Australian Attorney General Pushes Ahead With Gov't Web Snooping

Information wants to be free by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 06:27 · Score: 5, Interesting

One country at a time, the governments are putting in place the function to collect all data so it can be freed by hackers.

I find this hard to believe by iplayfast · 2012-09-04 06:31 · Score: 3

Surely there is SOMEONE in Australia that objects to this? Surely there is at least ONE politician that sees how wrong it is to effectively wiretap a whole country.
I'm just shaking my head, and please don't call me Surely.

Re:I find this hard to believe by iplayfast · 2012-09-04 06:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

I can't wait for wikileaks to start posting private info from all the politicans that proposed this bill. ALL YOUR BASE and so on.
Re:I find this hard to believe by iplayfast · 2012-09-04 06:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

The problem is that it's telco's that are required to retain the info for 2 years. If you've worked at any ISP you know that anyone with any access can look at anything. So suppose your significant other got scammed into buying diamond earrings, and thinking that it was a secure website, posted all her delivery info and credit card info.
You've got 2 years of possible problems.
So suppose you get into a rant about some silly online argument with ImATroll and then the guy who's name is ImATroll is murdered. Who in the last two years had problems with him.
So suppose you supported the liberal cause last year, but this year they are being stupid. Expect plenty of phone calls and emails asking for your continued support....
Yeah the examples are silly and off the cuff, but you get the idea.
Re:I find this hard to believe by Nerdfest · 2012-09-04 07:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

Two years? Right, like those people with access to this information won't make copies of something useful. ISP data should be treated the same as phone conversations and mail. Why the hell aren't they?
Re:I find this hard to believe by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 09:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

the capture likely wouldn't include data for "politically exposed persons".
Re:I find this hard to believe by anomaly256 · 2012-09-04 09:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

Frankly, I object to the entire notion of letting 1 single person have so much control and sway on our lives. It's completely batshit insane. I have no idea why people even /tolerate/ the office of Attorney General still. SO much awesome would come from this position not existing any more. For example, Australia would have an R18+ rating for video games already, causing mediocre titles like Syndicate to not be considered illegal contraband (yes thats right, video games that are common place and considered 'no big deal' in the rest of the world are actually, to this day, fucking illegal here because they have a bit more blood than some old fuddy-duddy likes. Yet somehow the God of War series, the most violent and graphics games I've ever seen, are ma15+ ??? Guess who's on the ratings review board - thats right, the AG. The AG's office controls the entire classification review board). Policies like this internet snooping would actually be forced to go through an analysis and vetting process, held up for scrutiny by both parties, debated and rationalized before being pushed into binding law. The AU ACTA and SOPA talk minutes would be public knowledge instead of being censored by the AG, who apparently doesn't even need court approval to do such things despite it having an immense impact on our laws.

Seriously, why the fuck do we still even have an Attorney General position.
Re:I find this hard to believe by slick7 · 2012-09-04 09:55 · Score: 2

Surely there is SOMEONE in Australia that objects to this?
Surely, it's not Shirley, it's Sheila.
g'day!

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The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Re:I find this hard to believe by TranquilVoid · 2012-09-04 13:42 · Score: 1

The reason is twofold; because they can, and because, unlike mail and telephone calls, web sites are semi-public.
Hopefully this doesn't pass, but if it does hopefully everything shifts to https and then the government can see you went to https://applepierecipesandchildporn.com/ but have no idea at what you looked.
Re:I find this hard to believe by Dan541 · 2012-09-04 15:17 · Score: 2

Members of parliament where caught looking at Child Pornography. But it's legal under parliamentary privilege.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/child-porn-sites-accessed-at-nsw-parliament-audit-finds/story-fn59niix-1225964504174
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/parliament-porn-users-id-a-secret-20101216-18zqk.html

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Re:I find this hard to believe by chrism238 · 2012-09-04 15:56 · Score: 2

Of course there's ONE politician; in fact many. But it takes at least 50.1% of them to stop it.
Re:I find this hard to believe by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 17:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

> The problem is that it's telco's that are required to retain the info for 2 years. ... and this is why it won't work. Politicians may make these laws, but here on Earth someone has to do the work to enforce them.
Our household regularly uses 150+Gb/month in traffic, both upstream and downstream (much of which is encrypted and essentially not worth capturing). Let's call it a round 3.6Tb that the ISP will need to be captured and retained for just my household over a 2 year period.
What's the cheapest storage available for 3.6Tb of data? That's presumably the *monthly* cost that will need to be passed onto my ISP (and hence to me), once the system has been up and running for 2 years and there's a full 2-year history of our household traffic stored somewhere.
Now let's look at the real-time capture challenge. I'm with a large ISP, which may have 500,000 customers (wild guess) - let's guess again that the average customer is consuming 20Gb/month (another wild guess - if it's currently less than that, we all know it's gonna be increasing at a rapid rate and might be beyond that in 2 years' time). The ISP is now having to capture and log 20Gb * 500,000 = 10,000,000Gb = 10,000Tb/month, moving it somewhere (offsite?). If you want to buffer it within the ISP temporarily, that's about 330Tb/day that needs to be buffered and then shipped off nightly; otherwise the ISP will need to be sending it somewhere in real-time. If it's offsite, that means the ISP has to double its total available capacity (i.e. ship every bit of traffic somewhere) just to keep serving the same quantity of data; if it's not stored onsite at the ISP, that's one big data centre that my ISP (and several others) are going to have to build and maintain. Again, I'd assume the costs are going to be passed on to customers i.e. me.
As I said above, it's probably not worth logging all my traffic, since much of it is encrypted. It'd probably be nice to filter the "stuff" that gets captured, eliminating the non-useful stuff, so that the ISP doesn't have to store all of it, but is it possible to do content filtering of 330Tb/day of network traffic in any practical sense? Probably not, but even if it is, someone (e.g. me) is gonna have to pay for it to be done.
OK, now all that data's been collected, and Someone Important tags me as a Potential Bad Guy who needs to have his captured data examined. Maybe they can say "let's just look at his last month's traffic", so now it's down to 150Gb. Someone then needs to extract my 150Gb of saved network traffic from the 10,000Tb/month = 360,000Tb that's been captured over a 2 year period. That means my "stuff" has to have been tagged and made searchable somehow, which would presumably need to be done in realtime as the data's being captured - bit of a challenge there.
Now Someone Important has access to just my 150Gb of traffic. How exactly do they search this amount of network traffic for Something Bad? Do they search for text such as "bomb", "nuke" or "AllDisneyMovies.rar", or is it something a bit more complex than that? I'm gonna hazard a guess that my 150Gb of (largely encrypted) data contains the strings "bomb" and "nuke" purely because these 4-character strings will appear at random in encrypted data; hmm, probably need to examine the context surrounding these strings as well...
Now consider this all in the context of Australian governments (state and federal) not exactly known for implementing big IT projects well. In fact, I'd suggest they're fairly well known for cocking them up.
This is starting to sound not quite as easy as a politician saying "this might be a good idea", isn't it?
Re:I find this hard to believe by FirephoxRising · 2012-09-04 17:31 · Score: 1

I bloody object to it and I'm writing a letter to my federal member right now! I heard Roxon on the radio only yesterday saying that there is a need, but it must be balanced with privacy. Complete switch in less than 24 hours, that's not on.
Re:I find this hard to believe by rtb61 · 2012-09-04 21:05 · Score: 1

The third Australian political party The Greens opposed it http://greens.org.au/content/data-retention-scheme-lunge-vast-surveillance-powers-0. Unlike the US voting system with preferential voting, your vote for the Greens means either they win or your vote goes to the next party you least dislike, either way a message is sent to all sitting politicians that their jobs are under threat if they continue to support police state policies that turn all Australians into suspects.

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Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Re:I find this hard to believe by MrKaos · 2012-09-05 01:38 · Score: 1

This is starting to sound not quite as easy as a politician saying "this might be a good idea", isn't it?
Are you joking. This is the same government involved in the UKUS A alliance. If it wants to get it right then the governments departments WILL GET IT RIGHT. This should simply be called "The Domestic Esp ionage A ct 2012".
The best line was how the Fed eral Pol ice complained of "degradation of existing capability" when they have been designated legality to intercept cell phone messages, email and SMS in the 2003 Ant i Terrorwism Act, so it's a complete deception.
Coupled with the most useless Opposition ever that says No to everything, except this - which it supports. Yet another bit of freedom going, going...

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My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Re:I find this hard to believe by Roger+Lindsjo · 2012-09-05 01:48 · Score: 1

Since you are using https you obviously think you have something to hide, that in it self is very suspicious.
Re:I find this hard to believe by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-05 03:26 · Score: 1

It looks to me like every government on the planet is scared of the Internet. They are afraid of their populations being able to organize and discuss outside of their view and / or control. Events like "the Arab spring" only reinforce their views that an uncontrolled Internet are a threat. Groups like Anonymous and sites like Wikileaks, no matter their intentions, only make those fears worse. People who are afraid don't make rational trade offs they do whatever it takes to make their fear go away. Which is a bad omen for the future of the Internet and all of us who use it.
Re:I find this hard to believe by Travelsonic · 2012-09-05 04:58 · Score: 1

Well, nobody said they have thus far, and even if they do say it, they do - we all do, IT'S CALLED PRIVACY you fucking moron.

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If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Re:I find this hard to believe by zblack_eagle · 2012-09-05 22:24 · Score: 1

My housemate is a member of PPA (I'm a member of the Greens, which also oppose this), and from what he has told me PPA hasn't even got itself around to being registered as a political party yet.

Problem is that Australia is just like Canada, the US, and the UK: in national/federal elections, most actual votes cast are *discarded*
Citation please? We have preferential voting here, not the bullshit first-past-the-post of many other countries

Thanks, Australia! by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · 2012-09-04 06:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

The fiance and I have been considering emigrating for a few years while we're still young enough to be of value to another nation (I'm 31 and she's 24). Looks like you made the decision that much easier. New Zealand is now ahead in the polls.

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"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin

Re:Thanks, Australia! by Sparticus789 · 2012-09-04 06:39 · Score: 4, Insightful

There's something wrong when you have to have an exit strategy for your home COUNTRY. Not with you, but with the useful idiots who vote these people into elected office.

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sudo make me a sandwich
Re:Thanks, Australia! by sdguero · 2012-09-04 07:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

As an Californian that has spent some time in NZ, I suggest going there for more than a couple weeks before you take the plunge. Things that seem trivial during a 2-3 week vacation (like hardly anything staying open after 8PM, passive aggressive customer service, distaste for Americans, lack of culinary variety, etc) can start to grate on you after a few months. Just my experience...
Re:Thanks, Australia! by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · 2012-09-04 07:40 · Score: 1

I appreciate the advice. There is definitely a world of difference between a short stay and a semi-permanent home, and I've heard stories of the passive-aggressive attitudes towards Americans. I'd also want to check out the climate, as a Nevadan I've been spoiled by the high desert and the proximity to the Sierras.

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"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Re:Thanks, Australia! by sdguero · 2012-09-04 07:59 · Score: 2

Yeah... Re-reading my post, I feel kind of bad because there is a LOT to like about New Zealand. It's beautiful and there is a lot of open space, the weather is more climactic than Southern California but really isn't that bad and varies a lot depending on which island you are on and which micro-climate you are in. The humor there is different, very dry, but they can be really funny.

My sister has been there 6 years and she seems to like it more now than ever. She is marrying a kiwi, has picked up the accent, and works as a vet-technician working with mostly sheep so she's pretty much been fully integrated. Being liberal politically helps too, NZ has a large government... Lots of taxes, welfare, and progressive legislation.
Re:Thanks, Australia! by sdguero · 2012-09-04 07:59 · Score: 1

And I meant to say... Whatever you decide, good luck!
Re:Thanks, Australia! by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · 2012-09-04 08:10 · Score: 1

I appreciate it! I wish that the downward slide that our country seems to be on didn't necessitate exit strategies, especially when I know of so many liberal minded, intelligent Americans. The problem is that our government doesn't reflect this and both sides kowtow to the extremes. Fortunately we have the education and experience to move anywhere, I know a lot of nervous people who aren't quite as fortunate.

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"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Re:Thanks, Australia! by Spy+Handler · 2012-09-04 08:18 · Score: 1

don't worry, Australia has Crocodile Dundee and Crocodile Hunter guarding their freedoms down there.
Re:Thanks, Australia! by tapspace · 2012-09-04 09:15 · Score: 1

Odd, my girl and I are similarly aged and considering the same thing. I will have a masters in computer science in April and want ot try to get a job before that. I need to propose first, because I can't see how she'll get a visa if we aren't married. But, from what we looked at, it would likely be easy for me to get residence as an engineer (they have labor shortages). Can I ask what you all intend to do? Also, from everything I looked at, it seemed you could be fast tracked to get a visa if you were 30 or under (I am young enough for that, but you are not). Have you seen this? Can you still get a visa easily above 30? Would it be as easy in NZ? I would guess Australia would be easier.
Re:Thanks, Australia! by anomaly256 · 2012-09-04 09:51 · Score: 1, Informative

Unfortunately, no one votes for the Attorney General position. It's a complete boys' club. It's also above the law in a few key ways. I don't know why we allow this office to exist still.
Re:Thanks, Australia! by quenda · 2012-09-04 14:13 · Score: 2

you made the decision that much easier. New Zealand .
Sure you say that now. But as soon as you get your NZ Permanent Residency, you will jump om a plane to Australia, like every other NZ immigrant.
Re:Thanks, Australia! by sd4f · 2012-09-04 17:05 · Score: 2

The worst of it is, i need to go to slashdot, a yank site, to learn about what's happening here in skipsville. Where is the media? Europeans rioted over ACTA, yet we got reamed without even a "squeal boy".
Re:Thanks, Australia! by boron+boy · 2012-09-04 19:12 · Score: 1

Unfortunately, no one votes for the Attorney General position. It's a complete boys' club.
Except the current AG is a woman. And so is the person that appointed her (the prime minister).

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Yet another blogger begging for an audience.
Re:Thanks, Australia! by boron+boy · 2012-09-04 19:15 · Score: 2

Join Electronic Frontiers Australia, they'll keep you posted and are fighting the good fight.

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Yet another blogger begging for an audience.
Re:Thanks, Australia! by anomaly256 · 2012-09-04 19:28 · Score: 1

The thing about figures-of-speech is that they're not meant to be taken literally. In case you're not trolling and actually don't know what a boys club is in this context: It's a cooperative group of wealthy/powerful people that maintain exclusivity in order to keep the division of power maintainable. As you stated, the AG was hand-picked by another powerful person without any input from the public. Ergo, boys club. Even though they're both women (debatable).
Re:Thanks, Australia! by Beyond_GoodandEvil · 2012-09-05 01:15 · Score: 1

especially when I know of so many liberal minded, intelligent Americans
Please to meet you Miss Kael. Speaking for Americans willing to struggle against the forces of creeping totalitarianism, I wish to thank you for self selecting to leave the field of battle and removing your hindrance.

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I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Re:Thanks, Australia! by Dracophile · 2012-09-05 01:47 · Score: 1

What, abc.net.au didn't carry enough heads-up about this for you?

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Athy, athier, athiest.
Re:Thanks, Australia! by sd4f · 2012-09-05 14:58 · Score: 1

you mean the ALPBC...
Re:Thanks, Australia! by zblack_eagle · 2012-09-05 22:29 · Score: 1

Note: this is why our referendum for becoming a republic in the '90's failed, as it was basically about keeping the current system while eliminating the queen (and "her" token governor (general) representatives) as head of state. That and it was designed to fail, as the proposed changes were put forth by the then-prime minister who is/was a monarchist.

At least they're doing it in the open by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 06:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

The US does it but says they aren't. Search for Project Echelon. Welcome to the supposedly-free world.

Re:At least they're doing it in the open by GameboyRMH · 2012-09-04 06:41 · Score: 2

Echelon was a quaint old thing compared to what they're doing now but you're right.

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"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:At least they're doing it in the open by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 07:16 · Score: 1

This is not the Echelon you are looking for
-NSA
Re:At least they're doing it in the open by fustakrakich · 2012-09-04 10:52 · Score: 1

Somehow I doubt they are being very open about the external pressure being put on them by the UK/US on this. I don't see any logical reason for it.

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“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”

Uh-oh by Sparticus789 · 2012-09-04 06:38 · Score: 1

All your network traffic are belong to us.
-Says the Australian government.

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sudo make me a sandwich

Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 06:38 · Score: 1

Apparently "the case has not yet been made" is Aussie for "my campaign fund appears to be underfunded".

Re:Translation by Farmer+Tim · 2012-09-04 07:08 · Score: 1

Doubtful; I can't think of a commercial entity who'd benefit (the ISPs are against it for obvious reasons). More likely the pressure is being applied by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), since they already have dossiers on everyone involved in Australian politics and would benefit from expanded powers to hack into suspect's or related third parties' computers (not that ASIO has a history of anything shady).
Hang on, someone at the door. Odd for 5AM. BRB.

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Re:Translation by pixelpusher220 · 2012-09-04 07:13 · Score: 1

I can't think of a commercial entity who'd benefit
Uh, somebody has to run the operations and servers and respond to requests etc. If Australia is anything like the US, that's a LOT of commercial entity involvement.

Also see Military Industrial complex...

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People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
Re:Translation by Nerdfest · 2012-09-04 07:55 · Score: 2

Copyright cartels? I had assumed they were backing most of these pushed for data retention.
Re:Translation by ByronHope · 2012-09-04 08:24 · Score: 1

Yes, copyright is one of the stated reasons for this draconian proposal.
Re:Translation by anomaly256 · 2012-09-04 09:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

You forget that the Australian AG is in the pockets of the MPAA/RIAA who absolutely want this information by any means possible. You forget that the AG office completely own and controls the ratings review board here and makes copyright laws without court oversight.
Re:Translation by Farmer+Tim · 2012-09-04 10:21 · Score: 1

Fair call to all responses.

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Re:Translation by gmhowell · 2012-09-04 13:21 · Score: 1

How does the AG of Australia get into office? Election, appointment? Is there a method for removal?

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Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 13:38 · Score: 1

"Is there a method for removal?"
Baseball Bat.
Oops....please no-one actually do that (at least for the next two years).
Re:Translation by gmhowell · 2012-09-04 15:01 · Score: 1

Wouldn't it be a cricket bat?

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Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 15:17 · Score: 1

Yeah, but they are forcing the ISPs to do all the heavy lifting, so ISPs don't like being forced to spend money on something which either cuts into their profits or forces them to raise prices without proving any benefit which will upset customers (usually, when a new cost is introduced across an industry, price rises blamed on it have to be no more than the actual cost rise, or you get fined, so they can't even use it as a chance to gouge).
The servers aren't coming from over here, and the sysadmins guild and so on contain more people whose budgets are going to be impacted by higher internet costs than people who stand to benefit from it. The only people who like it are ASIO, the AFP (the feds) and the MAFIAA.
Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 15:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

It is a Cabinet post, so they are appointed nominally by the Governor General on the advice of the PM, who selects ministers based on personal and factional loyalty, the need to balance factions, seniority, and occasionally even competence. Ministers are selected from the MsP, which in practice means from the winning party of coalition. (IIRC, in Australia you actually have to be in Parliament to be a minister, unlike in the UK where anyone can be made a minister or added to cabinet without a portfolio.) I think there is a requirement that the law officers must be able to practice law.
Ministers can be sacked by the GG, but that never happens - either the PM will move her to another department, she'll resign, or she'll stay until Labor are voted out.
Whether a government lead by the Mad Monk would be an improvement is a rather difficult question - right now, I think the best that can be said for the ALP is that they are better than the other mob, but stepping in dog shit is better than having a bird crap on your head.
Re:Translation by tqk · 2012-09-04 16:13 · Score: 1

The only people who like it are ASIO, the AFP (the feds) and the MAFIAA.
You forgot the lawyers. Note also, most politicians are lawyers. What a coincidence.

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"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.

That's not what it says at all... by Troyusrex · 2012-09-04 06:39 · Score: 3, Informative

This is a bill to force telcoms to not dispose of the data they've collected for at least two years. There's nothing in hear about "a plan to capture the online data...". Now the data is being retained to help in investigations but there's a HUGE difference between the telcom having it and the government having to subpoena it and the government collecting it all themselves.

Re:That's not what it says at all... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 06:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

Shh, slashdot is trying to compete with fox and CNN for the "who put up the most sensationalist articles" award.
Re:That's not what it says at all... by pixelpusher220 · 2012-09-04 07:15 · Score: 4, Informative

From TFA:

The data retention plan - which would force all Australian telcos and internet service providers to store the online data of all Australians for up to two years
and

''Many investigations require law enforcement to build a picture of criminal activity over a period of time. Without data retention, this capability will be lost,''
Mean they are quite clear on collecting EVERYTHING so that they can build something up later. If it's only 'all Australians who're under suspicion' that's one thing, but it clearly says 'All Australians' without caveat.

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People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
Re:That's not what it says at all... by ByronHope · 2012-09-04 08:16 · Score: 2

You forget about ASIO, they will not require a subpoena, warrant or any form of court order. Once the data is stored it will be mined. Despite ASIO wiping up fear about terrorists, their main targets are political. ASIO targets environmentalists. The data retention is designed to strike fear into the general population, terrorists (if there are any) and criminals will use secure VPNs, Tor or what have you, to hide communications. The other target of this proposal is copyright infringement, mainly Bit Torrent users. There is no "HUGE" difference, if the data exists, it will be abused.
Re:That's not what it says at all... by ThatsMyNick · 2012-09-04 13:48 · Score: 1

Collect data on everyone, provide data on a specific person, when subpoenaed, to the authorities.
Re:That's not what it says at all... by boron+boy · 2012-09-04 19:59 · Score: 1

Wrong. All that has been said is one sentence in a discussion paper(pdf). Here it is:

Relevant Act: Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 Terms of Reference extract: 15. Modernising the Industry assistance framework a. tailored data retention periods for up to 2 years for parts of a data set, with specific timeframes taking into account agency priorities, and privacy and cost impacts
The details are sorely lacking. Here is Electronic Frontiers Australia's submission to the inquiry (pdf):

EFA is seriously concerned at the lack of detail provided by the Attorney-General’s Department in relation to this proposal, as well as the lack of any cost-benefit analysis or even a substantive justification for such a wide-ranging proposal that would affect all Australians. It is therefore very difficult to make meaningful comments on a proposal that lacks any substantive detail. EFA recommends that the Committee reject this proposal out of hand, and request that the Attorney-General’s Department provide a detailed proposal that includes an explanation of the justifications behind it and a cost-benefit analysis.

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Yet another blogger begging for an audience.
Re:That's not what it says at all... by martin-boundary · 2012-09-04 22:45 · Score: 1

If it's only 'all Australians who're under suspicion' that's one thing, but it clearly says 'All Australians' without caveat.

Its still bad even in the first case. Collecting and keeping data about everybody means fishing expeditions are easy.
Let's say you don't like some guy like Julian Assange. You suspect he's a thief after a tipoff, but when you get a warrant and send the Police to check his appartment, they don't find anything. Drat!
Luckily, instead of suspecting something specific and trying to catch him out on *that*, you can just look at his complete life history for the last two years and find *something*. Maybe he's really not a thief at all, so how about a serious traffic offense? No? Well, there's no need to waste time and money on that attack. How about unpaid taxes? Nope. Dodgy property deals? Nope. How about something sexual? Unfortunately, he's not gay, that's inconvenient. Unless... how about rape? Let's see has he slept with anyone recently? Yes! How about we bribe them!
Re:That's not what it says at all... by paulkoan · 2012-09-05 00:39 · Score: 1

And of course any subpoena would include contacts of the individual under suspicion, and perhaps theirs too. Using facebook math, that is an average of 100,000 people for a single subpoena.

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Re:That's not what it says at all... by pixelpusher220 · 2012-09-05 02:37 · Score: 1

OP said it was not to collect info on 'everything but only to retain what they do collect. Glad you agree with me. What was your argument again?

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People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
Re:That's not what it says at all... by pixelpusher220 · 2012-09-05 02:40 · Score: 1

And to your point. Once it's data held by the ISPs it's a far cry from your own personal data which would require said subpoena, it's just corporate data...

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People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D

Begs the questions... by jenningsthecat · 2012-09-04 06:43 · Score: 1

With all major parties on board, web monitoring of all Australians appears to be inevitable.

If they're all in favour of something so draconian and so anti-freedom, are they really different parties at all? And do they really have any interest in the well being of their constituents?

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'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.

Re:Begs the questions... by Farmer+Tim · 2012-09-04 07:20 · Score: 1

If they're all in favour of something so draconian and so anti-freedom, are they really different parties at all?
The two major parties in Australia are the Liberal Party (the conservatives) and the ALP, which as far as I can tell stands for "Another Liberal Party".

And do they really have any interest in the well being of their constituents?
LOL

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Re:Begs the questions... by king_grumpy · 2012-09-04 07:55 · Score: 2

The last election was extremely close and current government only got into power by making deals with independent and green (earth first not alien) politicians. Personally, I think it was the lack of a decent choice that lead to such a close vote. Neither party had any stand out policies or direction.
Re:Begs the questions... by ByronHope · 2012-09-04 08:29 · Score: 2

The two major parties are identical with these types of moves. The opposition will come from some sections of the media, but not the dominant Murdoch media, and The Greens and possibly some of the small right-wing parties.
Re:Begs the questions... by quenda · 2012-09-04 15:13 · Score: 1

The two major parties in Australia are the Liberal Party (the conservatives) and the ALP, which as far as I can tell stands for "Another Liberal Party".
But for our American cousins, you should explain that both would be considered "socialists" over there.
You know, bipartisan support for universal health care, decent minimum wage, social welfare, etc
Re:Begs the questions... by fonitrus · 2012-09-04 18:14 · Score: 1

Actually given how powerfull the Greens are we have 3 major players here and in the last election a vote for the Labour Party whas a vote for the Greens because of how they gave away their preferences.
The best way to describe the lot is the Liberals a more swayed towards improving businesses oportunities and giving power to businesses with the hope they wont abuse their power and employ more people and hope once again this will keep a strong economy.
Labour on other hand is all about misapropriating whatever money is left in the coffers, Labour is heavily backed by the industrial Unions which is a fancy word for "do nothing get paid and if you dont get paid enough go on strike" secret handshake clubs only milking membership fees from members and providing fk all in return.
Greens are our pure socialist, they are also called Watermelons because they are green on the outside but commie red on the inside. Most of their high ranking members were high ranking members in the old Australian Communist Party, some of these (see senator Lee Rhianon in particular) have heavy links with the old USSR, KGB and the old communist block in russia. Our ASIO has files on their 'activism' days and meetings with old KGB agents in the past. Lee Rhianons mparents were all heavy into the old Australian Communist Party, in fact i would hazard a guess towards the end days of the ACP they decided to restructure it to a more modern appeal to attract young student 'activists' as the old communist party used to do with marxists ideals and such but now they went with the 'ENVIROMENTAL" and "ORGANIC" way to get supporters. So then the Greens Party was born, the hierarchy is much the same and unlikely the people have changed tehjir views but they are a strong presence in politics and with heavy balance of power in our Senate they can make any dirty deal with their Labour puppets and get it passed. They managed to give us the Carbon Tax didnit they.
At present the Labour Party is trying to distance itself in public while on the inside is supporting the Greens because communists and unions are usualy banded together its just now is not the time to tell people they are coming out of the woodwork because they havent managed to take away all the weapons in the hands of hunters and sporting shooters. The 1996 fiasco stealback was a start but they are now working on step 2 which is ratifying and implementing the junket UN Potocol on ammunition and small arms basically ruining the shooting sport and hunting in countries which implemets them. Once they can be assured the population is defenceless they might start implementing some of their more retarded ideas to brign us all back to serfdom
Re:Begs the questions... by boron+boy · 2012-09-04 20:06 · Score: 1

I for one welcome our green watermellon, commie, non gun toting, ethical, environmental, pro choice, pro secular, pro internet privacy overlords. Go the greens!

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Yet another blogger begging for an audience.

Why? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 06:53 · Score: 1

Doesn't a simple web proxy render this kind of data from the ISP useless?

While we're destroying civil rights... by MikeRT · 2012-09-04 07:02 · Score: 1

in the name of The Children, I think it's about time we grab all of the activists and other paranoiacs who've created the hysteria about the dangers to children and throw them into a Soviet-style labor camp and surround it with two miles of landmines. As an American, I volunteer Death Valley or some place in northern Alaska. If you're going to gut civil liberties like that, you have no right to complain when someone does it to you.

Re:While we're destroying civil rights... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 07:12 · Score: 1

This has nothing to do with standard domestic issues like child safety. This is all about precrime and capturing "terrorists". Basically, it's bullshit.

First there was Big Brother by StillNeedMoreCoffee · 2012-09-04 07:06 · Score: 2

Now there's Big Mate

Forced VOIP + Web Snooping by Walking+The+Walk · 2012-09-04 07:07 · Score: 2

So, hot on the heals of a Slashdot story about Australia moving to fibre so they can push VOIP, we now get a story that states that they want to:

force all Australian telcos and internet service providers to store the online data of all Australians for up to two years

Yeah, don't worry - they're not related though. Really, we just think VOIP will improve everyone's lives.

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A recursive sig
Can impart wisdom and truth
Call proc signature()

Don't trust the Attorney General (Cricket) by NSN+A392-99-964-5927 · 2012-09-04 07:07 · Score: 1

Aussies are pretty smart and something will change if they get upset.

Solve it by a game of cricket ;-) Throw a full yorker at the attorney general and see how the law sticks when he is on the crease!

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All cows eat grass!

ok, so... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 07:53 · Score: 1

...3 things..

1) What's to stop most people from tossing back and forth some randomly generated files, thus causing these already massive "backups" of all of the "data" to become super-duper-massive?

2) What sort of data are they keeping? If I pay for a song from itunes (as if), does that mean that they keep a copy?

3) If I download illegal documents, or documents that are not meant for civilians, and they keep a copy, do they keep that too?

Fuck, if I could just get a job with an Australian ISP, I could use them to store my files, and look clean!

With all major parties on board by fustakrakich · 2012-09-04 08:23 · Score: 1

May I assume that the Greens are not a major party yet? Or have they aligned themselves with one of them? And are they speaking up? They received no mention the article. Oh well, it's up to the people to vote the 'major parties' out if they are interested in stopping this atrocity.

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“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”

Re:With all major parties on board by mr_snarf · 2012-09-04 17:32 · Score: 1

May I assume that the Greens are not a major party yet? Or have they aligned themselves with one of them? And are they speaking up? They received no mention the article. Oh well, it's up to the people to vote the 'major parties' out if they are interested in stopping this atrocity.
No, the greens have NOT aligned themselves with either of the other big parties.
The greens have been campaigning against this sort of thing for ages. The Greens spokesperson for media stuff has the following campaigns running:
http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/campaigns In particular:
http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/natsecinquiry
http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/stopgovernmentsnooping

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printf("Goodbye cruel world!\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b");

Nanny said it is to protect us by bug1 · 2012-09-04 08:42 · Score: 1

Nicola Roxon seems to be a genuinely caring person, she has won international recognition for her campaigned against cigaret companies, she isnt one of these power seeking politicians looking for kickbacks or to earn favors from the intelligence community.

She seems to genuinely believe this is need to protect society, and doesn't seem to expect this information to abused.

I cant think of anyone more fitting for the "Nanny" tag from the nanny state.

Re:Australia the Internet Police State by tdelaney · 2012-09-04 09:59 · Score: 2

Basically, yes. And the worst thing is that IMO the current government is almost complete crap, but they're far far better than the Opposition.

Economically:

We survived the GFC with minimal impact.

We have a tiny amount of government debt (despite the Opposition constantly harping about our "high level of government debt" - an example of them "creating an evil to declare war on").

We have a budget that is close to balanced.

We have an ambitious and important infrastructure project underway (the National Broadband Network) that is using largely-borrowed money to pay for the build and is projected to make a 7% ROI (and again, the Opposition opposes this as a "huge waste of taxpayers' money" despite it not being any such thing - neither a huge waste, nor taxpayers' money).

Socially:

We have reasonable public health care and education (not brilliant, but it's a pretty good safety net).

We don't have a lot of unstabilising elements in the community.

So evils like "illegal boat people" (no such thing - it is not illegal to seek asylum) and all the various justifications for data retention need to be created or blown out of all proportion to create hysteria.

Give him everything right now. by arthurpaliden · 2012-09-04 10:42 · Score: 2

Cut out the middle man send Attorney-General Nicola Roxon every thing right now. CC him on every email and photo upload and send him your daily web browsing histories, if he has twitter the update him on what your are doing.

This is what they did in Canada and they crashed the Parliamentary mail and web servers. After a few days of this the bill was effectively withdrawn.

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Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo

Re:Give him everything right now. by arthurpaliden · 2012-09-04 11:13 · Score: 1

Then why is she putting forward such a stupid bill? I thought only men did that kind of thing...

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Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Re:Give him everything right now. by slash.dt · 2012-09-04 11:24 · Score: 1

Cut out the middle man send Attorney-General Nicola Roxon every thing right now. CC him on every email and photo upload and send him your daily web browsing histories, if he has twitter the update him on what your are doing.
This is what they did in Canada and they crashed the Parliamentary mail and web servers. After a few days of this the bill was effectively withdrawn.
Her. Send *her* everything right now. Surely the name and the photo were reasonable clues to the gender?
Re:Give him everything right now. by Majkow · 2012-09-04 13:06 · Score: 1

i think she accidently deleted some emails or photo's on facebook. she is introducing this so she can have a backup.
Re:Give him everything right now. by PuZZleDucK · 2012-09-04 13:39 · Score: 1

I like this idea... anyone know her contact details? I tried to look up my local candidate once and failed at that :p my chances of finding the AGs personal email is zero, but i figure one of the /. crowd might know.

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Can a person program a new solution to a problem? Why should anyone be able to stop such a thing? -Richard Stallman

Question to any Aus ISP staff here by davesag · 2012-09-04 11:20 · Score: 1

Since reading about this I've been wondering just how long do Australian ISPs retain such data for currently, without these new laws in place? Given GSM phone towers supposedly retain 37 years worth of EMEI logs, I can't imagine many ISPs would totally roll their logs within two years anyway. Can someone here who actually works at an Aussie ISP clarify the current situation please?

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I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it

All Australians? by OzJimbob · 2012-09-04 11:37 · Score: 1

It is a bit disingenuous to state that "web monitoring of all Australians appears to be inevitable". I, for one, am tunneling my web traffic via SSH to a server overseas, so they won't be monitoring my URLs ;)

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-"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!

Obligatory link to the Pirate Party of Australia by pipedwho · 2012-09-04 12:29 · Score: 2

http:/pirateparty.org.au

Dear All website owners by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-04 13:21 · Score: 1

Please default to https

They want to keep what? by thogard · 2012-09-04 13:39 · Score: 2

I deal with security of a payment gateway. Part of my job is to make sure we don't keep any credit card details floating around yet these new laws conflict with that. Years ago it seemed simple, just purge the field that has the card number in it. Too bad that is a naive solution for a far more complex problem and now I may be required to keep logs for years? Do you know how many card numbers show up in logs for stupid reasons?

Do you know how many people put their card number in the "name on card field"? What do you do about a email address of 5123456789012345@gmail.com when they used card xxx345? What do you do with the message "Did payment to card number 4123... go through?" How about encrypted files that use a credit card number as the file name? How about reference text of "ref_cardnumber" to deal with refunds? How about card numbers in https GET requests even though the data must be POSTed to even work?

I used cardrecon to scan my DNS personal server's DNS logs and it found people probing what appears to be cardnumber.abnormal.com. I have no idea what that is about. It finds all sorts of odd things that appears to have card numbers in it like deleted text from word or pdf documents.

Re:Obligatory link to the Pirate Party of Australi by TranquilVoid · 2012-09-04 14:09 · Score: 1

It strikes me as odd that the Pirate Party would be against someone copying your data.

Re:Obligatory link to the Pirate Party of Australi by pipedwho · 2012-09-04 14:22 · Score: 1

I know you're probably going for a Funny mod, but The Pirate Party does not condone piracy. It is about making sure people are not harassed by one-sided laws that go against the common good.

Re:Obligatory link to the Pirate Party of Australi by TranquilVoid · 2012-09-04 14:44 · Score: 1

You're right, I'd conflated their position with the standard SlashDot take on abolishing copyright, which was a bit flip anyway as anti-copyright thought usually applies to public, not private, data.

Reading their site it's not clear exactly what they propose other than 'reform'. As best I can work out they want to reduce the length of copyright and patents to some unstated period, and possibly make it only apply to corporations. For the data-rentention issue you may be better off linking to the Greens who have similar policies on privacy and aren't tainted with the one-issue label (sort of).

Re:Australia the Internet Police State by XDirtypunkX · 2012-09-04 17:51 · Score: 1

Technically they don't have to prove they weren't safe in Indonesia, if they have fled at least 3 countries in the last 18 months.

Re:Australia the Internet Police State by XDirtypunkX · 2012-09-04 17:52 · Score: 1

Also note, "not safe" in this context also means that Indonesia wouldn't accept them as legal residents (in that they couldn't legally stay in the country).

Re:The Onion Router, GnuPG, TrueCrypt by boron+boy · 2012-09-04 20:12 · Score: 1

Part of the "discussion paper (pdf) also says "give us your passwords or else":

Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979
14.Reforming the Lawful Access Regime
a. expanding the basis of interception activities
15. Modernising the Industry assistance framework
a. establish an offence for failure to assist in the decryption of communications
b. institute industry response timelines
c. tailored data retention periods for up to 2 years for parts of a data set, with specific timeframes taking into account agency priorities, and privacy and cost impacts

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Yet another blogger begging for an audience.

Re:The Onion Router, GnuPG, TrueCrypt by boron+boy · 2012-09-04 20:13 · Score: 1

oops stuffed up the link: http://aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=pjcis/nsl2012/additional/discussion%20paper.pdf

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Yet another blogger begging for an audience.

Consequence by ThatsNotPudding · 2012-09-04 23:47 · Score: 1

I can't wait for wikileaks to start posting private info from all the politicans that proposed this bill. ALL YOUR BASE and so on.

With every Austrailian citizen that reads this info online logged as an Enemy of the State.

Ain't Naivety cute? by some+old+guy · 2012-09-05 00:58 · Score: 1

Anyone who thinks every single government on the planet isn't already collecting, trying to collect, or wishing they could collect, every shred of information about everyone they possibly can is a bleary-eyed dreamer. It is the nature of government to wield every available control mechanism. There are no exceptions, just variations of denial.

To Aussie's credit, at least they have the forthrightness to make no bones about it.

OTOH, neither did/does the KGB/FSB.

Want privacy? Unplug from the internet, pay cash, use pay phones, work under the table, and don't drive.

Only Luddites have a reasonable expectation of real privacy in today's world.

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Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.

Re:The man behind the curtain. by hoboroadie · 2012-09-05 02:38 · Score: 1

Since the multi-nationals have gotten full human rights and bought all the elected offices in the U.S., I believe the question is "are they really different nationalities". It used to be "alignment", now it's all capitalism as the communist "threat" doesn't fly so well. "Sharia Menace", anyone?

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They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.

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Australian Attorney General Pushes Ahead With Gov't Web Snooping

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