SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Guardian reports:
Theresa May has reportedly moved to quash an attempt by her cabinet colleague Sajid Javid to improve mobile phone coverage by warning that the plans could aid terrorists, according a leaked letter.
[...] May argues in the leaked internal Whitehall letter that Javid’s plans to end “not-spots”, by allowing customers to roam between rival networks, could aid criminals and terrorists. The Times reported that May’s objections centre around concerns that roaming would make it more difficult for the agencies to track suspects.
In the letter, extracts of which have been published in the Times, May says that national roaming “could have a detrimental impact on law enforcement, security and intelligence agency access to communications data and lawful intercept”.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MrNemesis on Thursday November 06 2014, @01:34PM
Indeed, I had no idea that GCHQ's panopticon was so weak as to be defeated by something that's been in the GSM network since the year dot.
Reading between the lines, all I can think of that would make anything harder would be a slight change in the monitoring procedure so that when a flag it put on terrieristX who subscribes to networkY you'd also need to submit to networkZ as well. Since there are only three major networks in the UK (vodafone, O2 and EE [themselves a coalition of orange and t-mobile]) this would make next to no difference.
More telling is the glee the mobile operators are displaying at the prospect of a speed bump. They've already had their outrageously overpriced roaming charges to/from europe limited, and they've been just as scared of having to open up their towers to access from everyone in the UK. A cynical person might wonder if the incumbent mobile networks had had a quiet word in the gov's shell-like to do anything possible to stymie such a move under any pretence whatsoever, and May always gives great value for money in that regard.
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."