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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?
I'd like to see them do that to someone's OpenBSD box!
SARAVA!
Its partly because of our close relationship with the US. We have to keep track of terrorists living in Australia, and possibly migrating here.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
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
"I'd worry about a Tempest virus that polled a personal computer's CD-ROM drive to pulse the motor as a signalling method:
Why bother when it could use a small cellular modem?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Does this get the record for the longest TL;DR reply? It has to be in the running
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
, 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.
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
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.
australia is a backwater country with a small population and small economy (even though standard of living and per capita stats are good)
there are some large cities (melbourne, sydney, brisbane) but there isn't really much in the way of populated landmarks that would make good targets like the wtc in nyc
there are very few nuclear facilities (lucas heights) and a huge sparsely populated landmass to hide military facilities in
even our government is pretty tame in the big scheme of things
guess that's why its called the lucky country
asio is probably akin to the cia in the states
And a long life of drug abuse.
...ASIO computers have been hacked!
Brian damage, perhaps?
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
as long as they don't steal your kiddie pr0n collection
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.
im from ASIO, and theres a terrorist in your vagina. and i have to catch it with my penis.
australia is a backwater country with a small population
Australia's 22 millions people puts it at 52 out of 242 countries. It would be 9th largest country in Europe.
and small economy
Australia has the 12th largest economy by GDP. That's in the top 5%.
there are some large cities (melbourne, sydney, brisbane) but there isn't really much in the way of populated landmarks that would make good targets like the wtc in nyc
Are you on crack? All of those cities (like every other modern city in the world) has large commercial and residential towers that would make excellent targets for a 9/11 style attack. Anything that isn't in the top 1% is not a backwater.
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.
ASIO ~MI5/ classic anti Soviet FBI unit. They will interview anyone directly in Australia, try and turn with 'cash'. :)
Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) ~MI6/CIA - unknown policy/past. Policy papers hint of been very, very direct until early 1980's.
DSD Defence Signals Directorate ~GCHQ/NSA/CSE - keeps codes safe, taps all telcos in Asia.
The public face of the Australian spooks has been ASIO, a hunt for communists, keeping its ranks pure and records shared with state police on all local groups, clubs, political types, gov workers, celebs during the Cold War.
Keeps the press and authors busy and away from the other agencies
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
have you ever been outside australia?
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
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
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.
Or plant kiddy porn there, for convenient later use.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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
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
Who needs to leave the country ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Hilton_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Hilton_bombing#Accusations_of_conspiracy (search ASIO)
Dual Century Programming: Yeah I know
Rouge? Nah, that's just sunburn, mate.
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.
there has been a bombing in melbourne too, and also a botched asio operation (after which parliament temporarily suspended permission for asio officials to carry firearms). sorry don't have links but giyf
we're still a backwater country... in many other countries bombings, terrorism and widespread violence are commonplace
The CIA?
THINK! It's patriotic