Good Morning All
A future where all our software and data are held online is alarming.
Here in the UK, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act
[appropriately RIP A] was passed in 2000. It was to allow "police
and other security agencies to carry out surveillance of serious
organised crime and terrorists".
According to a report in today's Telegraph the RIP A "has since
been taken up by councils to catch those carrying out any "criminal
activity" "
There are literally hundreds of such civil 'councils' in the UK,
town, borough, district and county and I guess hundreds more bodies
who are authorised bodies under this Act.
And as I understand it authorised bodies can obtain ANY information
they want about our activities including our on line activities under
the Act.
For Example under the Act it is a criminal offence for my ISP to tell
me even if I ask, whether any such body is using the Act to obtain
information about me or my on line activities: however it is
required to give such an authorised body whatever information they ask for!
Too often we hear the mantra "If you have nothing to hide you have
nothing to worry about" Oh Really?
The above Telegraph report today states the RIP A was used by Poole
borough council to legitimately 'spy' on a family. This family was
suspected of having moved house a mile down the road to ensure they
were living in the catchment area of a popular school they wanted
their nipper to attend when she was 5 years old !!!
Using anti-terrorist legislation to check on a rising 5 year old's
school entitlement is astonishing, but it really is not surprising.
Benjamin Franklin said "They that can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"
I for one abhor the thought of putting my confidential data on
line: all my letters and emails; all our sensitive legal
information; contractual advice; my accounts; other people's accounts?
I readily accept under this Act I have to pass my encryption key to
authorised bodies if they want to see encrypted material I send on
line ... but they have to ask me.
If all my data is already on line, they can browse at will without my
permission or knowledge.
Acknowledging human frailty ... if it can be done it will be done ...
approved or not.
I go with Franklin
Yours aye
Ike Dawson
At 20:18 10/04/2008, you wrote:
<snipped>
As you probably know, software is going online now so we won't have
to install so much and it prevents piracy. Check out:
www.photoshop.com/express for their first release of Photo Shop
software online!
I'd really like to see Sun do this with Open Office!!
Greg in Ohio
Google Docs can upload and download text documents and spreadsheets
in OpenOffice format ...
Greg,
I went to Thinkfree.com and they don't support ODF documents. I
searched their support and couldn't find anything on it. Not a good
start in my books.
I for one like the idea of on-line storage and software but there
are major privacy and security issues that have to be resolved
first. Are my documents under the same legal protections that cover
my files on my laptop? How about the secure connection between the
server and client?
How secure are my keys? I think of Hushmail that was supposed to
provide a service of secure and encrypted mail. They decrypted mail
for various legal groups. Before I replied, I did a search and
found many posts about Google docs not actually deleting files when
the were supposed to. Will there be a file that I deleted many
years ago come back to haunt me?
The other issue is many software suppliers want to get into this
method of software for the benefit of selling subscriptions. Make
money by the month on your account. If the software is on my
computer, I can view and work with the software at anytime without
paying a cent.
This is not a bad idea but I know from experience, it isn't that
great in a large scale operation. We have various servers that
provide similar services but it just isn't as productive as having
the application native on the local machine.
On my local machine, I have full control of the files.
--
Robin Laing
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.519 / Virus Database: 269.22.12/1372 -
Release Date: 10/04/2008 17:36
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
