I’ve had to calm a few people regarding this subject in recent days, and would like to weigh in a little reality based on past experience of governments making requests they really aren’t willing to pay for. So let’s lay down some facts. 1. Is it possible to monitor an entire country’s Internet usage and phone calls? Yes. 2. Is it economically viable? No. Asking the lights of BT to monitor all their customers simply adds a MASSIVE cost to their operations, which you can be sure they will pass onto the government.

Being as cheap as possible (in our interests, of course) - the solution will be half-arsed, outdated before it even goes live, and won’t help prevent the next major tragedy. In short - BT will be legally obligated to store a bunch of useless information, at great expense. Retrieving that information also has cost, so that will be on a ‘only when we really have to’ basis - which is normally too late anyway.

So I really don’t think there’s a great deal to worry about here. And as I’ve said before, if they really do stump up the cash for real time monitoring (well, as real time as a bureaucracy gets) - you can be sure the daily Internet usage report for Britain will be six billion requests to the Tor network and nothing much else.

	Posted April 2, 2012
	Written by John Payne