You are being watched!

Did you know that in the UK, companies are not allowed to build mobile phone networks or mobile phones unless it has the facility for the government to monitor the communication on the devices.

The Blackberry phone had the most secure messaging service, as they use their own private data encryption and their own private servers. This has led to the Blackberry being banned from some countries, because authorities objected to messages being sent that they can not monitor. Blackberry are now starting to comply to these government rules, by allowing messages to be copied to government servers.

Police and secret security services have been listen in to telephone conversations, landline and mobiles, intercepting text messages, and even have the powers to see what websites you have visited as they have access to a huge central database which logs every call and even every web page that every person has visited!

In America, NSA have been criticised over indulgent call listening in, and the FBI has been reported to have the technology to switch on the microphone on any mobile phone, even in ‘power off’ mode.

Thousands of soldiers are now online, defending each of the countries internet defences. Governments all over the world are stepping up their technical capabilities, which now allows soldiers to cyber attack other nations. The US has recently been in the news for activity performing cyber attacks against Iraq.

Back in the UK, new cyber security minister, Lord West, has setup a number of internet based departments not just to deal with internet based crime but to also launch our internet cyber attacks from the UK. This basically means the government can deliberately cause destructive damage to the internet. He said, “We have an ability to do things and we have got very good and very talented people who have worked on this.”