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."

Comments

Re:What happened to the "free" of the "Free World"

[stymy]

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.