Suspect Nation - tv documentary with Henry Porter, tonight Monday 20th November 2006, 9pm More4
Digital TV channel More4 are showing a documentary "Suspect Nation" tonight at 9pm:
Henry Porter (the Observer journalist famous for his recent email clash with Tony Blair over the paring down of civil liberties) reveals in this unsettling film, our movements are being watched, and recorded, more than ever before.
Today Monday 20 November 2006 9pm
repeat Wednesday 29th November 10pm
We will be interested to see how many of the linked privacy and security issues which we suggested to the programme makers actually make it into this one hour documentary - there are enough for a long series of documentaries.
Will our modest assistance to the contribution of Professor Clive Norris, the criminologist expert on the actual effectiveness of CCTV surveillance systems, make it in to the final cut of the programme ?
Secondly, in a triumphant piece of investigative reporting, Porter demonstrates that the new tools that are supposed to fight terrorism could actually make life easier for those that want to hide their true identity. He meets a security expert who demonstrates just how easy it is to crack into the signals given off from CCTV cameras and by downloading their footage could gain crucial security information from the people they follow (for instance the cameras can be used to work out security protocols inside buildings).
The insecurity of CCTV systems e.g. consumer video conferencing web cameras or professional pan tilt zoom IP cameras connected to the Internet, or those which use the license free Industrial / Scientific / Medical allocated radio frequency bands e.g. 2.4 GHz as used by WiFi wireless networked computers, have been a cause of concern to us for years.
This is also why we object to "community" CCTV schemes which threaten to promise to transmit CCTV surveillance camera images into local community or housing estate cable or broadband internet access schemes.
Not only can the "neighbourhood watch" keep a look out for suspicious drug dealers and thieves, but the drug dealers and thieves can also use the same systems to watch out for the Police or to stalk their victims, or to remotely find out when their properties are empty and vulnerable.
Comments
It looks like they will be demonstrating Adam Laurie's experiments with reading the UK "contactless chip" biometric passports.
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:05 PM
Ipsotek "suspicious behaviour" CCTV software
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:07 PM
Clive Norris - professor of criminology CCTV expert
Heather Brooke -investigative journalist FOIA and Data Protection Act expert
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:08 PM
Data Protection Act - subject data access requests
Ministry of Defence
A Bank ATM
Football Association
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:10 PM
Looks like Starkey's Last Word at 11.05 pm on More4 will gave a panel discussing this program.
http://www.channel4.com/more4/microsites/L/lastword/
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:11 PM
ANPR from a mobile roadside patrol and checkpoint - this is ok, but NOT the centralised generalised snooping.
London's Congestion Charge system - function creep - link to Police National Computer
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:16 PM
Heather filed FOIA requests about the apparent continued surveillance even when the London Congestion Charge is not in operation i.e. at night and weekends.
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:18 PM
National identity Register
49 pieces of data
http://www.no2id.net
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:19 PM
NIR audit trail tracking your life
"electronic black mark"
Childrens Index
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:21 PM
Houses of Parliament coughed up the CCTV images, Ministry of Defence and Football Association did not
TfL said that they keep their London Congestion Charge cameras were not turned off at weekends, because it would be too expensive to do this manually.
Does anyone really believe that this could not be done remotely or on a time switch ?
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:24 PM
US snooping to international calls, domestic US phone records etc.
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:25 PM
Data Mining
ACLU explain the threat of data mining to individual liberty
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:27 PM
US snooping on SWIFT financial transaction including those in the UK
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:28 PM
The question nobody has been asking: "is the rate of return/success of these mass surveillance systems worthwhile, or are they being used for political advantage" ?
We ask that sort question regularly.
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:30 PM
Al Gore about US Bush / Cheney administration's "war on terror" and assault on individual privacy rights etc.
Blanket surveillance is not effective
"looking for needles in haystacks", with more jay being added by the extra surveillance.
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:36 PM
Secret "no-fly lists"
Political opponents added to these lists, not just terrorists e.g. non-violent pacifist anti-war protesters
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:39 PM
Item level RFID tags on goods in supermarkets, and in theory after you have left the shop
supermarket
Surely Henry Porter is not actually going to get a VeriChip installed under his skin is he ?
http://www.spychips.com/blog/verichip/
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:44 PM
Has Henry Porter still got this chip implanted ?
Electronic Frontier Foundation on RFID insecurities of Driving Licences.
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:46 PM
UK biometric "contactless chip" Passport and ID Card.
Adam Laurie's stuff next.
See our posting about his earlier work back in June:
"Investigating the UK "Biometric" Passport with ISO 14443 contactless chip"
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:50 PM
Adam Laurie's The Bunker
http://www.thebunker.net
He got Heather Brooke's mobile phone to be tracked via Location Based services
and used Bluetooth vulnerabilities to get her phone to silently call and "bug" the conversation/
Soho Square WiFi CCTV cameras near the Football Association meeting.
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:54 PM
Adam Laurie also snarfed Henry porter's email from home via his WiFi network.
He also read the VeriChip implanted in Henry's arm.
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:56 PM
Read the UK Passport including the digitised photo, name, date of birth, nationality.
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 9:58 PM
"Terrorists won't be carrying their ID Cards, they will be carrying yours"
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 10:00 PM
All in all, very familiar territory to readers of Spy Blog.
How much of an impact will this program have on the politicians and civil servants ?
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 10:33 PM
However, as with the previous Channel 4 documentary by Peter Hitchens back in February 2006, too large a number of different privacy and security topics were crammed in to one hour - they all deserve at least an hour of explanation on their own.
Posted by: wtwu | November 20, 2006 10:37 PM
He also mentioned that TfL has a retention period of 30 days for CCTV footage. They would then have doubled their retention period since last year when they wrote me that the ‘retention period for recording of stations is fourteen days’ - http://gizmonaut.net/bits/suspect.html#20050831
Henry Porter will also be speaking at Imperial College on Wed 29th. See link to this event and a few others at http://gizmonaut.net/blog/2006/11/18#events-2006-11_12
br -d
Posted by: David Mery | November 21, 2006 1:30 AM
"Suspect Nation" is now on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo0a23YDXLM
[via Heather Brooke's Your Right To Know]
Posted by: wtwu | January 11, 2007 2:55 PM
"Suspect Nation" is no longer available on YouTube, but is still on Google Video
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-4839556520925774502
Posted by: wtwu | February 25, 2007 7:45 AM