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Australian Federal Police Raid Major ISPs
pflodo writes "The Australian (newspaper) has an article about Telstra the major Australian ISP and other 'declined to name' ISPs that have been raided by Australian Federal Police to 'seek the identity of particular subscribers' in relation to their activity and files stored on the ISP's servers. I imagine they will eventually raid some domestic homes and make a scapegoat of some unfortunate teenagers."
From the tone of this article it strikes me that the police suspect the ISPs of criminal complicity in regards to their subscriber's alleged actions.
Is this how it normally works down under?
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Does anyone know if the ISP's were monitoring the users pipes? Or is this simply a case of 'If you left it in your user space on their machine you're up the creek sans paddle'?
Fnord.sig
It seems like the Aussies have taken a page or two from the US's "Big Book O' Terrorism" manual.
.au geeks that have lived in the US and would care to compare/contrast the two in terms of rights, both real and perceived?
Any
that the ISPs were accessed without prior warning and traffic monitored for a small amount of time, and previous traffic recorded, as well as reviewing all of the websites held on the server. As I understand it it is not unheard of in America either.
What I want to know is, what exactly constitutes "copyrighted material" legally here in Australia.
I have a bunch of SNES ROM's and anime (series, music and movies) that have no licencing in Australia. I also have some PlayStation ISO's, same deal. The anime/game wasn't released in Australia (or in any PAL territory, with some of them), so the only way that I could get it was online.
If it were possible for me to have acquired this stuff another way, I'd have done it...
Is that kind of thing considered illegal?
Now they can read whats on your computer screen! Whats next? Roaming through college dormitories in search of students downloading music and porno when they aren't over 21 yet? Do we need to bring a legal fiasco back into the mix? Did those admins that knew what was being downloaded really deserve to be locked up instead?
Wow. Search warrents for allowing people to download music...hope it doesn't trickle down to everybody.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
Presumably, there could be some kind of ISP credit rating to add accountability and prevent consumers from rapidly switching ISPs to circumvent scrutiny. Privacy premium Internet access could be granted based on records of responsible online citizenship and satisfaction on the ISPs part that the subscriber wouldn't do anything illegal and get them into trouble.
Would it be possible to convince ISPs to implement such an 'Iron Curtain' feature or would it qualify as aiding terrorists, like purchasing narcotics does? *sigh*
My guess is that these dollar figure likely assume that every copy of a song downloaded results in a lost record sale so the record labels can cry "boo-hoo" all the way to the bank. However, just because I have the Rocky theme on my hard drive doesn't mean that I would have run out to the store and plunked down $13 bucks for the CD otherwise.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Raid is a strong word and in this case a little excessive I think. The report says te police turned up with a search warrent and computer forensics experts. I suspect they got the cooperation of the ISP rather than close down Telstra (which has i dunno 50% of the internet market in Australia) by taking away servers.
I always thought small fry p2p users just opened their home machines to the network. But there have been stories in the Australian papers recently that suggest that ISPs are actually hosting p2p fodder on their own account in order to stimulate traffic. Unless these raids are looking for this type of material or anon ftp sites or stolen space I guess the police are in fact looking at traffic logs a la Verizon.
"Authorities in [your country name here] today raided several warehouses, looking for beer making components in a widespread crackdown on home-brew that several large consortiums claim is responsible for annual corporate loses in the millions."
"Authorities in [your country name here] today raided several warehouses, looking for bolts of fabric in a widespread crackdown on home-made garments that several large consortiums claim is responsible for annual corporate loses in the millions."
"Authorities in [your country name here] today raided several warehouses, looking for metal forging tools and raw materials in a widespread crackdown on home-made bicycles that several large consortiums claim is responsible for annual corporate loses in the millions."
And keep in mind that your tax monies are paying for the police to take action to support these corporations as they reach further and further into your pockets - and your life. Think this is all a reach? Think again...
Hrmmm, that sounds a bit dodgy to me...
Lets think about it, assuming each song is worth $5 (a bit generous but let's be nice...), that makes around 12 million songs. With each song being around 3 MB, that'd be 36,000,000 MB... which is about 34 TB.
Now you can't tell me that any ISP lets customers have that much storage, and they would probably notice if someone, or a small group, was contributing to 34 TB of traffic.
Sounds like someone might be overestimating by a bit don't you think?
- proton
Copyright violation in Australia is a civil offence in Australia, unless you sell the stuff. Search for the word "civil" here.
I know this with a fair amount of certainty, as I was on the end of a similar search warrant during the "drink or die" bust. At the time I was totally mystified as to why, after telling me they were going to search my work place for "copyright violations" and having a search warrant that said they could look for anything illegal under Australia law, they took absolutely no interest in the various CD collections we have, nor did they search any of the workstations for illegal software.
It turned out the target was a guy who used to work here and who did (briefly) have an IRC chat with drink or die after it had been infiltrated. That was how they got our IP. The cops were interested in IRC logs mainly, but I had cleaned up the servers ages ago. His house was later searched and the fed's did find his collection of 200 odd pirated movies. But it was just a hobby - he did not sell anything. I am presuming that is why he has not been charged.
It is a weird hobby if you ask me. It costs more here in Australia to download & burn a movie then it does to hire it, a lot more in fact.
Anyway, there has to be more to this than was reported in the article. For the police to be involved someone must be suspected of selling, or somehow otherwise getting monetary gain out of illegally distributing copyrighted material. Australia's copyright laws may sound lame from what I have said, but if someone is found to of broken the criminal law it won't be a slap on the wrist. They will end up in jail.
Is it possible the MP3 story is a cover for an ongoing investigation into child pr0n ? Perhaps that's what the AFP are actually after but they don't want to tip off the crims, they go to ground very quickly.
There was that story on the news in Australia last night about concern for the whereabouts of a child depicted in a porn photo, those photos don't get out unless someone gets busted. These raids could be a result of that. Just a thought.
-- INTX Grouch. http://www.midnightblue.net
The brochures contain absolutely nothing useful, it's just the standard natural-disaster guff. The general reaction has been that it's a gross waste of money and an exercise in scaring people into sticking with the incumbent government.In fact, many thousands of people, myself included, have written "return to sender" on the wrapper and dropped it back in the post... :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
IF you go to any location where NATO or UN troops are operating you will find a "CD alley" either just outside or even inside the camp.
Last place they were selling DVDs for 5USD. why don't the RIAA go after the UN and NATO, that would be more fun to watch.
When I worked at a major carrier in Australia as a security admin, we had some on staff known as 'LELU' - which from recollection stands for Law Enforcement Lliason Unit. These were the people whom the different law enforcement groups would approach with warrants and requests for subscriber info. Then LELU in turn would approach the security geeks and say 'we need to know which subscriber was on IP address x.x.x.x at 10.30pm GMT+11'.
Not once do I recall a 'raid' of our subscriber info. The LELU process seemed to be a good mechanism for law agencies to work with the techs at the organisation.
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
like me, did anyone else think this was regarding child pornography, and not (as is the case) a trickle of users in the sea that is filesharing, arrested at the behest of record companies?
..priorities, priorities...
<B>note to self:</B> <I>post as html</I>
As a proud nationalistic member of Australia I just wanted to say, Right On.
We have a prime minister that has no problem with defying the wish of the people, because hey, he doesn't have to worry about next election. He's retiring. We have a opposition leader that even with the massive hits the government is taking in polls can't increass his prefered Prime Minister Rating. And we have a Communication Minister who I don't think even knows what a computer is!
Add this the new laws the nationial spy agency has got to crack down on terrorists (eg. the ability to detain without warrent) and the fact that if a member of ASIO does do something that is against the law, you can't identify him/her as it is a federal offence.
Add to this we don't have a bill of rights or anything similer.
Little "Jonny" Howard is a Groupie, The rest of us are just being taken for the ride.
Sigh
"Let's say I steal a $500 stereo. The government might spend $10,000 investigating my crime and imprisoning me. By your argument, "the authorities and lawmakers" would be better off leaving me alone. "
first off, that's NOT what he's talking about. If I read his post correctly, he's talking about collateral damage. It'd be more like if there was a criminal in the house next door to yours, and the government bulldozing your house to erect a barrier around the criminal. Damage was done to others in the name of the investigation by the government. This is a problem. We haven't even gotten into what the investigation itself cost...
" You disgust me. IT'S A CRIME. While you may look at it as a fairly innocent, no harm done crime, it is the law that distributing copyrighted material without the owners permission is illegal. We don't get to choose which laws we obey. Before getting a warrant, police don't think 'I wonder what the negative consequences of this warrant will be?" They think "Someone is breaking the law. I should stop them.'"
Have you looked at the music industry much? Popular musicians have albums go platinum and the industry, selling CDs for $17.95 each, says that the album isn't profitable and barely pays the musician anything. It's to the point that musicians like Moby are going on to talkshows on NPR and telling people that he'd rather them 'steal' his music and listen to it if they aren't going to pay the RIAA for it, rather than it go unheard. Others have come out and directly asked where the money is that the RIAA has asked Congress for regarding pirate-able media taxes, since the artists themselves haven't seen a dime from it, yet the RIAA said it was for the artists' benefit. The entire system is screwed to a pooch, and if the music industry in general isn't willing to adapt itself to meet new demands or new paradigms, it should die.
If you want to compenate a musician for their contribution to society, attend a concert of theirs, or send them a check for $20 or something as gratuity. Don't pay the RIAA any more for their stupid practices.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
If the police have reason to believe that ISP servers hold pirated files (a safe bet), why shouldn't they investigate? If someone had a warehouse stocked with illegal booze, or drugs, would you expect them to look the other way? Or, better yet for this crowd, how about a warehouse full of Linux CD's containing code that violates the GPL?
Regardless of where you stand on this issue, it's silly and naive to expect the police to alter their behavior because of your political opinions.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
What's been happening in Australia lately? It used to be known as one of the most open & welcoming societies. But now with increasing incidents like this, like detention camps for immigrants and the Australian government apparently falling over itself to out-ape the Bush Administration, it's quickly losing that reputation. Can someone from there explain? I can't see feds cracking down on mp3 trading as a result of the Bali bombing.
It could be argued that the "revenue" to the government here is not monetary, but realized by the increased power and authority that are afforded by "War On Drugs".