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Australia Passes Mandatory Data Retention Law

Posted by timothy on from the what's-in-the-box dept.

Bismillah writes Opposition from the Green Party and independent members of parliament wasn't enough to stop the ruling conservative Liberal-National coalition from passing Australia's new law that will force telcos and ISPs to store customer metadata for at least two years. Journalists' metadata is not exempted from the retention law, but requires a warrant to access. The metadata of everyone else can be accessed by unspecified government agencies without a warrant however.

91 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Don't blame me. by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 5, Funny

    I voted Greens.

    1. Re:Don't blame me. by thesupraman · · Score: 2

      Well, I guess your data will be of interest then..

      The 'solution' to this is of course organised poisoning of these databases through both randomised access and proxy/encryption use, which if used enough makes the data useless. Unfortunately that takes a lot of people to make it work.. and most people just dont understand the ramifications.

      I wonder what it takes to be classified as a 'journalist' (but then I doubt it makes any difference, because how would they know if such rules are followed..)

    2. Re:Don't blame me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The 'solution' to this is of course organised poisoning of these databases through both randomised access and proxy/encryption use, which if used enough makes the data useless. Unfortunately that takes a lot of people to make it work.. and most people just dont understand the ramifications.

      Ok, so we start up a malware/trojan project that uses a number of commonly unpatched exploits to self propagate and then slowly trickle poisoned information into the metadata coffers. And we use Vevo's youtube geoblocking (or equivalent) to verify IP's are located in Aus to make sure we only pick up appropriate PCs.

      It'll work because the types people that don't patch are unlikely to notice the small trickle of poisoned metadata. They also won't know/understand the ramifications of the metadata tracking (and, if we're feeling particularly nasty, probably never will despite all efforts to explain)

      It's completely immoral and shouldn't be done. But we may need to lower ourselves to the level the government has stooped to in order to protect our freedom from undue surveillance.

    3. Re: Don't blame me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You do know the greens today are pretty much labor a couple decades ago? And labor is what liberals were, with liberals now being conservatives and having nothing to do with liberalism.

      If you didn't just vote for your favourite colour but actually voted based on your beliefs you would either vote for different and new parties over the years or rapidly change your beliefs and values to keep up with the decline of the two major parties.

      Also I've been busy, set up 3 new VPNs last night. Going to be a busy 6-12 months!

    4. Re:Don't blame me. by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2

      You did hear the news that Australia is attempting to ban proxies/VPN use, right? So your 'solution' may soon be illegal in Australia.

    5. Re:Don't blame me. by mars-nl · · Score: 2

      Better download Tor while you still can/may.

    6. Re:Don't blame me. by war4peace · · Score: 1

      Yeah, let's transform "metadata" into "data" - because it's scarier that way!
      I mean... who in their right mind would NOT blow this out of proportion?

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    7. Re:Don't blame me. by currently_awake · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If an undercover cop follows you around the city without a warrant it's stalking, but if they use the cellphone system (without a warrant) to do the same thing it's not?

    8. Re: Don't blame me. by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      You do know the greens today are pretty much labor a couple decades ago?

      yep and I think even that is a polite way of saying how bad the greens are today. I think the biggest indictment of them is the fact even my highly pro environmental friends refuse to vote for them as they see them as only a destructive force towards environmental sustainability and see either coalition or labor as a better choice for the environment.

    9. Re:Don't blame me. by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      Hilarious. The only mainstream party opposed to the right-wing neoliberal authoritarianism that's been destroying the western world for decades, and they're "scumbags".

      Hope you don't have any allergies shovelling that much straw around.

    10. Re:Don't blame me. by war4peace · · Score: 1

      It is not the same thing because the undercover cop stalking you gathers data, not metadata. It's the difference between counting how many envelopes you're getting in your mailbox and how thick they are versus reading their contents.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    11. Re:Don't blame me. by Krojack · · Score: 1

      Sounds like Australia is taking tips from China on how to manage Internet users.

    12. Re:Don't blame me. by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      They are all pretty much scumbags. Not even most environmentalists vote for the greens anymore as they are little more than an extension of the labor party, focused on short term thinking and power plays.

    13. Re:Don't blame me. by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      They are all pretty much scumbags. Not even most environmentalists vote for the greens anymore as they are little more than an extension of the labor party, focused on short term thinking and power plays.

      Greens an extension of Labor ? Now there's a chuckle.

      Sounds like you get most of your political information from your local Rupertarian.

      I'm sure a few hardcore greenies have abandoned the Greens as they slowly morph into a generalist centre-left social-democracy party, but their share of the primary vote has remained pretty constant for a decade or more.

    14. Re:Don't blame me. by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      The real-world equivalent of this would be a little drone following you around recording where you went, who you talked to, where you went shopping, when you did it, etc, etc.

      I wouldn't be comfortable with that. Would you ?

    15. Re:Don't blame me. by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      I think you are thinking of the greens from more than a decade ago. The Greens haven't stood for that for a long time. They are basically part of labor and push for policies for short term rather than taking consideration of the long term effects or goals.

      Here is the Greens policy platform.

      Tell us about which parts bother you.

      The greens having power would probably do more damage to human decency and DEFINITELY more damage to the environment and the prospects of a sustainable future (if you destroy business you can't head to sustainability, you head towards being a 3rd world country or Greece).

      Yes, obviously they'd do far more damage than the "growth at all costs", "destroy the middle classes" pro-oligopoly parties.

    16. Re: Don't blame me. by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      I think the biggest indictment of them is the fact even my highly pro environmental friends refuse to vote for them as they see them as only a destructive force towards environmental sustainability and see either coalition or labor as a better choice for the environment.

      I'd love to hear the rationale behind their thinking.

      Because I'm at a loss how two parties promoting growth at all costs, overconsumption, exploitation of the environment (stripe-mining Coal, CSG, dumping of spoil on the reef, etc) could possibly lead to a "better choice for the environment".

    17. Re:Don't blame me. by war4peace · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't care but I'm also aware I'm part of a tiny minority.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    18. Re:Don't blame me. by war4peace · · Score: 1

      AFAIK that's already recorded as far as snail mail is concerned.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    19. Re:Don't blame me. by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      They have however maintained a farely solid voter base through recruitment of a younger generation who sadly don't seemed informed enough to see greens for what they really are.

      The only remotely mainstream party in Australia politics with a progressive, centre-left, social democratic policy base ?

      Pretty sure that's why they're getting the youth vote - because they're the only party that give a shit about demographics after baby boomers and have policies with a view past the next election.

      Greens really are part of labor now, the only time they vote against labor is when they see a chance to gain publicity or popularity.

      The Greens have a well developed and mature policy platform. They promote legislation that aligns with it.

      no offense but it sound more like you are the one getting their information from Rupert to have such a positive view of them.

      Murdoch portraying the Greens favourably ? You live in a very different world to me.

  2. Re:Hugh Pickens and Bennett Haselton: journalists? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Please see current government definition:

    Journalist : Some one who write pro-government articles and will willingly share the sources with said government

    Non-Journalist : Everyone else.

  3. Not new by sectokia · · Score: 5, Informative

    I like bias... they don't mention that the labor party all voted it through as well. Greens only opposed it after they learned labor wouldn't, so they would get to claim moral high ground, while it sailed through with bi partisan support. The two year data retension has been in place since the first ISPs started as an industry code of practice decades ago. This law is just formalising and making it clearly mandatory. The meta data has been available and used for decades.

    1. Re:Not new by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

      Yeah Shorten is proving to be somewhat of a ... loyal... opposition. Its a messed up situation and shorten is going to get punished in the polls for this. He's already taken a big hit to his polling.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    2. Re:Not new by bug1 · · Score: 1

      The two year data retension has been in place since the first ISPs started as an industry code of practice decades ago.

      I call bullshit, what do you base that on ?

      When Jacob Applebaum was at LCA he mentioned key IT people at one of the Major ISPs say they didnt snoop.

      If it has always been done by industry arguing about passing on the cost to customer ?
      (this government is so tight they wouldnt compoensate anyone if they had any choice)

    3. Re:Not new by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      This law is just formalising and making it clearly mandatory. The meta data has been available and used for decades.

      As someone who has read the Bill and the requirements under Section 187AA and as someone who is familiar with the billing systems that ISP use I can tell you that this is not true. The items under the section also record the duration and other parts of the communications that weren't previously recorded.

      ISP's billing systems were only concerned if your account was financial, not the specifics of what the account was doing.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    4. Re:Not new by aiht · · Score: 1

      Your suggestion that the Greens only opposed it after they found Labor wouldn't is rubbish. As AC said below (for anyone who can't see ACs), Scott Ludlam (Greens, Western Australia) has been vocally campaigning against it, and educating people about it, since before he was elected. Being technologically literate has always been a big part of his appeal (at least amongst /. types).

    5. Re:Not new by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      I like bias... they don't mention that the labor party all voted it through as well.

      Of course they did. There's barely been daylight between Labor and the Coalition for 10+ years.

      Greens only opposed it after they learned labor wouldn't [...]

      Huh ? The Greens have opposed this from the get-go.

  4. That's handy by LessThanObvious · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Good thing they have all that metadata to parse so it's easy to know who the journalist are, you know, so they can get a warrant before accessing their data.

  5. What difference does it make by GrahamJ · · Score: 2

    if the Five Eyes slurp it all up anyway? They already have access to these data, why bother making ISPs keep it too?

    1. Re:What difference does it make by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 1

      To make people OK with it - in a post Snowden world.

      --
      READY.
      PRINT ""+-0
    2. Re:What difference does it make by GumphMaster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Making the ISP keep it too:

      1. Makes it reliably available for litigation by big media over copyright infringement and removes the ability of ISP to defend customer privacy with inconvenient legal actions or by simply not holding the information. Hosting privacy protecting proxy/VPN services has essentially be outlawed on Australian soil... or will be as the holes in this legislation become evident and the scope creep continues.
      2. Makes it reliably available for abuse by political parties: want to know who leaked the embarrassing x? Simple warrantless search with no oversight.
      --
      Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
    3. Re:What difference does it make by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      To stupidly force the creation of apps that will run on people's computers randomly accessing all kinds of sites all over the internet to flood the databases with hundreds of thousands of bogus entries. Nothing does more to destroy databases than bogus entries that poison it to death. When 90% of your browser data requests are fake and cancelled prior to retrieving the data, what are they left with, apart from a massive bill ten times bigger than they expected. Let's just flood the crap out of meta-data, they want to pry, let them pry into an completely fake illusion.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    4. Re:What difference does it make by GrahamJ · · Score: 1

      I naively intended that as a rhetorical question but yours definitely sounds like the right answer. What a blatant abuse of power, it's sickening.

    5. Re:What difference does it make by dbIII · · Score: 1

      To catch whistleblowers without owing the NSA anything. There's apparently (ten year old info) a lot of foreign collected data that becomes "US eyes only" and getting something reclassified is not trivial.
      Also there has been noise about using it to track down copyright violations, also not worth the NSA's time.
      Plus we don't really know how much is collected with carnivore or whatever the current Five Eyes system is. It may not actually be slurping up everything.

    6. Re:What difference does it make by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Good point Mr Buttle, or is that Tuttle?
      When the objective is to catch someone and hold them responsible it's gone beyond the point where it matters if you've got the right person.

    7. Re:What difference does it make by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      if the Five Eyes slurp it all up anyway? They already have access to these data, why bother making ISPs keep it too?

      As a cache. If an analyst decides to pay attention to you the Xkeyscore can query the cache on the ISP and then slurp any future data. It's must be a spooks wet dream - get the target to pay for their own surveillance.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    8. Re:What difference does it make by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Exactly, if I wasn't participating in this discussion I would mod you up.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    9. Re:What difference does it make by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      if the Five Eyes slurp it all up anyway? They already have access to these data, why bother making ISPs keep it too?

      So it can be used domestically and legally.

      This is about intimidating political opponents, whistleblowers and copyright infringers.

    10. Re:What difference does it make by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Where the point in reality is to readily selectively destroy people's lives if they don't vote right. So, the government can readily check you political allegiances and if you didn't vote right, prevent you from ever gaining government employment. Now, seriously, you don't think all right wing governments will be trolling through meta data to exclude left wing employees to ensure all government departments are stacked with ring wing employee, so even when the left wins their policies purposefully fail. That is why they are keeping meta data, when filtering millions to exclude thousands with out them knowing, to gain and maintain total control. Not only wont you be getting that government job if you don't vote right but you will be excluded from corporate employment, they will economically destroy you. The message, thinking left, see it makes you are failure, think right to succeed. It is as truly evil as it appears to be.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  6. Re:Hugh Pickens and Bennett Haselton: journalists? by youngone · · Score: 4, Informative

    Australia has a couple of big media companies that dominate the media landscape, just as most Western economies do. Those media companies and the two big political parties make use of each, once again just like most western countries. ChunderDownunder has the right idea, but Rupert and the rest won't let the Greens, (or any other disrupters) get any power.

  7. 'Conservative' is a misnomer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If these people were actually conservatives, then they'd try to maintain the status quo, not introduce new controls, etc.

    They are not conservatives, but rather progressives, as they seek progressively more authoritarian ends.

    1. Re:'Conservative' is a misnomer by dbIII · · Score: 1

      The word is "reactionary" and they want to go back to the ways of the "good old days" of England that inspired America to revolt. The sort of stuff Dickens complained about is their template.

    2. Re:'Conservative' is a misnomer by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      If these people were actually conservatives, then they'd try to maintain the status quo, not introduce new controls, etc.

      They are conservatives. They want to go back to the good old days of Feudalism.

      Progressivism is how we escaped that history and created democracies, free speech, equal rights, and the like.

  8. Hack for a shitty law by facetube · · Score: 1

    Time for literally everyone to become a journalist.

    1. Re:Hack for a shitty law by jimmux · · Score: 1

      Time to dust off the old blog, or does new media not count? I'd like to see where they draw the line on that one.

    2. Re:Hack for a shitty law by GumphMaster · · Score: 5, Informative

      The law tightens the definition of "Journalist" over that in the existing Evidence Act so that this is impractical.

      Evidence Act

      Journalist means a person who is engaged and active in the publication of news and who may be given information by an informant in the expectation that the information may be published in a news medium.

      This law:

      (i) a person who is working in a professional capacity as a journalist; or (ii) an employer of such a person;

      If you are not being paid to be a journalist or paying someone to be a journalist then you are not a journalist, and warrants are not required, under this law. A subtle and deliberate difference.

      --
      Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
    3. Re:Hack for a shitty law by vux984 · · Score: 2

      If you are not being paid to be a journalist or paying someone to be a journalist then you are not a journalist, and warrants are not required, under this law. A subtle and deliberate difference.

      If you are collecting ad revenue from your blog, that's good enough to make a hobbyiest a "commercial drone operator" subject to FAA regulations in the USA. Maybe that'll work for "journalists" in Australia.

    4. Re:Hack for a shitty law by facetube · · Score: 1

      Okay, that's pretty awful.

    5. Re:Hack for a shitty law by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      So if you publish on a blog (with adds) then it's journalism. The copywrite cartels have set the legal presedent on the matter.

    6. Re:Hack for a shitty law by Imazalil · · Score: 1

      Could this be a way to 'save' newspapers?

      Find a journalist you like and set up a system that you pay them a buck a month? If they are nice they could offer you access to their stories ad-free as a bonus.

      Or just use the existing subscription model, just change it from "subscribing" to "financing" and you are employing your favorite organization or reporter.

  9. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So journalistic meta data requires a warrant but everyone else doesn't? Or am I just reading that wrong? If I am reading that correctly why are journalists marked as special snowflakes when it should require a warrant for anyone's data?

    1. Re:Huh? by GumphMaster · · Score: 1

      No you are not reading that wrong. Journalists sources have (had) protection in courts under the Evidence Act for a long time, and the definition of journalist was quite broad. The early versions of this bill subverted that protection completely, but a watered down protection of journalists sources was added to secure the major opposition party's support. They deliberately narrowed the scope of "Journalist" to limit the number of warrants that might need to be sought.

      --
      Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
  10. Re:Why not? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Both the Government (Liberal/National) and main opposition party (Labor) voted for the legislation.

    That's about 90% of the parliament wanting to throw us under a bus, so I'm not sure how voting for a non-niche party would have helped.

  11. Thanks for the reminder by blackpaw · · Score: 2

    I activated my VPN after seeing the headline, I keep forgetting to do that.

    I should trial configuring it on my router.

  12. Oops the drive failed by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    My bad.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  13. A bit more worrisome... by Letophoro · · Score: 5, Interesting

    is that it also makes warrant canaries illegal.

    1. Re:A bit more worrisome... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So much for free speech in Australia. Do they have any tech companies? Or even large companies that they can't afford to lose. Maybe if those businesses decide to pick up any leave due to the harsh nature of this, things will change.

      I think 6 month retention might be reasonable. But in any situation, warrantless is not okay.

      By the way, American in the U.S. here.

    2. Re:A bit more worrisome... by aiht · · Score: 1

      Do they have any tech companies?

      Yeah... probably not for long.

    3. Re:A bit more worrisome... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      So much for free speech in Australia

      What made you think we have such a thing? The US constitution does not apply globally.

    4. Re:A bit more worrisome... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Australia is a common law country, right? Is it even possible for them to put you in a position where discontinuing an action is illegal, effectively forcing you to do it? Obviously they passed the law, but would it stand up in court?

      I'm trying to think of some legal basis to challenge it. What if the canary required signing with two PGP keys to be considered valid, and one of those keys was held by someone outside Australia? The victim in Australia wouldn't be able to force them to sign the canary, but might still be found guilty for setting up such a mechanism in the first place.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  14. We are a small ISP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The cost of implementing this is probably going to send us to the wall. I am so glad that the Liberal government is looking after small business!

    1. Re:We are a small ISP by aiht · · Score: 1

      The cost of implementing this is probably going to send us to the wall. I am so glad that the Liberal government is looking after small business!

      I'm so sorry. I wish you the best of luck.

  15. Not sure if this is worse by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Isn't it better for people in Australia to know their network data will be retained for two years, than for the people in the U.S. to be unaware data is being retained, but then in actuality have it retained forever by the NSA?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Not sure if this is worse by agendi · · Score: 2

      This is so that ISP's have to retain it for 2 years. The Govt. can gather it and keep it indefinitely. Though terrorism was the bogey man used to get this through, this law is more about discouraging whistle-blowers.

      --
      I just can't be bothered.
    2. Re:Not sure if this is worse by wjcofkc · · Score: 1

      Or they simply transfer the data to the NSA for safe keeping after the two years are up. Perhaps a bit pessimistic, but at the same time it would not be a surprise.

      --
      Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
    3. Re:Not sure if this is worse by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      No, I think the ISP's will only keep it for two years - but that is gauranteed.

      Right now in the U.S. everyone blindly assumes the data is kept for NO years, and we aren't even given an imaginary date when it might be deleted.

      The Australians are at least all aware for sure the data is being kept, in the U.S. it's still possible to imagine it is not... That's my point.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  16. I tried by MrKaos · · Score: 2
    stroy to /.

    and I wrote to the politicians as well, bad day for Australia.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:I tried by MrKaos · · Score: 2

      It's ok to protect ordinary people from organised crime, right? I've been writing letters to senators to try and let them know why it was such a bad idea all week. Why is it all the really fucked bills have to be 'rushed through'. I reckon the game for politicians is how well they can deceive the population, en masse to pass these really nasty laws whilst the media serves to keep everyone in the dark. They must be high fiving each other now.

      I analysed the bill and whilst I won't include the letters I wrote to the senate, these are the sections of part one I thought needed to be amended to protect the population from fraud and slashdotters will probably get this immediately.

      Criticisms of specific sections in Part one:

      187AA.3A,3B remove because it introduces the possibility that any e-commerce business that is not a telecommunications provider can be forced to retain data and bare the cost of limiting their business throughput and capacity for expansion. For business this represents a rising linear cost that increases with additional customers.

      187B.2 Needs definition of who a CAC (Communications Access Controller) role answers to, which department, and limits to retention demands

      187B.2A change 'may' to 'must'

      187B.3.c Remove. Additional requirements from the CAC impose incremental infrastructure and capacity restraints on business coupled with forcing them into I.P cost and approval cycles every time infrastructure upgrades are required as a result of demands from the CAC. The business is forced to write for approval for mandatory upgrades to meet retention requirements demanded by the CAC.

      187BA.a Specify an minimum standard for encryption of data. Governmental should mandate minimum encryption standards revised regularly to protect consumers from fraud, organised crime, identity theft, harassment and so on. The same standard should control access to the data from all parties.

      187BA.c add allow encrypted access to the data by the entity or person that generated it.

      187E.2.b,c service providers must never be exempt from section 187BA when storing entity or personally generated data 187F.2.a add ensure adherence to encryption standards in 187BA; and

      187F.2.b add: whilst still complying with 187BA

      187F.2.f remove for the same reason as 187B.3.c

      187G.1 Law enforcement uses a secured access standard under 187BA.a to access the data

      187G.2.d change 'may' to 'must'

      187G 4,5 Define a criteria for the ACMA's collection requirements

      187K.1.d add: not approve an exemption from 187BA

      187KA.4 define the ACMA's relation to policing here

      187KA.4.f add: input from the PC and T.O

      187KA.5 remove: ACMA considerations have nothing to do with policing for terrorists

      187LA Should provide protection from abuse from government employees

      187M add: Section 187BA(a)(b),

      To clue you all in Section 187AA is the meat of the 80 page bill that defines what is captured. Section 187BA(a)(b) define, weakly, how the population will be protected from fraud. Whilst the single word change of 187B.2A is the critical change required to protect people from harrasement. 187G.2.d give ISPs an out for complying with 187BA which further weakens the publics protection.

      I feel sorry for my country and it's people. I work in IT, I understand how people will be defrauded because I've seen it and now I think it is inevitable that these cases will be more common. Our constitution says Australians are guaranteed 'responsible government' however I see this bill as a very dangerous instrument that will be abused because it simply doesn't have any protections for Australians - how is that responsible government.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    2. Re:I tried by SigmaTao · · Score: 1

      Thank you for this.

    3. Re:I tried by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Thank you for this.

      I really appreciate that you say so.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    4. Re:I tried by SigmaTao · · Score: 1

      My honour to say it out loud for you, I'm very sure a lot of other people appreciate this too.

  17. Re:Useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is another bill to block websites: http://www.itwire.com/governme...
    As the metadata law just got passed, and with UK already blocking websites, the word is that VPNs can ALSO be blocked.
    I just hope that this law has no hope in being passed.
    The only alternative I can see to bypass the VPN blocks is to lease a server elsewhere and VPN through that. They are cheap enough.

  18. More details by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

    From a quick check of text ISP side retention appears similar to previous failed US attempts. Basically ISP connection "session" level detail.

    ISP assigned IP, aggregate data and packet counts, physical connection point..etc. with a uniform minimum retention period... Frankly shit most ISPs keep anyway.

    On the Information provider side (websites, email providers) retention appears to be per mail or transaction... an access log or email log file... This is on the hosting side only not ISP side unless of course ISP is hosting.

    Thy explicitly seems to not include granular collection on the ISP end... IP flows, DPI/URL type shit.

  19. It's not the slurp, it's the cost to the consumer by Dan+B. · · Score: 1

    So while I have nothing to hide, the data retention bit makes little to no difference to 99% of the population, not that I agree with it in the slightest.
    What stinks most about this bill is that 100% of the cost of this surveillance measure is to be borne by the consumer.

    The government reckons the cost is $4 per person, per annum, so $80,000,000 per year (give or take) while the Telco industry say it will be closer to 10x that amount, meaning everyone's internet/phone bills will increase by around $5-10 per month.

    While that may sounds like a trivial amount to some people, consider how much money that will pull OUT of the economy that small business relies on for income; disposable income.

    --
    Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
  20. This wasn't liberal/national coallition... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    .. this was power elite flunkies doing their owners bidding.

  21. VPN? by elmer+at+web-axis · · Score: 1

    Anyone know a decent VPN service that doesn't require some silly non-standards client to be installed on the desktop for it to function?

    1. Re:VPN? by Phreakiture · · Score: 1

      You could do what I have done. I am in the US, and this costs me about USD 8-9 per month on average, and I don't know what hoops you may have to jump through, but this should work in theory:

      Sigh up for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and get yourself an EC2 instance. Use the AMI for OpenVPN-AS. Configure it to use TCP/443, which will make your traffic look like any other HTTPS traffic.

      On the billing details, (again, this is USD, not AUD), I spent about $100 to get a three-year reservation on a t1.micro instance to run this, which includes a permanent public IP address (they call that an Elastic IP). I then get billed for about $6/month (the 8-9 figure has the $100 amortized over three years), but keep in mind that this also includes some S3 usage on my part, so in practice, it could (and probably will) be less.

      Also, the first year of one server, assuming it is a t1.micro running Linux with under 10 GB of disk, is free.

      I use this to keep my traffic away from the prying eyes and through the nanny-proxy of the public WiFi that I use.

      --
      www.wavefront-av.com
  22. [POLL] Only 12% of voters support warrantless spyi by bug1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    There was a poll done by essential media, who do regular party polling (not the best), but often ask interesting questions.

    Question + Result here http://essentialvision.com.au/...

    The voters of both major parties dont want this legislation, but both parties negotiated so there is "bipartisan support on national security".

    No effective opposition mean no effective democracy.

    Next up is the censorship bill, or three strikes or whatever which will likely go the same way.

  23. Re:Why not? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

    Because the more people who vote for the non-colluding parties the sooner change will occur. Doing nothing, surprise, surprise, surprise achieves exactly fucking nothing. Want change then start working towards, don't have to win, you just have to try and who knows you might have some fun annoying the crap out of them.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  24. Re:Money matters by Wootery · · Score: 1

    I take it then that you personally are undertaking serious tax-evasion, right? Otherwise you'd just be an armchair critic who doesn't put his money where his mouth is.

  25. A bit more for US etc readers by dbIII · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The ALP want to appear to offer a "united front" on anything related to security or terrorism because of the "if you are not with us you are with the enemy" approach the government has pushed on occasion. Also the individuals in the ALP don't know enough about the issue to think it's important enough to pick a fight over. That's a bit of an artifact of many Australian politicians starting their career from student politics and having little exposure to anything else outside politics, so metadata to them is just "computer shit" and nothing of importance.
    Very disappointing but not unexpected since Conroy of the ALP was pushing for similar things when he had the power to do so.

    1. Re:A bit more for US etc readers by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Who said I was making excuses? I'm describing the problem.
      There's some articles on the metadata bill at http://crikey.com.au/ that describe it far better.

  26. 5-eyes have become 5 fascist states by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sad to see how quickly 5 eyes states have descended into fascism. This mass surveillance has only been going for a few years now. 2010 was GCHQ's full take, NSA only gained basic access in 2007.

    And yet there is a clear and distinct swing to oppressive almost fascists states by each one of the 5 eyes countries.

  27. Amusing fictional anecdote? by DougPaulson · · Score: 1

    sectokia: "I like bias... they don't mention that the labor party all voted it through as well. Greens only opposed it after they learned labor wouldn't, so they would get to claim moral high ground, while it sailed through with bi partisan support. The two year data retension has been in place since the first ISPs started as an industry code of practice decades ago. This law is just formalising and making it clearly mandatory. The meta data has been available and used for decades."

    Do you have any verifiable citations for that? What part of timothys' synopsis do you deem biased? Please provide specifics.

    "Despite hearing months of evidence that the mandatory data retention proposal is dangerous, expensive and open-ended, the Labor Party appears to have caved", Scott Ludlam

  28. Re:Why not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Because it makes sense once you get the ignorance and emotion out of the debate.
    Up until now the Telcos kept the metadata anyway; for billing, research, performance testing etc. How long they kept it and what they did with it was pretty much their business.
    There were no regulations covering how the data was used or who had access, privacy aside. The police could just ask and, if the Telco felt like it, the data was handed over.
    Journalists had no special status. The Telco probably had no idea which phone numbers belonged to which journalist - if anyone can agree on what constitutes a journalist. Even under the new regeime many a journalist will probably have an "undisclosed" phone or two for special projects. Do the Telcos break the law if the hand over data on one of these phones?

  29. And this will be totally ineffective .. by DougPaulson · · Score: 1

    Under the pretext of protecting us from the Islamo-Fascist bogyman and other such phantasms, the Aussie gov legalized warrentless spying on its own citizens. And this will be totally ineffective against organized crime, arms dealers, drug smugglers and state sponcered versions of all three.
    __

    "A watched population is a compliant one"

  30. "Passes" sounds right by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Australia Passes Mandatory Data Retention Law

    Passes like a bowel movement?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  31. Re:Hugh Pickens and Bennett Haselton: journalists? by Macfox · · Score: 1

    It's irrelevant. Journo's can't protect their sources as the sources can be spied on directly. The warrants will be green lighted. Under the current system, no warrants have ever been denied.

    --
    Area51 - We are watching...
  32. Re:Why not? by GrahamJ · · Score: 1

    Democracy - the system whereby you vote for people to represent you and and up with no representation.

  33. Re:Why not? by Krojack · · Score: 1

    Want to bet there will be cron jobs running every few minutes that purge any politicians meta data.

  34. make it a surcharge by Imazalil · · Score: 1

    ISP's should make this an explicit surcharge on people's bill. Something like "fee to store your personal browsing info for eternity, for more info contact your government representative". It's probably the only way to get the general public to pay attention to this