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Anonymous Dumps Australian Telco Data Online

Posted by Soulskill on from the fun-times-down-under dept.

lukehopewell1 writes "After the threats, admissions and delays, hacktivists protesting a data retention scheme proposed by the Australian Government's National Security Inquiry have begun dumping data gleaned from an Australian telco — presumably AAPT. Anonymous is in the process of dumping government and business customer data onto Pastebin for the world to see under the guise of Operation Australia. This episode is far from over, however. We're likely to see more data trickle out over the coming days, considering that the group has promised 40GB worth of leaks."

4 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"Hacktivists" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Real activists put their name, reputation and possibly their lives on the line for the causes they so believe in.
    These guys are nothing but dumb little kids.

    Person A gets shot at, gets tasered, gets arrested, etc.

    Person B is "dumb".

  2. Re:Wikileaks wannabees. by Anrego · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm normally not a fan of this stuff, but in this case it actually makes a good point.

    They've shown that they can steal data from the ISP.

    If a bunch of your personal data starts being stored at the ISP, they or other criminals could steal that data as well. Basically having the data there is putting customers at great risk, and they have just demonstrated that the ISP is incapable of protecting the data.

  3. Re:"Hacktivists" by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 5, Funny

    says the "Anonymous Coward"

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
  4. Here's your explanation by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... I fail to see how anonymous is the one to root for here.

    Well then, let me explain it.

    Government is doing bad things. Specifically, it is always doing things which are against the interests of the people, or society as a whole.

    All attempts at changing this behaviour have failed.

    Anonymous is trying new tactics. By making the data public, it's making the population aware of the dangers of this legislation. In effect, they are illustrating the danger by hurting the privacy of a large number of individuals. With enough popular support, maybe possibly the law will get changed.

    Now, as I said, this is a new tactic. The damage to the public is minimal, and would be otherwise dwarfed by any real data breach by real hackers. In that case, the information would be used for criminal purposes so the damage would be much greater, and the company would naturally deny that a breach had happened.

    Now, you might not see this as an effective strategy, and indeed it may not be.

    But this brings us back to the first point, which is that government is doing bad things and is unresponsive to the needs of the people. Since all other avenues of influence have failed, what remains would appear to be armed revolt.

    When the system gets bad enough to piss off a large portion of the population, that's what will happen.

    So you can pooh-pooh the attempts by Anonymous to try alternate means, but with no alternative you're effectively saying that revolt is the only option.

    I, for one, applaud their efforts. I hope they come up with many more creative ways to make the people's voice heard in the halls of government, before we have to use armed rebellion.