New powers for police to hack your PC Without A Warrant

Wait, I just realized that police hacking your PC applies to the UK.

Too bad; I live elsewhere

I guess it's just a matter of hardening your PC and hoping for the best. The government has so much power nowadays. Hopefully corruption does not become tooo widespread.

Or you could just pull your modem.

In summary, police can spy on you through:

A) Your ISP
B) Somewhere inbetween your ISP and your modem; interception
C) Hardware keyloggers/eavesdropping ... eg. webcam
D) Physical access to your computer
E) Malware dropped on your PC

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1) You can't really do anything
2) Not much; maybe switch from cable ==> dsl; dsl is a direct 1on1 connection
3) keep your computer locked up in a cabinet
4) " "
5) AntiVirus, common sense, HIPS, firewall, OS hardening, etc. etc.

 

Go back and read the original post again. Quotes:

"Police have been given the power to hack into personal computers without a court warrant. The Home Office is facing anger and the threat of a legal challenge after granting permission. Ministers are also drawing up plans to allow police across the EU to collect information from computers in Britain".


"Last month European ministers agreed in principle to allow police to carry out remote searches of suspects' computers across the EU. Details of the proposal are still being developed by the Home Office and other EU ministries, but critics last night warned it would usher in a vast expansion of police hacking operations."

This applies to the whole of the EU, not just the UK. The reason for the UK Government approving it is because we are now governed by EU law, not UK law.UK authorities will also have the power to hack into computers in other EU countries. Big Brother Rules!

 

Far from off-topic, people in here are asking about their rights to their privacy, and I merely showed there are very few real rights. The EU is even stricter about such things than the U.S is. If you want technical aspects, ok, they need reasonable cause/warrant (at least for now), and they'll go straight to your ISP to get your logs and or/ continue to monitor your activity. They don't need to "backdoor" you, some here are getting a bit complicated. They don't even need to go the trojan route, all they need to do is A: Go the logs/data monitoring route for one target, or, B: Enact a law requiring ISPs to monitor online activity for all customers and store logs for a set number of months/years, which would be the easiest solution for them.

I don't know why anyone continues to think that all these VPNs, proxies and such help. Unless you're using one based in a lawless country who answers to no one, say, Somalia, governments can be "enticed" to help another government find you if the need is really there. No matter who or what hides your IP for you, someone knows it, or else you wouldn't even be able to connect. Last thing, the Executive Orders aren't going to be gone soon, they are there for situations such as nuclear war outbreak or other catastrophes. However, "emergency" is never defined within the usage limits of those powers, so draw from that what you will.

 

all the british police i've come across are a bunch of half-wits, i seriously doubt they can be trusted sending viruses to remote computers without infecting their own computers first and getting themselves in trouble with the contents for their HDDs.

and the eu is about the only thing i really hate with a passion, they're now trying to ratify the constitution for a 3rd time after two no votes already, they're keep voting on it untill it gets through - scum!

 

In matters of national security governments have always had the "right" to search anything they want without a warrant. Ie. even if it is illegal, they do it anyway.

But then they did this with the mail, conversations, hidden cameras etc etc. If you come to the attention of your government as a threat, you have a serious problem in maintaining privacy.

A friend of mine served in Northern Ireland and they would dig hidden bunkers next to IRA hideouts and live in them for days at a time, living like rats, crapping into ziploc bags and all that. All just to get close enough for short-range surveillance to operate. If people are prepared to go to these lengths there is not a lot you can do about it.

In terms of IT - I guess and I hope that they have some of the top minds in the world on the job. Because we do want them to be watching terrorists don't we? I do want them to catch paedophiles but I don't want to be watched when I'm innocent. Trouble is you can't have it both ways.

 

Some ultra paranoid people here.

For wireless make sure you're using WPA2 with a strong password.
For internet security do your usual deeds and you will be fine. You're not going to open an email or get a trojan installed on your pc.

The only way they could do it is with physical access to the pc at which point you must have done something pretty bad to justify those actions.

 

I'm sure you simply misstated. If they go to that extent you must be suspected of doing something pretty bad to justify that. Big difference.

 

Please define "suspected". For certain judicial entities dark hair, brown eyes and a name derived from Arabic seem to be enough to "suspect" people, whereas the normal human mind usually demands a reason.

There's the recent case of security police failing to get a guy convicted of terrorism despite extensively (and illegaly) wiretapping his phone and despite the fact that their bare word is considered evidence in court, so they got him busted for an alleged minor health security fraud instead. You don't have to commit anything, and you can always be made guilty of something, no matter how irrelevant and at least by association; the rest depends on who and where you are. Only if you know your place and never speak up (and avoid being born in the Middle East) I'd say you're reasonably secure.

 

Elapsed made a blanket statement. Go back and read it in my post above. That statement is wrong and goes right along with what you're saying. In other words, you agree with me.

 

Yes, probably. It's just that I've been brought up to think that "suspicion" is supposed to be based on some actual, relevant fact. Elapsed's statement is incorrect, and yours is too optimistic, since today you don't have to do anything bad and you don't have to be a suspect in the sense of the word that democracies are expected to apply, to become a victim of governmental snooping. Just look at the Russians having a considerable part of their Internet traffic monitored by the Swedish NSA. In some countries, including mine, being of Palestinian origin may be enough to bring on police harassment but it's definitely not a valid reason for "suspicion".

 

The only thing that leads to is more encryption, higher encryption, and more proxying. Another game of cat and mouse, the people that don't want to be snooped on will find ways around it.

 

lol http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/10/uk_police_can_n.html

you can use that 'fake bottom' (i'm not sure what it's called) in truecrypt though, whereby you have a hidden encrypted volume within tha main volume.

 

I see what you're saying. Well, I agree with you, but we're splitting hairs over "suspicion." You are right in that the suspicion may not be valid and based only on profiling by skin color, nation of origin, etc. I agree - it happens everyday.

 

As long as

A) They are not abusing their rights/powers
B) You have no incriminating evidence.

 

I read this article.

what do they mean by hand over encryption keys?

I would of thought instead it would be hand over passwords?

because technically encryption keys and passwords are not the same thing or are they?

 

You can encrypt incriminating evidence. You need a decryption key.

 

It doesn't have to be incriminating evidence. It could be personal finances, a diary, legal adult porn or whatever. Fact is it's no one's business unless there is hard evidence of criminal activity. And even then this evidence needs to be evaluated and scrutinized and validated. Otherwise it is just a "free for all" and is no different than Nazi Germany.