Slashdot Mirror
Australia's Privacy Boss Slams Gov't Data-Retention Scheme
mask.of.sanity writes "The Australian Government's privacy commissioner has slammed its plans to implement a data retention scheme, in which it would ask telcos and internet providers to store the browsing and calling logs of Australian subscribers. He said the scheme would put user privacy in jeopardy because data will lie around at the behest of law enforcement. The Aussie scheme would be based on that which exists in Europe under the EU Directive. The directive aims to give law enforcement authorities the ability to ascertain the identity of a person using a public network to communicate by mobile, fixed line, email, or internet. The directive defines 'data' to be collected as 'traffic data and location data and the related data necessary to identify the subscriber or user.'"
data retention scheme? Personally I trust the Aussie government more than Google.
... which is to say record labels and motion picture companies.
This dragnet approach is pretty pointless. All it does is cost people time and money.
With the amount of browsing I do I would probably be able to look at my entire history and find illegal things I have accidentally or unintentionally stumbled across over the years, not to mention what kind of traffic I have generated when I have got the odd virus/worm.
It doesn't really protect the community either as anyone who wants to go to the trouble of hiding what they do online can do so very simply so in sense something like this is akin to listening to everyone's phone conversations and not realising the people you are trying to get are sending each other letters.
Australia really needs a Bill of Rights created, and in this day and age of Communications and identity it strongly worded to protect peoples individuals rights online from government, corporate and other individuals.
It's probably important to note that the EU Directive specifically mandates that
You want to see what I view on the internet, man? I will show you things, man. Crazy things, man. Things you never even dreamed of, man. Your mind won't be able to handle it, man! Game over, man! Game OVER, man!
Thank god our elected representatives know what they are talking about.
Gillard really should have lost the election, but the right-wing opposition party was lead by Tony Abbott; a pro-business anti-worker fundamentalist misogynist racist buffoon firmly in the pockets of big business and the tobacco industry, but an economic ignorance that was laughable. Every time Abbott opened his mouth he drove voters away. Like Palin in America, when a right-wing party is out of office they get captured by the crazies and swing further to the right thinking that will win them more voters. Of course it doesn't, and Abbott lost.
And so Gillard won by default... and now the filter is back. You would think the opposition would kick out Abbott and put in someone more centrist, but they refuse to admit they made a mistake and they're clinging on to him. Meanwhile the censorship regime rolls on. Both parties are pro-censorship. What are we to do?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/gillard-ushers-in-the-era-of-farce/story-e6frfhqf-1225896276726
Ozzie here. I swear I have been having more trouble with my email since I've begun encrypting everything. I'd swear these Gestapo bastards are using these laws retrospectively and have been forcing ISPs to do this for some time. I am ashamed to be an Australian. Every year we take a step closer to the steep cliff of tyranny.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
('wowser' is a uniquely Aussie term for a strong supporter of interventionist government policy).
Any discussion of online privacy/retention/etc tends to be one-sided, from my experience so far, largely because wowsers seem to be almost universally technology-illiterate. If the government proposed to keep a photocopy of every letter you ever received or sent, there'd be a howling outcry (well actually probably not, since the only people that send letters any more are government agencies and utility companies, but you get the picture).
In discussions on the Conroy Filter, any explanations about how it won't work tends to fall on deaf ears, or gets the standard Conroy response of 'so you propose we do nothing then?', and the assumption is that the internet is full of vile perverts who should be castrated. The point being that the debate is not on technical feasibility, or even benefits, but on perceived moral stance.
With any opposition to government surveillance, the standard response of 'if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide' should be ringing across the ether...except it appears that no-one who knows enough to comment on this issue is ignorant enough to declare that (well, not as many as you'd expect).
So it seems there's a Digital Divide right there...if the debate is pitched in terms of details and technical specifics, it only attracts knowledgeable commentary, and that tends to be broadly anti-censorship and pro-privacy. If the debate is pitched in simple terms, it attracts wowsers.
Which would suggest that wowsers tend to be older, since young people are more familiar with technology? Or is it education?
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
We have a similar law in Canada, whereby law enforcement can review a person's web browsing (and email?) for up to two years.
I see a business model for selling anonymous web browsing via proxy servers.
Commercial proxy servers already exist to get around Hulu barriers and the like.
If such servers market themselves as "anonymous," they should find more paying customers.