Not that I have anything to hide, but still this is slightly too much:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle5439604.ece

I am just wondering if they (eg. by mistake) hacked into my computer, could I sue them?

The Home Office have responded:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01..._remote_snoop/

Double post

How do you prove it was by mistake? As they already have the right to do this (since the 90's apparently) whom are you going to hold to account? This is nothing more than the police state slowly exposing itself as it becomes more and more established and entrenched in our lives.

I feel very reassured now that the totally upfront and honest home office has responded

lol silly man you cant really sue the police. it just makes it worse

They often make mistakes, unfortunately, sometimes resulting in tragic consequences. What I meant is a situation when they meant to break into someone else's computer, but due to IPs mix-up they hacked into mine and didn't find anything illegal. Obviously it would be next to impossible to track down the intruder and link it to the government. I guess they wouldn't be hacking from 10 Downing Street

It would be like in Kafka's book 'The Trial' - you must be guilty of something - They are just working to find out what you are guilty of

Sometimes I get the impression that all this terrorist alert has been produced by the government as an excuse to gain more control over us.

Well, yes, that is their goal, that has always been their goal. I hope that at least while I still live, they do not succeed.

Let Ben Franklin's words be known to all who value liberty:

"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security."

It will happen one day, they will have absolute control. It's inevitable. Control such that they can do anything they want and you won't complain, instead you will chant "I love Big Brother". But, I'll tell you something, I'll die before I become a part of that machine. It would be a fate worse than death, it would be a world of zombies ...

I hope that I'm just paranoid and this never happens ... but I think it's not out of the question. The take away your freedoms bit by bit ... the few freedoms that they say you have with plenty of limits on them already ...

Wasn't it like that in the dark ages ?

THEY will be checking what software you have installed. So get rid of all those nmaps, ettercaps, dsniffs, p0fs, and Metasploit Frameworks now!! If you've got Backtrack installed, get ready for looooooooooooooooooooooooong prison sentence.

Certain american politicians are trying to have web anonymity outlawed. Certain uk politicians want to give the police infinite powers. Anyone know where i can buy an underground bunker..!?

Okay, I have a question. I know this is possible in theory, not sure in reality, but since they would have the right to infect you with viruses and key-loggers, if you were to design your own security system that can tell when it is being cracked and were to immediately infect the remote computers computer with a nasty virus of it's own. Would this be illegal since it is only a security measure and was set before the crack? Plus, they say that you would be infected with a virus, so any criminals out there, if you are smart enough, start creating your own operating system or hack an open source one till it is no longer infected by any virus to the original O/S.

I don't live in UK, but how much trouble do you think I would get into for having sub7(which is illegal) on my system?

You guys worry to much most if not all of you guys are using a unix based OS (not that it helps it just makes it VERY HARD for them to infect you, unless you are a complete dumbass and do not check your md5 sums or failing that a PGP keypair)

Seriously think about it, everyone has the ability to fight back, if you have IP's targeting your services pound them back, join up with like 500 unix remote shell accounts in a different countrys and hammer the shit out of that IP out of existence.

What is the government going to do blacklist half the world? good luck with that.
Dn't let goverments push you around, if they hit you for no reason hit them harder, if you really have to hi-jack university's and college computers and use those as ammo too, pound the government back to the stone age, when they give you a ceaset and destest order your ISP's there ISP's and every other box you used has records now that you can use against them.. now you can fight back becuase hey can't shut everyone up, you may pay taxes but that doesnt give them the right to break the laws in there favor then wave any damages off as if nothing happened.

Damage is damage doesn't matter who or what you are you should be responsible for YOUR actions, government or not.
Either respect your own laws you make or smart ass like me will get hundreds of thousands of computers world wide to hammer and shut down that IP. Thats the way me and my friends see it. I dont break laws but if the government is willing to break it's own laws to "check" if I did anything illegal then there are no rules and if there are no rules I can do what I please back to the offending IP(s).

Hell yea, good point ProtoformX. I've always wanted to do that, now I just need to learn how to program so I can do that.
And if anyone wants to do that in the near future because it happened to them, I suggest using IP address assigned to Microsoft as your primary weapon.

It's not that I'm worried, because I don't really believe they would purposefully target MY box (which I like to think is
relatively secure). It's a matter of principles.The awareness that if they wanted they could theoretically do it with impunity.

And now here's the proof that the government knew about 9/11 in 1976!
http://flickr.com/photos/wishbook/581725736/sizes/o/