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Comment by nicholassmith | Hacker News Reader

It's so trivial to work around this that I'm stunned they're even bothering to implement it. As we've heard over various stories recently terrorist groups were doing such varied things as steganography, if they've managed to work out how to do that I'm sure they've sussed VPNs, anonymous proxies and disposable network points.

Pointless and makes my life as a British citizen more awkward as I'll having to put all my network traffic off through something rather than leaving it as a nice, simple internet connection.

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If you are routing your traffic through VPN and anon proxies or use Tor then you must be a terrorist!

Totally retarded, but I bet they will look at your traffic harder if you did this, even though I have nothing to hide...

Interesting read from something that was posted on HN yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4105485

My understanding is that they need a warrant to look at the log of your traffic. Presumably they'd need to look at the log of your traffic in order to see if you're using a VPN or Tor.

So what you're suggesting means they'd need to look at your traffic without a warrant in order to determine if they need a warrant to look at your traffic.

[edit] Also, presumably they can already get a warrant to tap your traffic. All this new legislation means is that they can look at historic traffic too?

Don't get me wrong. I am British, and I do think it's fucking disgusting. But don't forget, it's just a proposal.

[edit2] I was wrong. It seems they wont need a warrant to see who you're talking to. Just a warrant to see what you're saying. So yes, I guess they'll be able to tell that you're using a VPN without getting a warrant first.

Don't know to be honest, unless EVERYONE is running encrypted traffic/VPN/Tor then the few that are using it stick out like a sore thumb. It is bound to raise some suspicion. I am British too btw and hoping it is just a proposal at the moment, but these things have a way of being watered down to make them "more acceptable" or revived under a different guise still have a whilst still have the core concepts in them.

Problem is I don't trust our government with our data, they've shown sheer incompetence far too many times when it comes to IT systems. And it's always a case of do as we say, not as we do as the expenses scandal and the current Leveson enquiry is showing.

That was one of the more interesting parts to come out, the clever word politik of saying 'only terrorists, paedos or criminals would dare to be upset about this'. So ordinary man thinks "I'm neither of those 3, rummage away".

when the percentages of people that use these kinds of technologies are low then yes, it's a big sign to the spooks that "LOOK AT ME, I'M PROBABLY DOING SOMETHING INTERESTING"

... this is the reason several people I know don't use PGP signed/encryted email.

Note that this is a recurring theme. Two possible explanations:

1. It's trivial for you. Is it as trivial or convenient for the average Joe? Tor is slower and more restricted in terms of multimedia and VPNs and other proxy/routing services cost money and while not hard to implement, are still beyond the grasp of the average citizen. Of course this immediately prompts the question of whether this is intended as a security measure at all since only the average citizen will be affected.

2. I suspect that this is more about legislative precedence than it is about actual implementation. Governments are forever forcing new surveillance measures. The common people ignore them and the techies resolve to bypass them technically. But the politically harm is already done. Before we know it there will be hundreds of these laws and measures passed and when we finally realize it, it will be very hard to persuade the bureaucrats that implemented them in the first place to remove them.

1. It's trivial for you.

I used to think like this until a recent conversation between 2 cousins on facebook concerning the nautically naughty bay.. I had a bit of a shock seeing one of my "knuckle dragging, mouth breathing" (my words) relatives spouting on about VPNs etc. and getting it mostly right. I suspect if it's a choice between not accessing certain sites and learning you'll be surprised at how quickly people will learn.

Okay true, trivially for me is not trivial for all. However, VPNs are already familiar to a large group of users who've used them for business, including a lot of straight forward guides on the internet. If you can work out how to follow the instructions you're sorted.

It is not a simple internet connection already. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebMinder

>It's so trivial to work around this that I'm stunned they're even bothering to implement it.

This does not matter one iota. People have been spied upon for ages with things that are even more trivial to work around.

Also, that it's trivial to some means nothing, if it's not trivial for others, or if they are not bothered. Can you guarantee that your grandmother or friend will also "work around" this --and other such measures? You don't really believe that they can get information about you only from YOUR system?

Lastly, even if its trivial to bypass and useless, it raises the Overton Window. Society accepts that --already an unthinkable level of surveillance 2-3 decades ago--, and they'll come up with something more intrusive next time.

Plus, they make the laws. If they can get away with that one, they could also get away with outlawing "working around it", and all related tools.

In that case, they don't even need to "break" Tor to get people. They can execute some warrant search to your house (for whatever reason), or even a routine laptop search at the airport, and arrest them if they see such a tool MERELY installed on it.

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