Slashdot Mirror
Australian Gov't Seeks To Record Citizens' Web Histories
An anonymous reader writes "If you thought the Australian Government's Internet filter project was bad, think again. They have a new project — they are examining a policy that would require all Internet service providers to log users' web browsing history and email data such as who all emails were sent to and from. And that's just the start. Telephone calls, mobile phone calls, even Internet telephony. It's all in there. Looks like 1984 was a pretty prophetic book." Several readers also point to ZDNet's coverage.
So how long before Aussies figure out that "encrypt everything" is a great idea?
Om, nomnomnom...
than pedophiles and terrorists.
if you're doing nothing wrong, then why does the Government want to know?
when you support spreading democracy and freedom in other countries. Bombing the shit out of them, to spread your so called "way of life". Internally your "perceived freedoms" are slowly eroded. Go ahead and mark me as troll and go back to living in your cocoon.
Then the government will just man-in-the-middle for all these "low default security" websites that don't show errors and record the browsing just as with plain HTTP.
Trivially easy to circumvent once again. Google already offers SSL encryption for web searches and for Gmail and I don't even need to mention all the privacy tools available. I think the bulk of people have moved away from their ISP based email due to the impoverished email service ISPs offer. I myself have already moved all my email to cloud based email a long time ago - what is the point in sticking with ISP based email? Native email clients don't really offer much compelling functionality over cloud services other than a way to loose all your emails when your hard drive dies.
I already use SSL for Google and Gmail. Of course the ISP can still track and log your cleartext http and dns lookups etc, but it at least offers some privacy.
Everybody who has something to hide on the internet is already using these trivial methods and others. This is about spying on the average citizen. Poor privacy on the internet in particular social media is already hurting countless millions of people identity theft and scams, we really do NOT need the government spying too.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Why? Given the amount of data involved, this seems like gross overkill. Even for hardcore Big Brother.
Some of the people involved won't have a clue about the amount of data involved. Others will be rubbing their hands with glee as they bid for the data center contracts.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Two days ago, there was a mothers' group here demanding that local councils put up signage in all parks warning of the native birds. A 6 mth old child was pecked once by a pee-wee and had to be rushed to hospital to get a bandage.
No one really cares and people want their moment of campaign but really don't give a shit about anything. The belief is that the Internet is like the wildwest and any sort of policing is good.
They don't realise the background profiling, indexing/classification, manipulation that will be the rest of our lives.
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Then they'll know that I read Slashdot! I'll never live that down.
Is Labor is deliberately sabotaging their chances of re-election???
Google offers SSL access now
Encrypt your stuff. They can still track the target IP addresses, but no URLs. Next stop: Widespread use of foreign proxies, then TOR.
nobody who is devout, or even remotely religious, should be allowed into government.
Australian here- It's pretty simple really. (Disclaimer: I've posted this before, but it bears repeating)
We have a political system where, instead of directly voting for a prime minister, we instead vote for our local representative; the party with the most seats gets to elect the prime minister. Essentially.
The problem comes when the two main political parties own almost equal seats, but many seats are "safe" seats. Think Texas. Is a Democrat ever going to be elected in a landslide in Texas? Nah. Is a Republican going to take San Fransisco in a landslide? Nah.
So, politicians focus on the marginal seats. Think Florida, which could go either way.
It just so happens a number of those seats are, currently, in and around Adelaide; a highly religious, conservative city known as "The City of Churches". So, politicians on all sides of the political spectrum are metaphorically sucking our version of the Bible Belt's dick in order to get those precious one or two seats, which means they can keep/gain government respectively.
Which means our current administration is pushing through knee-jerk think-of-the-children legislation while the opposition is basically screaming "US TOO BUT BIGGER, BETTER, MORE KNEE-JERKY."
It's pure horseshit and doesn't represent the will of the Australian people at all.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
I think you're all missing the point here. The purpose of the net filter isn't to actually genuinely prevent access to those websites that are "evil". The purpose is to convince voters that the government is doing something about "evil" and thereby gain votes.
clicking start is the start of the procedure for stopping
See, that just sounds silly. I usually just press the power button on my netbook for ACPI shutdown and then click shutdown. I also think how Ubuntu does it is a bit more sensible - a power button in the corner where you can shut down, restart, logout, etc.
I'm not saying that it doesn't make sense to put it in the Start menu in Windows, I'm just saying how ludicrous it sounds that you should have to click "start" to stop. "Actions" or "Windows" would be a better text name for the menu, or just get rid of the "start" text completely, which is what they've done with 7 and maybe Vista.
which is totally what she said
A system like this wouldn't be so bad IF governments could be trusted with keeping their hands off the data UNTIL a crime was committed. Then, when they had physical evidence of a crime, a bit of data mining and searching could dig up other relevant facts. However the Australian government (famous for Task Force Argos, who took someone to court for posting a video freely available on YouTube citing child abuse) and other governments around the world have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to refrain from abusing such data.
Mention the words "terrorism" or "child pornography", and suddenly governments want to go so far as to break existing laws to prevent these crimes. However there is only one problem - if the person has not committed the crime yet, they are not a criminal. So we get cases built on "conspiracy to commit" and "intent to commit", cases which erode our freedom each single time. Because any psychologist will tell you that some very nasty thoughts can pass through the heads of very average people AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS. The insides of our heads must remain inviolate and not subject to the state, or we become slaves. The law must draw the line at "yes but did the person go out and ACT on those fantasies?", not "did the person think about it". Otherwise everyone guilty of watching, writing or producing a murder mystery show is guilty of murder.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
On a side note, the fact that he himself is an extremely religious man probably doesn't help a great deal, since it seems that too many politicians tend to "trust God about these things" when it's abundantly clear that God knows sweet F-A about the Tubes and how they work.
The religion card has been played a lot in most countries, including eastern ones and western ones. Let's not forget George "God told me to go to war with Iraq" Bush.
The religious politicians destroying democracy and civil liberties is the best example there is about the harm religion does.
Two days ago, there was a mothers' group here demanding that local councils put up signage in all parks warning of the native birds. A 6 mth old child was pecked once by a pee-wee and had to be rushed to hospital to get a bandage.
People don't want to take responsibility for their own lives and actions, and modern politicians buy votes from these people by pandering to them.
Car analogies break down.
Tyrants and statists ALWAYS tell you that it is for your own good. The government needs to know the most private details of every citizens life so that it can protect you.
Here's the deal. FREEDOM requires risk. FREEDOM requires that you take responsibility for you. The MOST fundamental way YOU take responsibility for YOURSELF, is to NOT give it to others or allow them to take responsibility for you from you or your neighbor.
We must STOP trying to be busybodies in everyone else's life if we want to be free to lead our own.
We must STOP the government from being busybodies and trying to define every detail of our lives.
We've already lost so much....just a little more, and we tip right into North Korea like egomaniacal dictatorships.
People. How those governments form is no secret. Read some history, vote responsibly, and for goodness sake....STOP believing that the government is magic and can your every problem.
If you make a god of your government, your government will gladly accept the role.