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Australian Spy Agency Seeks Permission To Hack Third-Party Computers
New submitter LordLucless writes "ASIO, Australia's spy agency, is pushing for the ability to lawfully hijack peoples' computers — even if they are not under suspicion of any crime. They seek the ability to gain access to a third party's computer in order to facilitate gaining access to the real target — essentially using any person's personal computer as a proxy for their hacking attempts. The current legislation prohibits any action by ASIO that, among other things, interferes with a person's legitimate use of their computer. Conceivably, over-turning this restriction would give ASIO the ability to build their own bot-net of compromised machines. Perhaps inevitably, they say these changes are required to help them catch terrorists."
I am an Australian. Assume this passes. How can I harden my computer against being used as a node in an ASIO botnet?
The only thing I can think of at the moment is to use Linux and make sure I've closed all uncessary ports...?
What else? I am not a security buff. Encryption doesn't seem particularly useful, since the problem here isn't that ASIO is accessing our files (although they would probably definitely be doing that too), but that they're using our bandwidth and processing resources.
So what happens when one of these third parties is detained as a spy, if their compromised computer is detected at a border? Depending on where you go, taking a machine with you sounds like it could actually put your life - or at least, your freedom - at risk?
Have we given up even maintaining the facade of the rule of law now?
..don't panic
You know... you start trespassing on peoples property and eventually you find some people who do the same back at you.
I don't have the remotest sense of faith anything public servants or defense personnel put together in this country could stand to defend against penetration attempts from vetted software security experts.
Is this really a smart idea? It's like asking for backlash, with the risk of having potentially sensitive information exposed as a result.
These days are justifying their actions with âoehelp the childrenâ or âoecatch terroristsâ.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
You get charged with interfering with law enforcement operation?
...eating your rights!
I'd like to see them do that to someone's OpenBSD box!
SARAVA!
Is terrorism even a thing to worry about down under? (other than from the government)
Outside of Australia, what would be the status of ASIO members and those that authorize them?
Seems fitting somehow, since the original settlers of Australia were
people who had been branded as criminals by the power structure in
England at the time. Of course the truth is that those who were deported
to Australia were more often economically disadvantaged and not actually
any sort of hardened criminals. The current Australian government on the
other hand is looking like a very seasoned and very hardened criminal right now.
anytime an organization gets large enough it is invariably taken over by sociopaths and used to further their personal agendas
governments, corporations, churches are all the enemy of the individual
because the way the evil people at the top think unless an individual is their puppet, or under their thumb then the individual is a threat and power must be expanded until everyone is of that status
the "leaders" will use any excuse or lie to justify their power expansion but the results are always the same, larger budgets, more power, less accountability
there is no way to "fight" because I'm not evil enough to use their tactics, so all I can do is live quietly and hope they don't notice me or my family
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/19.60.html#subj9
"I'd worry about a Tempest virus that polled a personal computer's
CD-ROM drive to pulse the motor as a signalling method:
* Modern high-speed CD-ROM drive motors are both acoustically and
electrically noisy, giving you two attack methods for the price of one;
* Laptop computer users without CRTs, and the PC users that can afford
large LCD screens instead of CRTs, often have CD-ROM drives;
* Users are getting quite used to sitting patiently while their
CD-ROM drives grind away for no visibly obvious reason (but
that's quite enough about the widespread installs of software from
Microsoft CD-ROMs that prompted Kuhn's investigation in the first place.)"
Will Woz still want to buy Aussie citizenship if this is allowed?
Last time when we talk about Soviet Union and/or China and/or Cuba and/or Iran and/or North Korea or East Germany, or any of those countries we used words like "ROUGE COUNTRIES" to describe them.
And they deserved it, for those countries never about the human rights of their citizens, and those countries spied on their own citizens.
Nowadays, countries that are supposed to be "FREE", such as Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States are becoming more and more like those rogue states.
What the fuck has happened to the spirit of "FREEDOM" of the free world?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Dear ASIO, The only people (and I use that term loosely) currently terrorising Australia are you. Kindly take your hacking desires against lawful citizens and shove them.
I donâ(TM)t know about you, but I find it very curious that comedian George Carlin died of chest pains a few months after his new, scathing routine
or maybe the fact he was 80 years old, with a history of heart problems....
AH. For the good old days. Way back in the day the then Attorney-General personally led a raid on the HQ of ASIO on the grounds that he believed that ASIO had not given him full or accurate information about...yes...terrorist activity in Australia by Croatians. And this was back in the early 1970's
The kicker was that he did not consult with the Prime Minister or the Cabinet before he did it. The Government of the day had a great mistrust of Intelligence agencies
Please hand over your freedoms to your nearest politician.
Does this get the record for the longest TL;DR reply? It has to be in the running
...commandeer a vehicle. Makes sense, as long is it's obvious and understandable. I'd happily back away from some work if a big message popped up saying that they needed my machine for a while. And since they don't have a warrant to search my machine, anything they find is inadmissable I imagine? That works for me. And if it's obvious, especially if I can't use my machine concurrently, then bot-nets aren't an issue.
what's the difference between cops and criminals again?
Last time when we talk about Soviet Union and/or China and/or Cuba and/or Iran and/or North Korea or East Germany, or any of those countries we used words like "ROUGE COUNTRIES" to describe them.
I seriously doubt that.
Headline: "ASIO is already breaking into third-party computers unlawfully, but is tired of covering it up."
''The purpose of this power is to allow ASIO to access the computer of suspected terrorists and other security interests,'' : "The purpose of this power is power".
''(It would be used) in extremely limited circumstances and only when explicitly approved by the Attorney-General through a warrant.": "We'll use it whenever and order several redundant sets of rubber stamps for the warrants"
'The Attorney-General's Department refused to explain yesterday how third-party computers would be used, ''as this may divulge operationally sensitive information and methods used by ASIO in sensitive national security investigations.''' : "We use them for all sorts of things no one in their right mind would approve of"
Pal, Australia. What does the word conjure up? Think. I know you had history classes in school. Australia was a penal colony. Meaning, they were rogues before they ever got to Australia. They are EXPECTED to be rogue! Putting the words "Australia" and "rogue" in the same sentence is redundant and repetitive.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Is George Carlin Dead Because He Spoke of the NWO?
Probably.
, or any of those countries we used words like "ROUGE COUNTRIES" to describe them.
Reds under the bed, eh?
* Run a BSD or Linux system. - Secure it. If you don't know how to do this, do your home work.
* Use a snapshot capable filesystem, and take snapshots (ZFS / BTRFS). - You can use these to identify file that have changed.
* Use Tripwire or a clone like AIDE. - This is a second level of checking for file changes.
* Manually audit your system regularly.
* Use OS repositories from outside Australia.
And the list would not end there.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Exactly how an Australian government action morphs into a UN action isn't clear UNLESS we have yet another Jesus rode dinosaurs 6000 years ago, the earth is flat, cutting corporate taxes while increasing personal income taxes will reduce the deficit, black helicopter rightard speaking
It got sold away under your ass...
Well, technically, Iran has never been a "rouge nation". On the other hand, that's an apt description for all the communist nations...
On the other hand, if you really meant "ROGUE nation", then Iran would also fit nicely.
Why do so many supposedly educated people get "rouge" and "rogue" confused?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The Spirit of Freedom has been bought and sold to the mega-corporations and their client governments. Privacy doesn't need to be dead, but its more advantageous to the business community if it is, therefore things like this proposed legislation to "Combat Terrorism" - i.e. to combat those whom the Media Industry wants to close down and prevent from copying their copyright works.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
"You are being watched. The government has a secret system: a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the government considered irrelevant. They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find you".
Ever since terrorism became such a huge problem in Australia, ASIO have been unable to catch a single terrorist. So hampered were they by a lack of access to my computer, they have been unable to foil a single, credible terrorist plot. In the last decade or so, an attack by terrorists has been imminent, at any moment, I expect to be attacked by terrorists. The lack of an actual attack, the lack of any suspicion of an actual attack, the lack of any identifiable group with any plausible reason to attack, the lack of any identifiable person associated with any group planning to attack, these are simply indicators of how clever these devious, brown people are. If only someone would use my computer to hack into theirs, then Australians would know the reason for the constant stream of messages telling us to fear.
No, the word you are thinking of is "alcoholic", not "rogue".
In free societies, spy agencies still do (necessary) "evil" - but they ask permission first.
to use a slightly differant little australian rock bands music lyric.
how about we on earth all hack every australian pc and see how there govt thinks about that after...
And a long life of drug abuse.
...ASIO computers have been hacked!
Brian damage, perhaps?
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
No, buying is a bad practice in the corporate world. It has just been co-opted by the DiscoverCard Spirit of Freedom(TM), brought to you in part by McDonald's, and by the generous donation of the Monsanto Corporation. They are "Loving It"
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I'd rather have terrorists.
freedom was ok when there weren't so many things the folks in charge could invade and bug or tap.
but now, there is so much out there to bug and snoop on, well, you can't blame a kid for being hungry in a candy store, can you?
THEY WANT IT!
and they have most of the power to do whatever they want. in fact, 'asking' is just a formality, these days. if you are on a network, folks in charge think they have a right to your data.
THIS is the brave new world. huxley had zero idea about what the real future was going to be like.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
...got to keep the loonies on the path.
(and that means, you and me!)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
It sounds like you need to brush up on your own history classes -- unless they were in the US, in which cases they made some important omissions. Such as the fact that England started shipping its inmates to Australia only after the American Revolution made them lose their favorite penal colony. Prior to then, many punishments for criminals consisted of them having to spend several years or their whole lives in the US.
"ROUGE"
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
im from ASIO, and theres a terrorist in your vagina. and i have to catch it with my penis.
It died in September 2011.
That was the day the intelligence world decided that ANYTHING was permissable in the 'fight against terrorism'.
No blood or treasure was too much, no budget could be refused, no cost benefit analysis was necessary, no rights or priveliges for the public, no freedsoms and no rights to privacy .... nothing was to get in the way of the War. And then other interests piggy backed on the intelligence community. The copyright and IP industry, the music and movie industries, various sectrors of the economy undergoing stress etc etc ...
And Joe Public went along with it. He was a willing stooge.
Getting all those freedoms, rights and privileges back will probably be a centuries long struggle - but I've basically written all those rights and privileges off.
Naomi Klein has the right of it.
But, of course! Why do you think the 2nd amendment is so important to us? It's important that all us criminals can defend ourselves from each other! Not to mention that we don't want the warden or his gang to come back!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
As satisfying as it may be to put the boot into your oppressors, in order to run a nation you need to start with a plan and execute a million details. The "good guys" typically stop at quotable twaddle about the dignity of man and some heroic defiance. It's only the "bad guys" who have carefully considered world domination plans.
Well rouge is the colour of political parties that preach one thing while doing the opposite, usually making things free for the common person while concentrating power in the powerful. Of course most political parties are doing that. :)
I see that your user name is a synonym for the rouge avenger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Specifically, if you like tits and bums, you inevitably see the occasional underaged picture whether you like it or not. Technically this is a career destroying crime. ASIO used this specific scenario to destroy someone I know who was silly enough to use his position as in the Northern Territory bureacracy to annoy them for personal entertainment. I warned him they were well set up to hurt him if they ran out of patience, and eventually they did. OK, I don't actually know it was ASIO but they had both opportunity and motivation at the time of the incident. I have a transcript of the trial, and although it is obvious the judge accepted that he was not into kiddie porn (0 day sentence, no monitoring) nevertheless a conviction was recorded and he lost a senior position and has been unemployed since 2001.
While I doubt ASIO would deliberately compromise an unknowing informer network, sooner or later some do-gooder will think of piggybacking automated sniffing onto sanctioned intrusions, and the legislation will pass easily because it contains the magic phrase "protect the children". Struth, just listening to my own tale I have a sudden urge to purge, because although I find the whole kiddie porn thing repellent, saying urgh and hitting the back button will still leave a copy of an illegal file in a cache, and that's enough to get you convicted if someone finds it. These laws are draconian and unassailably politically correct.
Freedom is a concept that must be fought for and protected. Much to many people that live in countries where "Freedom" is given to them as a right take that fact for advantace and feel that it should just be handed to them on a silver platter.
Freedom must be something that is strengthened, protected, defended and fought for, not take for granted, which causes it to weaken adn depreciate.
Last time when we talk about Soviet Union and/or China and/or Cuba and/or Iran and/or North Korea or East Germany, or any of those countries we used words like "ROUGE COUNTRIES" to describe them.
I seriously doubt that.
Well, Iran was certainly not considered red, but the other countries clearly were.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
It sounds like you need to brush up on your own history classes -- unless they were in the US, in which cases they made some important omissions. Such as the fact that England started shipping its inmates to Australia only after the American Revolution made them lose their favorite penal colony. Prior to then, many punishments for criminals consisted of them having to spend several years or their whole lives in the US.
Prior to then, the US didn't yet exist. So England may have sent their criminals to America, but certainly not to the US.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
we can just leave a trail to run to you as a bait, and they will come to talk to you, so then we will be there to handle it.
but if we get tired of waiting at your door step, dont worry, you won't know it was coming. you can relax.
Shouldn't our taxes at least buy us the due diligence of authorities to consider the most obvious and grave dangers before trying to get such plans implemented?
Don't tell the Yanks but that is still the case!!
It said "windows 98 or better" so I installed Linux
Defending tyranny from freedom.
1. Identify political agitator, Julian Assange, etc.
2. Lawfully access agitator's computer in order to target the scapegoat of the month
3. While in agitator's computer "find" something illegal
4. Never have to deal with criticism again.
Wow, this is really bad, what a terrible idea. This will go badly for them in so many ways:
- Legal consequences are endless; this is the verge of thought police, I mean to have and inspect someone's computer is to really be in their head in a sense.
- Rabbit hole investigations where there is no crime
- Abuse of the network put in place by 3rd party, hack ASIO... and of course "insider attack"
Fascinating that they don't think implementing it is actually a problem.
Citizens the world over have voluntarily given up numerous freedoms and control of parts of their lives in order to maintain security against enemies. How far is too far? Should we do every single thing possible, giving up all privacy, allowing our governments to take away our freedom, to stop [most] terrorists? If it causes you to alter the way you live your life, doesn't that mean the terrorists are winning? You've got to draw a line somewhere and stick to it, rather than continually moving it back, little by little forever. In this case I really hope Australians stand up to their government and say "no" to them greasing an already slippery slope. Protection at all costs is far too expensive, so find another way, I'd tell them.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I'd like to amend Godwin's Law to include any mention of Tony Abbott.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Not to mention that we don't want the warden or his gang to come back!
When it comes to a competition between the warden and his gang and the 2nd amendment powered citizen the result is is sadly predictable. Search up 'Mt Carmel, Waco TX'
OTHO, it's probably a good idea for the citizenry pro-actively to protect themselves from each other.
Rouge? Nah, that's just sunburn, mate.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
It's what he puts on right after the wig before going out for a Saturday night in Darlo.
Unsolicitied Advice to Australians...move to New Zeland now while you still can. Your whole country is turning into California at an alarming clip lads.. so sad..
This looks interesting: http://qubes-os.org/
Its based on Linux and uses some newer virtualization features in CPUs to increase system security, and is able to enforce (and represent) security context in the GUI. They even tout a feature (anti-Evil Maid) that foils attackers with physical access (though they say nothing is perfect).
They say that garden variety VMs like VirtualBox and VMware increase security to some extent, but that they were mainly designed to make computing more convenient and efficient (i.e. they are not the most secure usage of virtualization technology). Qubes seems to have the goal of making high security convenient, so I will surely be trying this out soon.
ASIO is not a law enforcement agency. It does not collect evidence or catch offenders. Its role is to asvise the AUS govt on threats to national security. It only collects intelligence, which nay not always be reliable because that is the nature of intelligence. ASIO is not capable of collecting evidence that can be used in court. This kind,of privacy intrusion should be done by a properly disciplined police service acting under a warrant. In AUS that means the Australian Federal Police. If it is necessary, give the AFP the power to do this as a Service to ASIO.
Heavy is the head that wears the tinfoil hat.
Pal, Australia. What does the word conjure up? Think. I know you had history classes in school. Australia was a penal colony. Meaning, they were alcoholics before they ever got to Australia. They are EXPECTED to be alcoholic! Putting the words "Australia" and "alcoholic" in the same sentence is redundant and repetitive.
Yeah, you're right, that works way better.
The CIA?
THINK! It's patriotic