Daily Archives: 6 October 2013

While my toung is looser …

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There’s been a lot of talk about British values recently in political circles.

I am very proud to be Welsh and of Welsh culture, tradition and history. I also identify with a Celtic identity. I very much like living in Bristol which is great. I do not consider that by being Welsh that I am in any way better or superior to anyone else or to anyone of any other nationality or identity. I’ve said – probably repeatedly – that I respect all.

It may have been said in different terms. Isn’t that British values? Shall I clarify? It’s not nationality or belief system …  Actually I have to refine it much more than that … I am not prejudiced according to nationality or belief system but perhaps allow people to show themselves to be nasty.

To return to the idea of British values. I would hope that the concept of British values would include the idea of coming to the aid of those unfairly persecuted, of gross injustices, to oppose – previous – corrupt governments, etc. Doesn’t the concept of British values include standing up to and holding corruption – whatever the scale – to account?

Edit: Shouldn’t we try to get it out of the way now?

Later Edit: Probably should have said more about the democratic right of criticising politicians especially since I was so good and spot on about it.

 

 

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About Tor, allsorts and my story

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I was thinking of deciphering this article on Tor for my readers. While it’s an interesting article it’s quite difficult to follow even if  you’re familiar with Tor.

There are a few interesting points like it’s never been possible to identify a tor user from a specific request and the way to go is to compromise (hack into) the user’s computer e.g. by luring them to a dodgy website. What the not possible to identify a user means is that it’s not been possible to go in reverse through tor from the e.g. website viewed. I was aware of government-funded sites that host malware – my previous blog was blacklisted with search engines because of comments with links (probably) to them.

Infection through a browser is a standard practice not necessarily involving the use of Tor. A possible attack vector would be to compromise (hack into) a cheap webhost and wait until the target webhost client connects to make a post. Cheap webhosts are not going to have good security: they’re cheap through cutting corners on everything. They’re certainly not going to be any match to government agencies.

Chances are that the software will not work straight away and the victim could notice some strange effects e.g. the keyboard not working properly until the spy software was tinkered with and tweaked. Somebody could very easily notice that their keyboard was playing up, especially when it returned to normal because that’s strange and unusual.

Anyway, in the prism and related documents that the article refers to there are many references to terrorists. It’s much easier to spy on perfectly law-abiding and respectable people if you first assign them to that category called suspected terrorist. I don’t like that label and I don’t like being spied on.

It seems to me that I may have to help to get rid of this label, so I’ll start by saying that it should be quite obvious that I have had an issue with alcohol. That’s a start. I’m likely to say far more which involves telling my story and also – by extension – involves identifying the real terrorists. They are former Home Secretaries, Prime Ministers and police chiefs. I am firmly of the opinion that there are very few real terrorists outside of government agencies because that is what my research and experience is telling me. Interested?

Edit: Can we have some relevant leaks please?

 

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