Talk:Communications Capabilities Development Programme

"Since the stories started appearing they have been criticised by a number of sources". Does "they" refer to criticism of the Government, or of the stories?

Maybe you should add a section on whether CCDP will even achieve the stated aims of the CONTEST programme - which all appear to be oriented around terrorism.

IMHO, terrorists are unlikely to be caught by the CCDP programme unless they are spectacularly stupid. It is unlikely, for example, that they would communicate using plaintext over a public commercial network. Either they will employ the kind of tradecraft that spies are famous for (communicating via seemingly innocuous code phrases in public channels), or they will use the freely available military grade encryption that has been available since the release of PGP.

Example scenario : Terrorists wish to coordinate an attack. The cells involved find wifi hotspots or internet cafes near their targets, or just use 3G dongles. One member of each cell has a laptop with a popular military style FPS game installed (e.g. Counter Strike). The cell members play on the same server until their superior officer issues a "GO" order, which the cell member relays to his cell. This would be completely innocuous in terms of network traffic - people issue orders in squad based FPS games all the time. You could even make the order a specific juvenile insult to blend in completely.

If you can't achieve the stated aims of the CONTEST programme with CCDP, then Occam's Razor comes into play - what's the simpler explanation? What capabilities DOES it provide?

  • The ability to data mine the UK population to an unprecedented degree
    • Corporate interests would love to get their hands on this data and will lobby for access to it
    • Politicians will use this data to predict and manipulate the mood of the UK population
  • The ability to data mine a specific individual to an unprecedented degree
    • The power over the individual that this gives any corrupt entity with access to the data is frightening
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