Policy Laundering Project - attempts by Governments to pretend their repressive surveillance systems, have to be introduced to comply with international agreements, which they themselves have pushed for in the first place

International Campaign Against Mass Surveillance

ARCH Action Rights for Children in Education - worried about the planned Children's Bill Database, Connexions Card, fingerprinting of children, CCTV spy cameras in schools etc.

Foundation for Information Policy Research
UK Crypto - UK Cryptography Policy Discussion Group email list

Technical Advisory Board on internet and telecomms interception under RIPA

European Digital Rights

Open Rights Group - a UK version of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a clearinghouse to raise digital rights and civil liberties issues with the media and to influence Governments.

Digital Rights Ireland - legal case against mandatory EU Comms Data Retention etc.

Blindside - "What’s going to go wrong in our e-enabled world? " blog and wiki and Quarterly Report will supposedly be read by the Cabinet Office Central Sponsor for Information Assurance. Whether the rest of the Government bureaucracy and the Politicians actually listen to the CSIA, is another matter.

Biometrics in schools - 'A concerned parent who doesn't want her children to live in "1984" type society.'

Human Rights

Liberty Human Rights campaigners

British Institute of Human Rights
Amnesty International
Justice

Prevent Genocide International

asboconcern - campaign for reform of Anti-Social Behavior Orders

Front Line Defenders - Irish charity - Defenders of Human Rights Defenders

Internet Censorship

OpenNet Initiative - researches and measures the extent of actual state level censorship of the internet. Features a blocked web URL checker and censorship map.

Committee to Protect Bloggers - "devoted to the protection of bloggers worldwide with a focus on highlighting the plight of bloggers threatened and imprisoned by their government."

Reporters without Borders internet section - news of internet related censorship and repression of journalists, bloggers and dissidents etc.

Judicial Links

British and Irish Legal Information Institute - publishes the full text of major case Judgments

Her Majesty's Courts Service - publishes forthcoming High Court etc. cases (but only in the next few days !)

House of Lords - The Law Lords are currently the supreme court in the UK - will be moved to the new Supreme Court in October 2009.

Information Tribunal - deals with appeals under FOIA, DPA both for and against the Information Commissioner

Investigatory Powers Tribunal - deals with complaints about interception and snooping under RIPA - has almost never ruled in favour of a complainant.

Parliamentary Opposition

The incompetent yet authoritarian Labour party have not apologised for their time in Government. They are still not providing any proper Opposition to the current Conservative - Liberal Democrat coalition government, on any freedom or civil liberties or privacy or surveillance issues.

UK Government

Home Office - "Not fit for purpose. It is inadequate in terms of its scope, it is inadequate in terms of its information technology, leadership, management systems and processes" - Home Secretary John Reid. 23rd May 2006. Not quite the fount of all evil legislation in the UK, but close.

No. 10 Downing Street Prime Minister's Official Spindoctors

Public Bills before Parliament

United Kingdom Parliament
Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons.

House of Commons "Question Book"

UK Statute Law Database - is the official revised edition of the primary legislation of the United Kingdom made available online, but it is not yet up to date.

FaxYourMP - identify and then fax your Member of Parliament
WriteToThem - identify and then contact your Local Councillors, members of devolved assemblies, Member of Parliament, Members of the European Parliament etc.
They Work For You - House of Commons Hansard made more accessible ? UK Members of the European Parliament

Read The Bills Act - USA proposal to force politicians to actually read the legislation that they are voting for, something which is badly needed in the UK Parliament.

Bichard Inquiry delving into criminal records and "soft intelligence" policies highlighted by the Soham murders. (taken offline by the Home Office)

ACPO - Association of Chief Police Officers - England, Wales and Northern Ireland
ACPOS Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland

Online Media

Boing Boing

Need To Know [now defunct]

The Register

NewsNow Encryption and Security aggregate news feed
KableNet - UK Government IT project news
PublicTechnology.net - UK eGovernment and public sector IT news
eGov Monitor

Ideal Government - debate about UK eGovernment

NIR and ID cards

Stand - email and fax campaign on ID Cards etc. [Now defunct]. The people who supported stand.org.uk have gone on to set up other online tools like WriteToThem.com. The Government's contemptuous dismissal of over 5,000 individual responses via the stand.org website to the Home Office public consultation on Entitlement Cards is one of the factors which later led directly to the formation of the the NO2ID Campaign who have been marshalling cross party opposition to Labour's dreadful National Identity Register compulsory centralised national biometric database and ID Card plans, at the expense of simpler, cheaper, less repressive, more effective, nore secure and more privacy friendly alternative identity schemes.

NO2ID - opposition to the Home Office's Compulsory Biometric ID Card
NO2ID bulletin board discussion forum

Home Office Identity Cards website
No compulsory national Identity Cards (ID Cards) BBC iCan campaign site
UK ID Cards blog
NO2ID press clippings blog
CASNIC - Campaign to STOP the National Identity Card.
Defy-ID active meetings and protests in Glasgow
www.idcards-uk.info - New Alliance's ID Cards page
irefuse.org - total rejection of any UK ID Card

International Civil Aviation Organisation - Machine Readable Travel Documents standards for Biometric Passports etc.
Anti National ID Japan - controversial and insecure Jukinet National ID registry in Japan
UK Biometrics Working Group run by CESG/GCHQ experts etc. the UK Government on Biometrics issues feasability
Citizen Information Project feasability study population register plans by the Treasury and Office of National Statistics

CommentOnThis.com - comments and links to each paragraph of the Home Office's "Strategic Action Plan for the National Identity Scheme".

De-Materialised ID - "The voluntary alternative to material ID cards, A Proposal by David Moss of Business Consultancy Services Ltd (BCSL)" - well researched analysis of the current Home Office scheme, and a potentially viable alternative.

Surveillance Infrastructures

National Roads Telecommunications Services project - infrastruture for various mass surveillance systems, CCTV, ANPR, PMMR imaging etc.

CameraWatch - independent UK CCTV industry lobby group - like us, they also want more regulation of CCTV surveillance systems.

Every Step You Take a documentary about CCTV surveillance in the Uk by Austrian film maker Nino Leitner.

Transport for London an attempt at a technological panopticon - London Congestion Charge, London Low-Emission Zone, Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras, tens of thousands of CCTV cameras on buses, thousands of CCTV cameras on London Underground, realtime road traffic CCTV, Iyster smart cards - all handed over to the Metropolitan Police for "national security" purposes, in real time, in bulk, without any public accountibility, for secret data mining, exempt from even the usual weak protections of the Data Protection Act 1998.

RFID Links

RFID tag privacy concerns - our own original article updated with photos

NoTags - campaign against individual item RFID tags
Position Statement on the Use of RFID on Consumer Products has been endorsed by a large number of privacy and human rights organisations.
RFID Privacy Happenings at MIT
Surpriv: RFID Surveillance and Privacy
RFID Scanner blog
RFID Gazette
The Sorting Door Project

RFIDBuzz.com blog - where we sometimes crosspost RFID articles

Genetic Links

DNA Profiles - analysis by Paul Nutteing
GeneWatch UK monitors genetic privacy and other issues
Postnote February 2006 Number 258 - National DNA Database (.pdf) - Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology

The National DNA Database Annual Report 2004/5 (.pdf) - published by the NDNAD Board and ACPO.

Eeclaim Your DNA from Britain's National DNA Database - model letters and advice on how to have your DNA samples and profiles removed from the National DNA Database,in spite of all of the nureacratic obstacles which try to prevent this, even if you are innocent.

Miscellanous Links

Michael Field - Pacific Island news - no longer a paradise
freetotravel.org - John Gilmore versus USA internal flight passports and passenger profiling etc.

The BUPA Seven - whistleblowers badly let down by the system.

Tax Credit Overpayment - the near suicidal despair inflicted on poor, vulnerable people by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown's disasterous Inland Revenue IT system.

Fassit UK - resources and help for those abused by the Social Services Childrens Care bureaucracy

Former Spies

MI6 v Tomlinson - Richard Tomlinson - still being harassed by his former employer MI6

Martin Ingram, Welcome To The Dark Side - former British Army Intelligence operative in Northern Ireland.

Operation Billiards - Mitrokhin or Oshchenko ? Michael John Smith - seeking to overturn his Official Secrets Act conviction in the GEC case.

The Dirty Secrets of MI5 & MI6 - Tony Holland, Michael John Smith and John Symond - stories and chronologies.

Naked Spygirl - Olivia Frank

Blog Links

e-nsecure.net blog - Comments on IT security and Privacy or the lack thereof.
Rat's Blog -The Reverend Rat writes about London street life and technology
Duncan Drury - wired adventures in Tanzania & London
Dr. K's blog - Hacker, Author, Musician, Philosopher

David Mery - falsely arrested on the London Tube - you could be next.

James Hammerton
White Rose - a thorn in the side of Big Brother
Big Blunkett
Into The Machine - formerly "David Blunkett is an Arse" by Charlie Williams and Scribe
infinite ideas machine - Phil Booth
Louise Ferguson - City of Bits
Chris Lightfoot
Oblomovka - Danny O'Brien

Liberty Central

dropsafe - Alec Muffett
The Identity Corner - Stefan Brands
Kim Cameron - Microsoft's Identity Architect
Schneier on Security - Bruce Schneier
Politics of Privacy Blog - Andreas Busch
solarider blog

Richard Allan - former Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam
Boris Johnson Conservative MP for Henley
Craig Murray - former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, "outsourced torture" whistleblower

Howard Rheingold - SmartMobs
Global Guerrillas - John Robb
Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends

Vmyths - debunking computer security hype

Nick Leaton - Random Ramblings
The Periscope - Companion weblog to Euro-correspondent.com journalist network.
The Practical Nomad Blog Edward Hasbrouck on Privacy and Travel
Policeman's Blog
World Weary Detective

Martin Stabe
Longrider
B2fxxx - Ray Corrigan
Matt Sellers
Grits for Breakfast - Scott Henson in Texas
The Green Ribbon - Tom Griffin
Guido Fawkes blog - Parliamentary plots, rumours and conspiracy.
The Last Ditch - Tom Paine
Murky.org
The (e)State of Tim - Tim Hicks
Ilkley Against CCTV
Tim Worstall
Bill's Comment Page - Bill Cameron
The Society of Qualified Archivists
The Streeb-Greebling Diaries - Bob Mottram

Your Right To Know - Heather Brooke - Freedom off Information campaigning journalist

Ministry of Truth _ Unity's V for Vendetta styled blog.

Bloggerheads - Tim Ireland

W. David Stephenson blogs on homeland security et al.
EUrophobia - Nosemonkey

Blogzilla - Ian Brown

BlairWatch - Chronicling the demise of the New Labour Project

dreamfish - Robert Longstaff

Informaticopia - Rod Ward

War-on-Freedom

The Musings of Harry

Chicken Yoghurt - Justin McKeating

The Red Tape Chronicles - Bob Sullivan MSNBC

Campaign Against the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Stop the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Rob Wilton's esoterica

panGloss - Innovation, Technology and the Law

Arch Rights - Action on Rights for Children blog

Database Masterclass - frequently asked questions and answers about the several centralised national databases of children in the UK.

Shaphan

Moving On

Steve Moxon blog - former Home Office whistleblower and author.

Al-Muhajabah's Sundries - anglophile blog

Architectures of Control in Design - Dan Lockton

rabenhorst - Kai Billen (mostly in German)

Nearly Perfect Privacy - Tiffany and Morpheus

Iain Dale's Diary - a popular Conservative political blog

Brit Watch - Public Surveillance in the UK - Web - Email - Databases - CCTV - Telephony - RFID - Banking - DNA

BLOGDIAL

MySecured.com - smart mobile phone forensics, information security, computer security and digital forensics by a couple of Australian researchers

Ralph Bendrath

Financial Cryptography - Ian Grigg et al.

UK Liberty - A blog on issues relating to liberty in the UK

Big Brother State - "a small act of resistance" to the "sustained and systematic attack on our personal freedom, privacy and legal system"

HosReport - "Crisis. Conspiraciones. Enigmas. Conflictos. Espionaje." - Carlos Eduardo Hos (in Spanish)

"Give 'em hell Pike!" - Frank Fisher

Corruption-free Anguilla - Good Governance and Corruption in Public Office Issues in the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla in the West Indies - Don Mitchell CBE QC

geeklawyer - intellectual property, civil liberties and the legal system

PJC Journal - I am not a number, I am a free Man - The Prisoner

Charlie's Diary - Charlie Stross

The Caucus House - blog of the Chicago International Model United Nations

Famous for 15 Megapixels

Postman Patel

The 4th Bomb: Tavistock Sq Daniel's 7:7 Revelations - Daniel Obachike

OurKingdom - part of OpenDemocracy - " will discuss Britain’s nations, institutions, constitution, administration, liberties, justice, peoples and media and their principles, identity and character"

Beau Bo D'Or blog by an increasingly famous digital political cartoonist.

Between Both Worlds - "Thoughts & Ideas that Reflect the Concerns of Our Conscious Evolution" - Kingsley Dennis

Bloggerheads: The Alisher Usmanov Affair - the rich Uzbek businessman and his shyster lawyers Schillings really made a huge counterproductive error in trying to censor the blogs of Tim Ireland, of all people.

Matt Wardman political blog analysis

Henry Porter on Liberty - a leading mainstream media commentator and opinion former who is doing more than most to help preserve our freedom and liberty.

HMRC is shite - "dedicated to the taxpayers of Britain, and the employees of the HMRC, who have to endure the monumental shambles that is Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC)."

Head of Legal - Carl Gardner a former legal advisor to the Government

The Landed Underclass - Voice of the Banana Republic of Great Britain

Henrik Alexandersson - Swedish blogger threatened with censorship by the Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA), the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishement, their equivalent of the UK GCHQ or the US NSA.

World's First Fascist Democracy - blog with link to a Google map - "This map is an attempt to take a UK wide, geographical view, of both the public and the personal effect of State sponsored fear and distrust as seen through the twisted technological lens of petty officials and would be bureaucrats nationwide."

Blogoir - Charles Crawford - former UK Ambassodor to Poland etc.

No CCTV - The Campaign against CCTV

Barcode Nation - keeping two eyes on the database state.

Lords of the Blog - group blog by half a dozen or so Peers sitting in the House of Lords.

notes from the ubiquitous surveillance society - blog by Dr. David Murakami Wood, editor of the online academic journal Surveillance and Society

Justin Wylie's political blog

Panopticon blog - by Timothy Pitt-Payne and Anya Proops. Timothy Pitt-Payne is probably the leading legal expert on the UK's Freedom of Information Act law, often appearing on behlaf of the Information Commissioner's Office at the Information Tribunal.

Armed and Dangerous - Sex, software, politics, and firearms. Life’s simple pleasures… - by Open Source Software advocate Eric S. Raymond.

Georgetown Security Law Brief - group blog by the Georgetown Law Center on National Security and the Law , at Georgtown University, Washington D.C, USA.

Big Brother Watch - well connected with the mainstream media, this is a campaign blog by the TaxPayersAlliance, which thankfully does not seem to have spawned Yet Another Campaign Organisation as many Civil Liberties groups had feared.

Spy on Moseley - "Sparkbrook, Springfield, Washwood Heath and Bordesley Green. An MI5 Intelligence-gathering operation to spy on Muslim communities in Birmingham is taking liberties in every sense" - about 150 ANPR CCTV cameras funded by Home Office via the secretive Terrorism and Allied Matters (TAM) section of ACPO.

FitWatch blog - keeps an eye on the activities of some of the controversial Police Forward Intelligence Teams, who supposedly only target "known troublemakers" for photo and video surveillance, at otherwise legal, peaceful protests and demonstrations.

Other Links

Spam Huntress - The Norwegian Spam Huntress - Ann Elisabeth

Fuel Crisis Blog - Petrol over £1 per litre ! Protest !
Mayor of London Blog
London Olympics 2012 - NO !!!!

Cool Britannia

NuLabour

Free Gary McKinnon - UK citizen facing extradition to the USA for "hacking" over 90 US Military computer systems.

Parliament Protest - information and discussion on peaceful resistance to the arbitrary curtailment of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, in the excessive Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 Designated Area around Parliament Square in London.

Brian Burnell's British / US nuclear weapons history at http://nuclear-weapons.info

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UK Legislation

The United Kingdom suffers from tens of thousands of pages of complicated criminal laws, and thousands of new, often unenforceable criminal offences, which have been created as a "Pretend to be Seen to Be Doing Something" response to tabloid media hype and hysteria, and political social engineering dogmas. These overbroad, catch-all laws, which remove the scope for any judicial appeals process, have been rubber stamped, often without being read, let alone properly understood, by Members of Parliament.

The text of many of these Acts of Parliament are now online, but it is still too difficult for most people, including the police and criminal justice system, to work out the cumulative effect of all the amendments, even for the most serious offences involving national security or terrorism or serious crime.

Many MPs do not seem to bother to even to actually read the details of the legislation which they vote to inflict on us.

UK Legislation Links

UK Statute Law Database - is the official revised edition of the primary legislation of the United Kingdom made available online, but it is not yet up to date.

UK Commissioners

UK Commissioners some of whom are meant to protect your privacy and investigate abuses by the bureaucrats.

UK Intelligence Agencies

Intelligence and Security Committee - the supposedly independent Parliamentary watchdog which issues an annual, heavily censored Report every year or so. Currently chaired by the Conservative Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Why should either the intelligence agencies or the public trust this committee, when the untrustworthy ex-Labour Minister Hazel Blears is a member ?

Anti-terrorism hotline - links removed in protest at the Climate of Fear propaganda posters

MI5 Security Service
MI5 Security Service - links to encrypted reporting form removed in protest at the Climate of Fear propaganda posters

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Secure Your Fertiliser - advice on ammonium nitrate and urea fertiliser security

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Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure - "CPNI provides expert advice to the critical national infrastructure on physical, personnel and information security, to protect against terrorism and other threats."

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Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) recruitment.

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Government Communications Headquarters GCHQ

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National Crime Agency - the replacement for the Serious Organised Crime Agency

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Defence Advisory (DA) Notice system - voluntary self censorship by the established UK press and broadcast media regarding defence and intelligence topics via the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee.

Foreign Spies / Intelliegence Agencies in the UK

It is not just the UK government which tries to snoop on British companies, organisations and individuals, the rest of the world is constantly trying to do the same, regardless of the mixed efforts of our own UK Intelligence Agencies who are paid to supposedly protect us from them.

For no good reason, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office only keeps the current version of the London Diplomatic List of accredited Diplomats (including some Foreign Intelligence Agency operatives) online.

Presumably every mainstream media organisation, intelligence agency, serious organised crime or terrorist gang keeps historical copies, so here are some older versions of the London Diplomatic List, for the benefit of web search engine queries, for those people who do not want their visits to appear in the FCO web server logfiles or those whose censored internet feeds block access to UK Government websites.

Campaign Button Links

Watching Them, Watching Us - UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign
UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign

NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card
NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card and National Identity Register centralised database.

Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.
Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.

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FreeFarid.com - Kafkaesque extradition of Farid Hilali under the European Arrest Warrant to Spain

Peaceful resistance to the curtailment of our rights to Free Assembly and Free Speech in the SOCPA Designated Area around Parliament Square and beyond
Parliament Protest blog - resistance to the Designated Area restricting peaceful demonstrations or lobbying in the vicinity of Parliament.

Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans
Data Retention is No Solution - Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans.

Save Parliament: Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)
Save Parliament - Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)

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Open Rights Group

The Big Opt Out Campaign - opt out of having your NHS Care Record medical records and personal details stored insecurely on a massive national centralised database.

Tor - the onion routing network
Tor - the onion routing network - "Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves."

Tor - the onion routing network
Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor - useful Guide published by Global Voices Advocacy with step by step software configuration screenshots (updated March 10th 2009).

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Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign

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BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

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NGO in a box - Security Edition privacy and security software tools

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Home Office Watch blog, "a single repository of all the shambolic errors and mistakes made by the British Home Office compiled from Parliamentary Questions, news reports, and tip-offs by the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team."

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Reporters Without Borders - Reporters Sans Frontières - campaign for journalists 'and bloggers' freedom in repressive countries and war zones.

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Committee to Protect Bloggers - "devoted to the protection of bloggers worldwide with a focus on highlighting the plight of bloggers threatened and imprisoned by their government."

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Icelanders are NOT terrorists ! - despite Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling's use of anti-terrorism legislation to seize the assets of Icelandic banks.

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No CCTV - The Campaign Against CCTV

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I'm a Photographer Not a Terrorist !

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Power 2010 cross party, political reform campaign

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Cracking the Black Box - "aims to expose technology that is being used in inappropriate ways. We hope to bring together the insights of experts and whistleblowers to shine a light into the dark recesses of systems that are responsible for causing many of the privacy problems faced by millions of people."

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Open Rights Group - Petition against the renewal of the Interception Modernisation Programme

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WhistleblowersUK.org - Fighting for justice for whistleblowers