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.
When do we finally make the move to a fully encrypted internet? An unencrypted internet made sense in the days that CPU power was expensive and there were no good encryption libraries. Both these problems were solved a decade ago.
The block seems to be the current idiotically expensive SSL certificate business.
The first step would be for the web browsers to add a "low default security" level : user signed certificates are accepted as "normal" connections without throwing up big errors and don't give much of an additional indication.
Expensive SSL certificates can continue to give the "feel good" level of indication by showing the name of the verified company.
if you're doing nothing wrong, then why does the Government want to know?
What banner is flying over this huge censorship push? What is the general public's thoughts on all this? Usually with this sort of absolute censorship you have a particularly powerful head of state like in Russia, Iran or North Korea. Australia still has free elections (to my knowlege). Here in the USA we had a bit of tightening here and there security-wise with 9/11, but Australia doesn't seem to have any sort of dictator-to-be, nor do they have any significant terrorist threats or major overarching foreign policy that would require them to keep an eye on dissidents. Usually someone can point to some major speech by a prime minister or president outlining an "improved security policy" for the welfare of the country against some outside boogeyman, but from what I can tell, Australia is tightening it's grip on everything for censorship's sake.
moox. for a new generation.
Hate to be selfish, but since not enough people use it, they don't ban it, and I'm allowed to use it. Though I'd be surprised if the NSA didn't have a pragmatic way to break things like PGP, it's enough to prevent the small fry for messing with you.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Rudd has to call an election soon, but what a choice it will be: Either Conservative-Christian Kevin Rudd or his opponent Conservative-Christian Tony Abbott. Abbott has refused to speak out against the net filter. Secretly, I would say he quite likes it and will go along with it.
> "I think that it makes sense to try to ensure that the homes of Australia aren't invaded with pornography via the internet," said Abbott. "On the other hand I don't want to see wider censorship and I don't want to see the internet destroyed as a tool for people's education or as a tool for people's businesses." Talk about fence sitting.
> What it came down to was a question of whether it was technically feasible, according to Abbott. Yet he wasn't willing to air his thoughts on the matter. "I just don't know enough about it at this stage to have an opinion on that," he said.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/abbott-drawn-into-filter-debate-339300089.htm
Given his conservative position on everything else he ever talks about, I'd say he *does* have an opinion on it... but he wants to cash in on the Rudd protest vote. At the end of the day we get to choose between two political parties... near identical... both headed by conservatives who like the idea of a net filter to stop the unwashed masses looking at boobs and bottoms, and to get them back into church. Pic related:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/03/31/tony-abbott-and-political-catholicism/
http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1362997.htm
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=19151
Why? Given the amount of data involved, this seems like gross overkill. Even for hardcore Big Brother.
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.
If its what they have to do to get porn, they'll learn pretty quick.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Not to say that this doesn't suck or anything, but in the EU, all isps are obliged to do this and much more already.
- Log url history.
- log phone contact history
- log mail contact history
- Obliged to introduce CP filter. Filter can be expanded for other 'illegal' websites.
- Log banking history.
And to trump that:
- Obliged fingerprint scans for id cards.
I guess that the 'sample DNA at birth' card will be played within a year.
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.
Then they'll know that I read Slashdot! I'll never live that down.
who can't work out that they need to press the "Start" button to shut down their computer,
Uh.. logically you'd want a "stop" button for that. The dumbasses in this case would be whoever require you to press "start" to stop. Poor example.
which is totally what she said
This seems to have more in common with tin-foil hats and paranoia ..
The average user is the one who gets punished by politics.
Is Labor is deliberately sabotaging their chances of re-election???
Abbott has refused to speak out against the net filter. Secretly, I would say he quite likes it and will go along with it.
Secretly? (Disclaimer: I have posted this before, but it's worth restating)
Tony Abbot visited humble Darwin city recently and it was there that I personally got to ask him, in his public question and answer time, the following question (roughly remembered):
"The Internet is an important part of the lives of many young Australians, as well as Australia as a whole in this modern age- what do you think of the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's plan to censor the Internet?"
His answer began:
"Well, I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you..." and yes, unfortunately, he did.
Paraphrased his answer was: "Stopping child pornography is extremely important to me and the Liberal party and therefore, if we can prove the censorship plan doesn't work, we will oppose it; but only *this particular thing*. We will continue to seek effective means to block 'filth' (his word) from entering our country any way we can. If the filter works, we will support it."
Basically the message I got from his reply is that Tony Abbot believes that the filter will work "well enough" and is too much of a hot potato to oppose politically. The subtext I personally divined from his answer was a little more chilling; that the filter didn't go far *enough* for his tastes, and that he'd personally rather a complete whitelist than a blacklist. Therefore, speaking as a card-carrying Liberal... if you think that voting for the Liberal party in the next election will make the filter go away, you are sadly mistaken.
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.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
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.
This political stance is part of the ALP's general move to social conservatism.
Unfortunately, this is the way that Australian politics is moving. We have a two party system, the ALP (Labour, notionally the "Left") and the Coalition (counterintuitively named Liberals and the country-oriented Nationals who are notionally the "Right"). The ALP is currently in government, but the balance of power is held in the Senate by one vote usually exercised by a couple of minor parties, Family First (ultra-right ultra-socially conservative), a couple of independents and the Greens (left wing progressive, but the government mostly refuses to negotiate with them). Usually it's down to the Family First Senator to decide whether a given piece of legislation passes the Senate or fails, and he's revelled in the power of his role. So the government has expended a lot of effort in wooing the Family First Senator, which has caused a slight move towards the right and towards social conservatism.
However, the ALP has apparently decided that the best way to get votes is to, as much as possible, be almost exactly like the Liberals. While they were ready to do something about Climate Change before the election, they have largely done nothing (because it's too hard). While they spoke about the importance of funding public options, such as public schools and hospitals and so on, they still haven't done anything about the massive and disparate amount of funding that is given to the private option. While they say that they say that they're against government misuse of public funds to advertise ahead of the upcoming election, several million dollars have been spent on exactly that purpose (noting that, in this case, I agree with the expenditure, but even so it is a Coalition thing to do).
Even on issues where you'd expect the ALP to be starkly different to the Liberals, nothing. Refugees are still being treated as lower forms of life, just as they were under the previous Coalition government. The ALP has gone out of its way to foment a war between itself and the Education unions by subjecting teachers to extraordinary public criticism (without actually putting up the funds and the political will to fix problems from above). Welfare recipients are still being hounded and stigmatised for the fact that they could possibly be cheating the system (even though the vast majority aren't) with no talk of improving the system and helping welfare recipients themselves to reduce their imposition on society. On and on and on, there is increasingly less difference between the ALP and the Liberals.
The Coalition has responded by going further and further towards the right. They've elected Tony Abbott as their leader, because the last leader had the gall to negotiate with the ALP on an carbon emissions trading scheme (which subsequently dropped like a stone in the now hostile Senate). Tony Abbott is one of the most conservative politicians currently representing Australia. He approaches politics from the perspective of his own highly religious Catholic upbringing and lifestyle, doesn't believe in anthropogenic climate change and is really quite keen to return Australia to the 50's in respect to how we treat anyone who isn't an Anglo-Saxon white Male of upper-middle (or higher) socioeconomic background and being above the age of 35.
Unfortunately, the ALP's strategy is going to bite them in the ass. No Coalition voters have been wooed over to the ALP side, but, now that both parties are on the Right or the Far Right and well and truly entrenched in conservative politics, many former ALP voters are turning to the Greens or other alternative parties. The Greens now have a swing in their favour of between 7 and 9 percent, mostly taken from the ALP, and other smaller parties are enjoying smaller swings in their favour. It's likely that the Greens will hold, themselves, the balance of power in the Senate (because Family First aren't likely to have a Senator elected this time around) but we could have a situation where Greens could get electe
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.
WELCOME!.....pls deposit all yer liberties here
You're starting the shutdown process.
rewriting history since 2109
Write the data to floppy disks and toss them down the elevator shaft into the basement. If the government ever wants the records, point them to the basement coal chute...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Thanks, I really couldn't figure that out for myself. I was reacting to:
the general public who can't work out that they need to press the "Start" button to shut down their computer
I'm saying how counter-intuitive it is that you would go to "Start" when you really want stop. People won't think "now, I want to start to stop, how would I possibly do this?". I'm quite aware of the possible justifications for the "Start" name and that the vast majority of computer users are simply used to there being a general purpose menu saying "Start" in the corner, but to me the example this guy chose just highlights the silly name of the menu rather than the stupidity of users.
If actually design a good interface with good naming conventions, the majority of people won't have any trouble working out how to do stuff.
which is totally what she said
The Defence Signals Directorate would collect all data moving around Australia and out into Asia ect.
From dictionary to natural language processing they have all networks linked in 24/7.
The AFP (feds) and state task forces could request broad warrants for the rest as needed (when funding is restored).
Why this public acknowledgment of a great clandestine tool?
The act of making it legal/public will cause many of interest to re examine their networks.
Changing signal intelligence to gain a few short term legal sweeps seems very shortsighted.
They have laws to make any info submitted legal (closed), but why not keep the illusion of warrants?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Many people wrote "let's just use HTTPS and everything will full of unicorns" or whatever....
Does that solve the problem of seeing one's web history? No! It just hides what are you doing on the website, but does not hide which website you go to.... (last time I checked)
So please, tell me something new/different because HTTPS (no matter how desirable it is indeed) does do jack shit about being monitored like this...
It will be interesting to see over the next 40-400 years whether the civil liberties model of the US or the more socialist model of the Commonwealth works out better. Both have faults, and at this point it's purely academic which sucks less.
Hate to be selfish, but since not enough people use it, they don't ban it, and I'm allowed to use it. Though I'd be surprised if the NSA didn't have a pragmatic way to break things like PGP, it's enough to prevent the small fry for messing with you.
If the NSA own half the computers on the planet they still can't be cracking PGP nearly as fast as the rest of the world is generating it. God only knows what they would be capable of with custom built hardware though.
Just start e-mailing copies of everything to the member of parlement responsible and let them deal with it.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
And undocumented opcodes. I wonder why they want an opcode to sum all the 1's in a register...hmmm...
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Like most Americans, whenever I think of Aussies I think of Crocodile Dundee or Steve Irwin: rugged, outdoorsy individualists. Australia has a history not unlike that of America's Old West: Guns, deserts, ranchers, rugged individuals with a no-nonsense can-do attitude.
What the hell? How did they end up under the thrall of their Auntie? Is this where the US is headed?
Each expansion of government means more money passing through the business of government, and more power that can be leveraged for the next expansion of government. The larger the business of government, the more lucrative and exploitable the business of government for the elite at the top of the pyramid.
There's a reason why every year government costs more, spends more, borrows more, and seizes more power over the people, and it's certainly not because government is getting better.
Did I just imply that the entire business of government is motivated by profit, just like any other business? You're damn right I did.
Any fellow Aussie slashdoters have good recommendation for way to vote in protest to this kind of legislation?
I'm thinking of voting for the Greens in both houses. But I'm also wondering where to spread my preferences. Other than to the liberals and labor that is...
It's truly a sad period in our nations history when we have choices as abysmal as Tony Abbot and Kevin Rudd.
The problem is at two points:
1) We cannot (easily) install SSL certificates on the server as most sites are hosted, and this 'feature' costs $$$$
2) Webbrowsers actively discourage the use of non-signed certificates by showing flashy warning banners
The solution is to turn the current encryption / certification system upside down.
Instead of the web server providing the initial security , it should be the user requesting this.
1) A firefox / chrome plugin that generates an private/public key and advertises this through a HTTP header and provides encrypt/decryption of all information received.
2) A Apache/IIS module or even simple PHP library of that recognizes the HTTP header and completes the handshake.
A small PHP library would allow for very quick installation on Bulletin Boards, Wordpress etc.
The key is easy deployment.
This would provide security initially for a small group who cares -- and maybe an RFC standard later on.
Related reading:
* http://www.ohdave.com/rsa/
* http://php.net/manual/en/book.openssl.php
Genius - Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
We have something called IPRED, that means that copyright owners can, via a court decision, force ISPs to reveal who has had a certain IP number a certain time. This person can then be sued for copyright infringement, if the copyright owners suspect them of it. This law is something the EU has thrust upon us, unfortunately it looks like a former Swedish minister of Justice was a major advocate of the EU directive.
And not long ago, the Swedish police talked to the current government, and told them that this law is giving them problems. Since no ISP wants to loose customers, a lot of them have stopped storing the information about who gets assigned what IP number when. So even if you know beyond any doubt what IP address has been doing illegal, you cant find the person "owning" the IP address.
And also, people are learning to encrypt their traffic, and to use anonymising services (proxies and/or TOR). Together with the ISPs not storing much information for long, the end result is that the Swedish police have lost the ability to track people who distribute eg child porn on a massive scale.
The Swedish politicians were warned of this potential development before the law was passed, but seem to have chosen to not listen. And now they are left with a population that has learnt to conceal itself on internet, so that even if they remove the law, the police will still be left trying to deal with anonimised and encrypted traffic....
I think the Australians would do good to talk to Sweden before they take any steps they cannot untake later....
assholes of the internet
keep representing australia, up there with the autocrats and the theocrats in the iron fist department. you're awesome
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Your computer and the Windows OS have clearly already started, or you wouldn't have the choice of doing anything.
which is totally what she said
As I think back over a twenty year period of using computers there is very little that could do me harm in the way of communications but there is a great deal that might do me good in certain situations. As a matter of fact I had a detective interview me concerning a potentially serious charge and thank God I had the emails that were sent to me as a defense. It also did not hurt that I knew the other parties names and net habits.
Before the privacy advocates get all worked up they just might consider how big an aid their electronic history could be. It just might save their fannies.
Who would I have to vote for in the next election to stop the filter?
and the usa and canada has plenty of problems too
however, it seems that lately australia trying really, really hard to be a complete fucking asshole when it comes to online privacy, censorship, rights, etc
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What if we all downloaded proxy programs that allowed others to use our internet connection like with P2P software? I would have 20 or so people browsing on my internet connection but my internet connection could be spread out over another 20 people's networks and so on. It would really screw up the goverment's ability to see who's browsing what. Granted, some type of illegal sites would have to be blocked so you don't get blamed for your neightbor's bad habits and you could turn off the program when you needed the full pipe like when gaming.
"No one will really be free until nerd persecution ends."
we saw this post and you're going to jail, terrorist
I've seen all sorts of related articles about Australia, Europe, the UK and a bit of the US. Traffic cameras, tracking automobile movements, national ID cards, ID chips implanted in people, saving search histories etc.
Is this just human nature? Those inclined to taking power, because they can, doing so?
Is there an underlying theme why all of these things are happening in democratic republics all of the sudden ( aside from the technology making it possible ). Why are these lawmakers creating these things? The citizens don't seem to be prompting them to do so.
In unrelated news Max Rockatansky ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Rockatansky ) was arrested in Australia last week for searching Google for methods of illegally modifying shotguns and plans for booby trapping the gas tanks of passenger vehicles.
Dear Australia, you are now officially on par with the STASI. congratulations!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Its also counter-intuitive to throw disks into the trash when you want to dismount them. Why do interface designers come up with these rather stupid ideas?
They just need to hook this up to some pagerank like algorithm and they can determine your individual TerrorScore (tm). They can then use this to put you in prison for pre-crime and all that. They could automatically dispatch homeland security drones to keep an eye on you once your terror score exceeded certain thresholds as well! It's all so clever trousers....
Yeah I remember my mum freaking out about that when I was about 7 or something.. I just found it funny, but of course it doesn't really make sense.
which is totally what she said
reading this conversation under the sega story in the rss feed. And now wh
My Babylon
A Swiss VPN or SSL/SSH/TLS whatever proxy is not exposed on the client side. On the server side, it is, but pretty anonymous. And in Swiss datacenters, of course.
As an American I don't pretend to understand the fine points of the Australian political system. From my viewpoint many time zones away, however, those politicians do seem hell-bent on returning Australian citizens to their historic status as Crown convicts banished to Botany Bay on trumped up charges in a guilty-until-proven-innocent legal system. I'm damned glad I'm not living there.
The sad fact is that the Australian political system is substantially broken. When minority political parties can hold the balance of power and push their adjendas it is blisteringly clear that the true purpose of a democracy: representing the will of the majority of its constituents - is not achieved. In Australia this is evident at all three levels of government. Federal where issues such as this one, emissions trading and other questionable undertakings such as the proposed mining super profits tax are decided. State governments who are responsible for large scale public infrastructure like schools, hospitals and transport networks - who have for decades let public infrastructure decay while conducting failed scheme after failed scheme of so-called "improvements" which are finally never implemented at a cost of millions to hundreds of millions to the public purse. Local governments who make intelligent decisions like reducing rubbish bin sizes by 1/3rd then only clearing them fortnightly instead of weekly. If you have a family of young kids, two weeks of nappies over summer leaves a stench over the suburb which can not be described. I am ashamed to be an Australian.