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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."
"According to sources, the wholesale value of the allegedly pirated music may be as high as $60 million"
Then again, the music could be mostly Backstreet Boys, Brittney Spears, and N'Sync, in which case the value of the music is closer to $60.
Why would someone committing computer-related illegal activities store anything on their ISP's servers? That's just begging for the systems administrator to find it themselves, and report you for something (assuming it violates their ethics code).
One of the strongest truths in anything that isn't necessarily legal, or could be interpretted as not legal, is that you don't leave any evidence that others can control. If you're really smart, you leave no evidence at all, period, but if you do leave something, make sure that it is in your control, and your control alone.
The other thing that I'm shuddering about is the possible downtime effects that this has on everyone else who uses the equipment for fully legitimate purposes. Suddenly, the possibility of server outages, network outages, and other miscellaneous service problems ensue, especially if a federal entity decides that equipment itself is to be confinscated as evidence, and they don't take care to properly handle what mess they leave behind.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Does this mean I have to give up my downloaded copies of the 'Crocodile Hunter'?
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?
they have gone through the court system the raid is when they turn up with the nice little court documents that says they can look at whatever they want
big corporates get the same treatment that your local drug dealer gets its called equality i know thats a hard concept for some to grasp
From the American Library Associations website: http://www.ala.org/alonline/news/2003/030224.html# santafe I was horrified to read that a man was hamdcuffed and brought in for perfectly harmless (but anti-Bush) chat in a library. Read the article and shiver. This story along with the Patriot Act II http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/02200 3Winslow/022003winslow.html has me very scared for my basic rights. These scenarios are coming home fast, it's good to watch Australia and Britan to see what's in store.
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It can happen that way.
I've actually seen this first hand (under slightly diferent circumstances). They don't charge in with guns drawn, but they do appear without notice, in considerable numbers, bearing appropriate warrants and court orders, and secure anything that they might consider evidence. Which may be your mail server.
The idea is to preserve the evidence, but the way they go about it is misguided and unnecessary more often than not.
Wouldn't be the first time the AFP have overreacted.
Just got done reading this. When it comes to computer "crime" they do seem to have the approach of trying to swat an ant with a sledgehammer.
They're also a bunch of racist bastards if the book is to be believed.
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
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...