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New Zealand Spy Agency To Vet Network Builds, Provider Staff
Bismillah (993337) writes "The new Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act of 2013 is in effect in New Zealand and brings in several drastic changes for ISPs, telcos and service providers. One of the country's spy agencies, the GCSB, gets to decide on network equipment procurement and design decisions (PDF), plus operators have to register with the police and obtain security clearance for some staff. Somewhat illogically, the NZ government pushed through the law combining mandated communications interception capabilities for law enforcement, with undefined network security requirements as decided by the GCSB. All network operators are subject to the new law, including local providers as well as the likes of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, who have opposed it, saying the new statutes clash with overseas privacy legislation."
It's not illogical at all. You just mandate that all traffic goes through a room controlled by the government for "Lawful Intercept." That way you can say that it's done for law enforcement, but the reality is they're emulating the USA and keeping everything while also MITMing anything they feel like.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
I have permanent residency (and thus voting rights), and I think tha**THE GOVERNMENT OF NEW ZEALAND IS DOING THE RIGHT THING**his is a load o**JOHN KEY IS A GREAT MAN**ollocks.
... why NZ is seen as a hot bed of terrorism, naughtiness and general mayhem. The lead item on the news last night was a political hopeful having to pay back about $350 after claiming on a flight for a friend. Wow. This isn't a country where much happens.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
When Jefferson said "Where governments are afraid of the people, there is freedom" he obviously didn't take into account the possibility that governments could preemptively terrorize its people to avoid having to be scared of them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You don't know much about NZ government, then. So much for those assumptions of yours.
The TICS legislation was introduced as an exercise in ass-covering along with another bill which made illegal electronic surveillance performed by the GCSB "lawful" ex post facto. Both bills were overwhelmingly unpopular and submissions from the public and interest groups were practically unanimous against.
Several opinion polls have indicated that the majority of the NZ population disagree (many vehemently) with their government on these laws, and when they passed it was only with a one-vote majority in the Parliament courtesy of an MP who is the sole representative of his minor party (who himself only got into office because of a pre-election backroom deal with the National party). The best part of all this is that this deciding MP was himself under suspicion of leaking internal documents about illegal conduct by the GCSB, and that his email and that of the journalist he was corresponding with were snooped on in the process.
For a tiny little island nation we sure do have more than our fair share of idiot politicians and inept law enforcement. Not to mention a system of government whose relationship with democracy grows more tenuous by the year and which resembles a bunch of nice ideas thrown together without any guarantees, such as an immutable and entrenched Bill of Rights. The GCSB and TICS legislation have done considerable harm to the notion of privacy as a basic human right in this country with dragnet surveillance and full feed-through to the NSA of whatever gets picked up.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
The guidance document as published at http://ncsc.govt.nz/assets/TICSA/NCSC-Guidance-for-Network-Operators.pdf states:
> To assist the GCSB and network operators to work together on network security risks, network operators
> may nominate a suitable employee (or employees) to apply for a SECRET level GCSB sponsored security
> clearance.
> Network operators may also, upon request, be required to nominate an individual for security clearance
> (section 75).
> Having cleared staff within network operators allows the GCSB to share certain information about network
> security risks that is classified. While these individuals cannot pass classified information to un-cleared
> colleagues, they will be able to give informed guidance on identifying and addressing network security
> risks.
> If a network operator does not have cleared staff, the GCSB will still seek to engage with them, and share
> what information it can about network security risks.
The legislation itself states:
A network operator must, within 10 working days _after being required to do so_ under subsection (2), (3), or (4),—
(a) nominate a suitable employee to apply for a secret-level government-sponsored security clearance (a clearance); and
(b) notify the employee of the nomination; and
(c) give written notice of the name and contact details of that employee to the Registrar.
- so the vetting obligation isn't an obligation until the Network Operator is 'required'. The rationale for putting staff up for vetting seems sound, but as you can see from the last part of the quote from the guidance, they can still work with service providers that don't have cleared staff.
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