Category: Privacy and Data Protection

Posted on

How Do Cameron and Obama Are Going to Forbid This?

cipherThis is – the news is as recent as today – what the Italian Polizia di Stato found during a Ndrangheta (organized crime from Calabria) related investigation.

Although the cipher, in this case, is not that hard to handle for an expert codebreaker it shows that “old school” systems still work.

So, following the announced ban of side-to-side encryption application made by US Presidente Obama and UK Prime Minister Cameron (coupled with the statement by Italian Home Affair Ministry) I wonder how they’re going to fight this “new”, dangerous way to exploit the encryption.

Maybe outlawing paper and pencil?

Posted on

The Italian Home Affair Minister To Call For Another Internet Crackdown

In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, as a way to improve the “safety” of the citizen, the Italian Home Ministry Affair, Alfano (a right-winger) ? called for:

  • a “registration” of “dangerous” websites,
  • a further enhancement of the ISPs duty to block access to
    (terrorism-related) Internet resources,
  • an exception to the data-protection regulation, to allow the law
    enforcement agencies to easily access “sensitive” data.

This is an exploitation of the recurring rhetorical locus: “enhance safety needs the fundamental rights to be weakened”.
It is easy to answer with an often quoted statement by Benjamin Franklin:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

But this is not the point.

From a “terrorism” fighting point of view, what Alfano is calling for is simply useless.

If the target is to gather as much information as possible to prevent new attacks, blacklisting websites obviously doesn’t help. It neither stops terrorists from talking each-other, nor allows to spot upcoming threats.

If the target is to gather advance information to run “pre-emptive actions”, it is useless to “weaks” the data-protection regulation to ease the law enforcement agencies access to “sensitive” (i.e. political-related) information. Those who need a fast and direct access to such king of information, in fact, are the secret services (whose activities are neither handled nor reported to a magistrate) and not the law enforcement bodies, that can only act, in Italy, AFTER a crime has been committed (having, in this case, full access to everything they need, under the control of the public prosecutor.)

Then, a couple of questions:

  • why does Alfano calls for measures that don’t help fighting terrorism, but allow a crackdown against normal citizens?
  • why the ISPs should be burdened to act as censors and central scrutinizer on behalf of the government?
Posted on

The Roman Catholic Church Knows Better (about privacy and the Internet)

Monsignor Nunzio Galantino, the secretary of the Conferenza Episcopale Italiana (the permanent assembly of Roman Catholic Bishops) stated that (my translation)

The Internet is useful and effective, but the price we pay in term of privacy is huge

and, talking about the Data Protection Authority, he said

I don’t understand what these useless entities are worth for.

Of course he’s right, but the Italian Data Protection Commissioner (obviously) has a different opinion claiming that (again, my translation)

It is rather odd to call as useless the only entity that – within its powers – has always defended the human dignity from the “mud machine” 1, and from the plots arranged by those who want to turn the Internet into a space of violence and outlaws, form the totalitarian logic of the man-in-a-fishbowl.

Is this the same Data Protection Authority that failed to address the issues of the Telindus Router, the Android Spyware Case, The Pirate Bay Case, the Aruba Case, the Sony BMG rootkit case, that didn’t say a single word (while being informed) about the security concerns in relationship to the upcoming massive, trial-related personal data flood originated by the online shift of the Italian Civil Trial System, and that wasn’t able to prevent the leak of a confidential report?

 

  1. The reference is to a journalism idiomatic meaning the use of the media machine to soil somebody’s reputation ↩
Posted on

Apple’s New Security Policy: Just a PR Stunt?

Apple announced not to be able anymore to hack into IOS8-based devices because of its “privacy-by-design” development strategy. Thank to this choice, according to Tim Cook, quoted by The Washington Post,

it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.

Since the fantasy of both lawyers and judges knows no limit, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear, in the next future, about some claim for “contributory criminal activity” filed against Apple based on the deliberate choice of giving “unbreakable weapons” to terrorist, paedophiles and copyright infringers.

When this scenario will become real, it will be interesting to see whether Apple remains stuck into his “libertarian” position risking a trial for contempt of the court, or negotiates over its users with the powers-that-be.

Then, and only then, we will be able to check if this “privacy commitment” was a genuine attitude or just the next marketing trick.

Posted on

The Data Protection Authority Leak And The (Now) Hard To Find Article

The title that links the article about the leaked Italian Data Protection Authority secret report is no more easily accessible on Repubblica.it (the newspaper that did the scoop.) There is no trace of this link in the home-page, and the title is missed in the Technology section.

If you are quick enough, a one minute short video clip gives you the possibility to click an anonymous link (labelled “Leggi su Repubblica.it” – “Read it on Repubblica.it”) and finally the article comes on screen.

Technically speaking, then, the article is still online but now in a hard-to-find form. And this is rather odd, because other older and less important articles (such as the valueless research on the personal data selling price) are still featured in the technology section of this newspaper.