e-nsecure.net blog - Comments on IT security and Privacy or the lack thereof.
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solarider blog
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Shaphan
Moving On
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Al-Muhajabah's Sundries - anglophile blog
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rabenhorst - Kai Billen
(mostly in German)
Nearly Perfect Privacy - Tiffany and Morpheus
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BLOGDIAL
MySecured.com - smart mobile phone forensics, information security, computer security and digital forensics by a couple of Australian researchers
Ralph Bendrath
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Ban this sick terrorism-enabling filth!
Seriously, did you copy this article from the Daily Mail?
@ Rik - obviously not.
Unlike the mainstream media or the Government, Spy Blog always gives URL links back to online sources which are quoted from.
Which parts of this article do you think are not true ?
Tesco seem to have a few phone bargains at present. In addition to the one you highlight, they have one tied to T-Mobile for £8.97 (LG GB102) including SIM, and one tied to Tesco Mobile for £14.97 (Nokia 1208) including SIM and £10 call credit. All in Tesco Extra stores for cash.
There may be even more, or other supermarket offers, but not wanting another phone, I haven't looked further.
They call it a ‘Party phone’. We’ll call it the ‘detonator’.
@ Gadzooks - any mobile phone could be used as a "detonator" for a bomb, either as a simple timing device or via SMS text message etc. and unfortunately, many have been so used in the past.
High specification smart phones now come with built in GPS chips and motion sensors or accelerometers, and extra BlueTooth and WiFi radio systems, which could add to the possible remote trigger scenarios.
They could also be used to make life more difficult for bomb disposal experts, by detecting movement or changes in radio signal strength through software, if they are disturbed or approached.
What I don't understand is why they dont use Telephone blockers in prisons. These tools are available (http://www.qcc.co.uk/products/) and surely the benefit of stopping convicted criminals continuing to opperate inside a prison outweighs the cost of the equipment?
@ Chris Brown - most British prisons are situated in or close to densley populated areas.
If you simply jam or block the mobile phone signals, then you will also create mobile phone black spots which will affect the surrounding areas.
Given that over half of 999 / 112 emergency services phone calls are made by mobile phone, such a policy would inevitably lead to unnecessary death, injury and suffering or property damage or theft, by interfering with the Emergency Services system.
The Ministry of (In)Justice, who have been lumbered with Prisons, need to invest in mobile phone micro-cells like in Airports etc, to grab and control and accurately locate any local mobile phone handsets which are active, without blocking 999 phone calls.
It would be far more cost effective and useful to install "see through your clothes" passive millimetre wave or backscatter X-ray or teraherz scanning machines at every prison, instead of inflicting them on millions of innocent people at airports
I note that the IMEI number is printed prominently on the box together with a barcode. I doubt this is scanned at the checkout when buying the phone but it could be used to keep a record of which store sold a particular phone.
As regards the use of mobile phones as detonators, surely a phone which can be set to ring or vibrate when a call comes from a specific number is a 'safer' choice, because - to quote the Jackal - getting away safely is just as important as the deed itself. These phones ring the same for everyone which isn't a problem, unless one of the sharks from Excel calls to ask if you're happy with your current mobile contract, just as you're planting your bomb.
@ Secret Squirrel - the barcode label / IMEI of every mobile phone is almost certainly recorded in the manufacturer / retailer logistics chain of stock control and financial accounting computer systems.
You can get almost all mobile phones to display the IMEI simply by entering *#06 usually then followed by pressing the "call" button.
The Madrid train bomb attacks in 2004 were triggered by the Alarm function of the Trium mobile phone detonators. One of the bombs was found before it exploded, because it had been set to go off around 8 PM in the evening, rather than 8 AM in the morning like the others.
See Spy Blog Mobile Phones and the Madrid bombs
The IRA developed, years ago, mobile phone bomb detonators which used two different phones and a simple electronic circuit, to either act as a two staging priming and safety device, or to resist jamming or local network congestion of one of the mobile phone networks.
A couple of "former" IRA terrorists (the Colombia Three) were arrested in 2001 and convicted in 2004 for allegedly "training" the local FARC narco-terrorist / kidnappers in Colombia in that technique and others like lorry borne mortar bombs etc.
Suspiciously, they mysteriously fled back to Ireland before they were due to spend 17 years in prison - perhaps they were involved in an intelligence gathering mission against FARC.