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Australian Police Ask Facebook For Police Alarm Button
littlekorea writes "The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has requested social networking site Facebook install a law enforcement representative in Australia and introduce some sort of button in which users can immediately report online crime to the police in a single click. It is National Cyber-Security Awareness Week in Australia, so the AFP is on an all-out offensive — announcing it is also investigating whether Google committed offences under Australia's Telecommunications Interception Act when it harvested Wi-Fi data." Something like this has been in the works for a while.
won't get flagrantly misused
They want to 'develop' into a fascist state off the bad and skip that whole messy democracy stuff
---- Booth was a patriot ----
20 ga-jillion websites in the world, why should facebook and a select few others bear the burden? Australian police want a "report crime" button on a website, put it on their own...you know, where I'd look for one...if i was looking in the first place...whatever the aussie equivalent of dialling 911 is still going to be faster than typing a report into a website...which, in the unlikely event it actually worked, would instantly generate a phone call from the police to the submitter anyway...
can't see the website button getting abused in any way, no siree...
When all of your wishes have been granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed - Marilyn Manson
I have one, but admittedly it requires 3 keypresses not one click.
It's called a cell phone. "9" "1" "1" "Talk"
It works quite well for reporting both online and offline crime.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
What type of crimes to they believe happen (often) on Facebook? And whatever other websites they might have contacted.
I don't see how this would result in anything but meaningless spamming of that "button".
We are all God's parents.
Misused? It's the "correct" usage that is the problem...
They (The governments, cops, the man, whatever) keep trying to lower the treshold of reporting a crime. In theory, this is a good thing: If a crime is committed against me, I might already be upset etc. and should not be forced to jump through additional hoops. However, reporting a crime is notable thing that should be carefully considered. I am not some right wing nutjob who thinks that government should never interfere and whatnot but if someone is harassing you online, you really should think carefully if there is some better way to deal with the situation than involve the cops and the justice system with all its weight! When we aren't talking about crimes that put you or someone you know in immediate danger (in which case you generally should call 911 or its equivalent, not use some online system that isn't designed for that fast response) I think that it is actually better if you are required to visit a police station, call it or at the very minium send a goddam e-mail! If the crime is so insignifcant that you can't be bothered to send an e-mail to report it, perhaps you shouldn't report it!
Think about how people use Facebook. People use it after all the major events in life (break ups, etc.), during night when they are sleep deprived, after they haven consumed alcohol... And when only communicating with text there are plenty of possibilities for misunderstanding the other party (something that was meant as a joke can be misinterpreted and so on)... We really don't need effortless one-click-crime-reporting in that enviroment.
They want to 'develop' into a fascist state off the bad and skip that whole messy democracy stuff
It's true. The AFP also wanted a few other Facecook buttons: "Are my Papers OK?" and "Turn in My Parents". The real problems started in Australian politics when the christian fundys managed to get a guy into parliament. I guess they think they have the moral high-ground; when really they're just a bunch of arse-clowns, pushing their beliefs. So much for separation of church and state. *sigh*
"So much for separation of church and state."
I think you're conflating Oz with Kansas, Oz is not part of the the US (yet). Our (cerimonial) head of state is the Queen and she is also the head of the church of England.
"The real problems started in Australian politics when the christian fundys managed to get a guy into parliament."
We have always had token fundies in both state and federal parliments, democracy is not an excuse to silence well organised nutters.
As for TFA; Try keeping it in perspective. Asking for a "snitch button" on facebook is no different to asking a TV station to put a "neighborhood watch" ad on TV.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The police are only ~asking~ - Facebook can say no - and really, given how long the AFP have been banging away at this, it appears as if many are actually saying no. Now the AFP is acting like a big frigging baby, going to the press because "facebook wont do what we tell them, so we're going to make them look like they don't want to save the children"
I can't really figure out why it's the AFP pushing this - I would imagine there is a tad more to the story than just reporting crime, probably someone wants to figure out the guilt trail of association via friend links. Who knows.
It's illegal to open the little box at the end of my neigboor's driveway and "sniff" the contents of their mail. It's illegal to open a pit in the footpath and "sniff" the contents of a telephone call...
The problem with your analogies is that they involve interaction well beyond what's going on in this case. With the mail, you have to open the mailbox, remove mail, and presumably open up envelopes to "sniff" the mail. With the telephone system, you're going a few steps even further. No sort of interaction is going on with wireless network sniffing.
To make your mail analogy work, we'd have to rework the mail system. We'd toss out mailboxes. Instead, there's a bulletin board. You tack your mail up on that when sending or receiving mail. If you're not too picky, you're just tacking up post cards. Anyone who's passing by who cares to look can see not only that you have a mail board up, but what you're using it for. Of course, some people have an issue with this - or are simply following trends set for them. They've taken to folding their post in half before tacking it to the board (WEP). Casual drive-by observers, such as Google, now can only tell that you've got a post board up and what it's called. They can see that you're using it. But beyond that, it takes effort to walk up to the board and unfold the message to read it (WEP being relatively trivial to decrypt depending on the details). Those in the post board industry weren't happy with that and developed envelopes that make it even more difficult to read your neighbors mail (WPA / WPA2). Most people are using these envelopes by default even if they don't understand why - it's the trendy thing to do (and most access point hardware has you set it up by default). All people would probably use these envelopes if they understood what's involved. A few people are running around screaming that Google looked at their post board - they're the same ones upset that a picture was taken of their front door.
"It's a PRIVATE CORPORATION, it's completely unreasonable to expect the PRIVATE CORPORATION to provide a direct conduit for users to the government."
So why aren't people up in arms because telco's are forced by law to provide a 000 service (ie: Aussie 911). Nobody is forcing facebook to do anything, it's a fucking request for a community service that facebook can either grant, deny, or offer something in between.
"It's WAY over the top for them to request something so intrusive."
Facebook may or may not see things differently but since it's mearly a request it's up to them to decide what is "over the top".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.