Inside Australia's Data Retention Proposal 154
bennyboy64 writes "New details have emerged on Australia's attempt at getting a data retention regime into place, with meeting notes taken by industry sources showing exactly what has been proposed. In a nutshell, the Australian government wants Internet service providers to keep anything and everything they have the ability to log and retain for two years 'at this stage.'"
Re:A classic example... (Score:3, Informative)
it would be true though. There can be many different (and unrelated) sites hosted on one IP address, and of course there can be many different pages on each of those sites.
There's a big difference between logging the ip addresses used in tcp connections and actually inspecting the http and logging page requests.
(Not that I'm in favour of either of them)
Re:Sup? (Score:4, Informative)
why?
I don't see any evidence that the filter will ever go through.
The government isn't even trying.
Even if they win the next election with a majority in the senate (and currently it's looking like they might not win at all), to put it before parliament Conroy is finally going to have to write down exactly what it is, which is something he's been utterly unable to do to this date.
Re:Do Australians care? (Score:1, Informative)
Yeah, I think most of us cottoned on that it doesn't really matter what the people think... they just pass laws anyway. Look at Work Choices (went through despite being massively opposed), The Emissions Trading Scheme (didn't go through despite being very popular), Broadband filter (went through because we need to think of the children).
Yesterday in the senate, Steve Fielding (of the Family First party - yes, Christian conservative) was AGAINST paid parental leave because..... people would get pregnant to get the paid leave, and then have an abortion after 20 weeks, thus having a paid holiday.
Yes, seriously. So now we have no paid parental leave because of one single dickhead and his imagined wave of abortions making baby Jesus cry.
The thing with Australia right now is that it's very successful - wages are fairly high, unemployment is low, in the middle of a mining boom, interest rates are still fairly decent (around 4%). People are happy with their lot, there's no burning issues that people want fixed.
It's like being in a taxi and the drivers taking the correct way. No need to tell him what to do. If he's taking the wrong way then you need to shout.
Frankly, this issue hasn't really got any mainstream coverage. People simply don't know about it. And if they did, the classic government response would be "well, if you're not doing anything illegal you have nothing to worry about"
Re:Sup? (Score:5, Informative)
I remember backpacking around Europe 20-ish years ago. You run into many Aussies on walkabout, and some of them complained to me that this one guy was pushing their politics far to the right. By controlling the newspapers he had every politician running scared. The guy? Rupert Murdoch. [newstatesman.com]
At the time I remember thinking "Well, good luck with that!"
Fox News and the George W. Bush presidency later, I'm no longer surprised by Australia's bent towards authoritarianism.
Re:Do Australians care? (Score:2, Informative)
I don't know too many Australians, so this is anecdotal, but they don't seem to be very active politically. As the old Kiwi joke goes, it takes 21 Australians to change a lightbulb, one to hold the bulb and twenty to drink beer until the room starts spinning.
Depends on who you ask. There are a vocal number of people who are reasonably savvy. There is also the general population who are slowly becoming aware of the situation and the politics. Previously there was some support for the filter on the basis that it's stated goal had an inarguable 'protect the children' motif. Gradually the holes are starting to show and this growing awareness is turning the tide.
However, the current government has been thwarted far too often (often by it's own inaction rather than the opposition leader Tony Abbott's tomfoolery) and this seems to be the one election promise they can fulfill. Granted it was to the one party (Family First) that seems determined to wrap Australia in cotton wool, blind itself and set fire to anyone who wanders too close to their kids.
They (Labour) are staring at an election that they could lose to an unpopular bigot and admitted liar who happens to be the 'lesser evil'.
Anyone want to trade countries?