Slashdot Mirror
Australian ISPs Not Ready For Mandatory Data Retention (abc.net.au)
ferrisoxide.com writes: October 13 marks the day Australian ISPs are required by law to track all web site visits and emails of their users, but according to an article on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's news site the majority of ISPs are not ready to begin mandatory data retention. The article's author, Will Ockenden, had previously released his own metadata to readers in an experiment to see how effectively this kind of data reveals personal habits of online users. The majority of Australians appear unconcerned with this level of scrutiny of their lives, given the minimal reaction to this and proposed tougher legislation designed to deal with the threats of crime and terrorism.
Didint know Australia has such huge issues with terrorism that it forces them to spy all their citizens... Sounds more like something East-Germany might have had in place to enforce conforming with official truth.
The biggest problem is shown in the ABC article in the summary. At this time, ISPs are starting to do it but in a grace period (until April 2017). 84% of ISPs are storing data in plain text, right now, because of the "costs" of encryption. 61% of ISPs have applied to be permanently exempt from encrypting this data. Just looking at this, you already know this shit is going to get stolen. You just know it. Some ISPs will certainly have this data directly accessible from their corporate LANs and some will even have it accessible from the internet. You know it without even needing to be told. Because this shit happens all the time. Many of these ISPs will not have done much to get ready and they'll have shoddily made, inhouse systems that were made as quickly and cheaply as possible. So it's a certainty that this data is going to get stolen. And when that happens, who knows what information will be leaked, that someone really didn't want leaked. It'll make Ashley Madison look trivial.