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Australian Telco Causes Minor Panic While Preparing Web Filter
Twisted64 writes "Australia's largest telco, Telstra, has been frightening users of its mobile data services for the last week. Logging revealed that HTTP requests from a mobile device on Telstra's network were duplicated with a request from another server, located in Chicago. Eyebrows were raised on the Whirlpool forums, with fears that Telstra was giving up Australian browsing data to a U.S. company and therefore the U.S. government. Following a well-worded letter, Telstra revealed today that the reason for this behavior is that the company is preparing an opt-in web filter. Personally, while the idea of my browsing data being logged anywhere does not fill me with joy, the idea of the U.S. government having access to it (randomized or not) is probably going to be enough to make me switch to an inferior carrier once my current plan ends."
In Canada they are now allowed to switch at anytime without penalties due to government regulation. No need to wait for the plan to end. They can switch just because they want to without giving any reasons. Providers abused too much hence the regulation came.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
What a nicely biased summary.
Why does Telstra need to send all URLs to another company in order to "prepare" a content filter?
Do they expect us to believe that Netsweeper didn't already have a database of URLs?
All I can say is,
"It's opt-in. For now."
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
These double requests also causes a lot of trouble for some people.
I'm working for a company running a web service for corporations and we have a very high level of logging and surveillance in order to provide a good service. However we get a lot of strange alerts from double requests from different ip numbers. It appears that some content filtering companies like to do the same (Bluecoat I'm looking at you) and they even do requests with cloned cookies (so they act in the same session as the user).
A lot of funky things happens if you assume that a user is only going to access certain (GET) links once but a filtering company is intercepting the request and sometimes manage to make the request faster than the user.
That's complete balderdash. This article is about the Telstra NextG (3G/4G LTE) cellular network, not their fixed line stuff. And Telstra has never, ever had anything remotely approaching a monopoly in the mobile market in Australia. Indeed, Australia's always had a much wider choice and range of cellular providers than most of the US has (and nowhere near the same degree of carrier-lockin via locked devices etc.)
Anyone on NextG can switch with minimal difficulty to Optus, Vodafone, Virgin, Boost, TPG, Amaysim ... (insert a dozen more carriers here). Whether or not those choices are BETTER than NextG is obviously questionable (NextG is by far the fastest and best coverage), but that does not mean there is no choice.
Even if you switch an ISP, 99% of your browsing will still be logged by third-party servers (most of which are in the US, if that matters to you).
Most sites today use iframes that send HTTP requests to the following:
Google Analytics
Google ads
Facebook
Twitter
etc.
By "having access to the records", OP means the US govt (or a US court, under the request of some party, say RIAA) can subpoena the records. Not at all misleading.
It sounds a lot like British Telecom and their phorm debacle also. Turns out that (ex-)monopolies think they can get away with anything.
It's a shame they're usually proven right.
There are a few options in Aus. Vodaphone, Optus, cheap resellers of optus like Amaysim etc. Only fools and horses go with Telstra.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
This is not about 'internet restrictions'. This is to do with the fact that this represents a potential breach of the Privacy Act. Australia has fairly strong privacy regulations that govern how and when information can be sent overseas, and how people need to be notified of how their information is used, who can see it, what it can be used for etc. America OTOH is notorious for having probably the most lax privacy regulations/legislation in the developed world.
So yeah, in that respect, Australia's laws are "worse" (in that they are more strict with regards to protecting personal information). And we like it that way. Surreptitiously exporting information to a jurisdiction where similarly tough controls do not exist is not looked upon favourably.
Yes. That's why a lot of us are former users.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Personally, while the idea of my browsing data being logged anywhere does not fill me with joy, the idea of the U.S. government having access to it...
What leap of logic could possibly lead people to believe that just because the server is in the US that the US Feds have access to it, or even care?
One of the provisions of the Patriot Act gives the US government access to all data stored within the US on request. Essentially unlimited access can be granted in secret, and the request for access and the reasoning behind the request can be kept secret.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
how far are we talking? i've had 3 for years, and in many cases i get coverage out at my folks' place where even telstra has trouble.
that said, 3 has shitty coverage IN the city...
yep.
they lost me years ago when they repeatedly hassled me for money (a year after i'd switched to someone else), inexplicably calling me by my father's name (i've never had my phone linked to his account, though back in the day we were all linked to mum's), then refusing to tell me what the bill is and how much is owed because due to privacy they can't tell me - it has to be the account holder. when i tell them i am the account holder for the number they called they get confused and go away for another 2 weeks, then repeat. i even got letters from debt collectors.
eventually i got them to forward me to complaints, told them if they don't know what number or what name the bill is under, they can't possibly know how much is owed and by who, so the only sane thing to do is fuck off and leave me alone - they agreed i owe them nothing, nor does my father who had nothing to do with anything.
telstra suck.
I was sitting 25km from Winton in central queensland (read 200km from anywhere) and getting faster 3g from Telstra than I get in downtown Brisbane.... Nobody else gives you that coverage.
Just like NoScript breaks the web for me,
That's normal and intented. NoScript is supposed completely block any interactive content (either scriptable/programmable stuff like javascript/java/.net/flash, or big media files like audio/video tags), until you whitelist something. :-) ) until you say: "Well, I might trust that source not to completely bork my machine, please unbreak it, and only it".
It is supposed to "break" everything (or more precisely make everything "Web 1.0"
It is for the paranoid us out there. It's not designed for someone who expect a set and forget solution to security (unlike tools like CertPatrol or HTTPS Everywhere, which don't require much fumbling from regular users). It's designed for people who don't trust anything and prefere to manually select which tiny bit of the web they might choose to trust, while disabling everything else (it's closer to Flashblock and other similar tools in that way. Except that NoScript has a wider scope by blocking *anything* interactive)
(In addition to that, it will also block cross-site-scripting until whitelisted, and will put alerts about click jacking).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Anyone on NextG can switch with minimal difficulty to Optus, Vodafone, Virgin, Boost, TPG, Amaysim ... (insert a dozen more carriers here).
Not quite! Anyone in a major urban area, maybe, but not anyone. I don't have a choice, there's only Telstra where i work (in a remote part of the Northern Territory).
It's spelt "brake light".
Break light is what the copper was doing.
I Live in Canberra, I hate telstra, but they are the ONLY provider that seems to even cover the city let alone rural areas outside the city. I tried multiple providers before grudgingly admitting telstra was the only viable option. Vodafone worked in the city center but not my suburb, Optus was patchy at best and 3 was a total joke everywhere.
What leap of logic could possibly lead people to believe that just because the server is in the US that the US Feds have access to it, or even care?
Give the closeness of the Aussie and American governments, and the long history of governments getting around their "we will not spy on our citizens" decree is by having their allies spy on their citzens instead,I think the more accurate question is:
What makes you think the american government doesn't have access to your data just because it never leaves australia?
Personally, while the idea of my browsing data being logged anywhere does not fill me with joy, the idea of the U.S. government having access to it (randomized or not) is probably going to be enough to make me switch to an inferior carrier once my current plan ends."
I didn't actually know there were inferior carriers. I remember Telstra. We were a loyal customer for years. These were the guys who in I think a world first introduced the concept of a download limit. 3GB. Yes that's no typo. We had 10mbit cable and a 3GB download limit. I remember hitting that download limit on the second day of our billing cycle after which we were capped at 28.8kbps. This is the company which introduced an acceptable use policy without defining what acceptable use was. This was the company which refused to roll out ADSL2 in areas which already had ADSL. This was the company which charged more for wholesale use of it's network than it charged it's retail customers. It was a wise business decision too because once the ACCC put a stop to that practice users left in droves to cheaper better ADSL2 services.
I remember my last few days of Telstra cable fondly. We were paying some $80 per month with a 20GB download limit. When we tried to quit they gave us $300 credit so we jumped on the most expensive plan and then quit a month later anyway. Now I pay $60 per month for completely unlimited internet which is faster than the old cable we were on and we don't pay phone line rental either.
The only time I've seen people recently give Telstra a choice is if a) the company is paying, b) they had absolutely no other choice. Even if I now look at their plans, $70 for 200GB ex line rental for ADSL2 it boggles the mind that someone would pay these people willingly.
This is another good reason not to google self incrimination while planning a murder.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yes.
They were a government owned monopoly which got privatised and they are stuck with the worst elements of both, with a few twists from being run by a nuclear scientist with no business experience and a Mexican bandit (chosen by a the most nepotistic board imaginable led by a failed farmer turned union buster and with such gems as a third rate historian that made friends in politics by USSR style revisionism sanitising history to make ultra-conservatives feel better and the wife of a powerful party powerbroker). Among their epic failures are the loss of all backup tapes for three entire government departments by storing them in wheeled trash cans (wheelie bins), firing employees for their behaviour on their own time after a staff Christmas party that had been delayed until March, and making sales staff wear recording devices around their necks. Service quality is such that I waited four weeks to get a failed landline fixed which is located less than 5km from the main telephone exchange in Australia's third largest city, and the tech just turned up unannounced on a Saturday afternoon (they sacked a lot of people so there is little co-ordination and they just dump a list of jobs on overworked contractors).
There are hundreds of stories about them that stretch as far a China (they wasted millions on half-baked financial adventures there most notably buying the "IP" of a ringtone company that had 100% pirated mp3 files), and New Zealand (where they fucked up the carrier and the ISP they bought - two fucking months to change one MX record). So yes, they do whatever they like because they are big enough and check later if necessary to see if it's legal.
The main purpose of Australian's NBN (national broadband network) is to get telecommunications out from under the control of Telstra and to build what Telstra planned in 1996 before they decided only the short term mattered.
Kim dotcom?
Now they don't need to go through official channels, they just get the servers in the US, then use "secret" subpoenas or warrantless wire taps and get everything from billions of people with nobody knowing or knowing and able to talk about it.
Learn to love Alaska