ASIC Seeks Power To Read Your Emails 114
nemesisrocks writes "ASIC, Australia's version of the SEC, has called for phone call and internet data to be stored by Australian ISPs, in a submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into mandatory data retention. Not only does the authority want the powers to intercept the times, dates and details of telecommunications information, it also wants access to the contents of emails, social media chats and text messages."
Inquity ? (Score:4, Interesting)
TFS title (Score:3)
ASIC Seeks Power To Read Your Emails
In best Yakoff Smirnoff [wikimedia.org] voice: "Wow, what a chip!"
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Re:TFS title (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, at least they said "the Aussie equivalent of the SEC" which wil still leave anyone not in the US or Australia clueless.
Damn it, people EXPAND ACRONYMS! Especially obscure acronyms that are the same as tech or science acronyms. If you're talking about cops, don't say "LEO" because to us, an LEO isn't a law enforcement officer, it's low earth orbit. To the one or two of us who don't live in Australia, an ASIC is a chip.
Gees...
Re:Inquity ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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on q qwerty keyboard...
Lol. Just thinking of qwerty made me type a Q instead of an A (azerty keyboard).
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It's probably the first one, since I often mistype depending on what I'm thinking of. Sometimes while I'm typing a sentence, someone distracts me for a split second by talking, and then I notice I typed a word or idea related to what was said.
The subconscious brain seems to have these independent modul
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No, Parliamentary "Iniquity" sounds about right. Go look it up.
"Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty."
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Re:Inquity ? (Score:5, Funny)
probably a misspelling of iniquity:
in-iq-ui-ty
Noun: Immoral or grossly unfair behavior.
sounds about right
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Sorry, I am not a native English speaker, and a quick web search does not yield anything on the word "Inquity". Can somebody explain the word?
It is called a typo --- and it happens because submissions can't be spell-checked by the browser or the software that drives Slashdot.
Re:Inquity ? (Score:4, Funny)
Your browser can't spell check? Sounds like you should switch to FireFox, it spell checks for me just fine.
In deed, since eye ooze Firefox, eye know lounger have spelling miss takes inn may posts bee cause it chows two me all errors witch eye make.
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It is called a typo --- and it happens because submissions can't be spell-checked by the browser or the software that drives Slashdot.
Firefox's spell check works on submissions, but it won't proofread for you.
It's Psychostory (Score:5, Insightful)
According to Harry Seldon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldon), if a people begins as a prison colony it must necessarily end up as a police state. It's inevitable.
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That explains the USA then !!
It must have been onerous for the British to have to send convicts to Australia when they found out they couldn't send them to America anymore due to the squabbles there with the French...oh, and a few ex convict colonists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convicts_in_Australia
You're welcome.
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The country that was initially settled by religious nutjobs, which Europe was glad to get rid of?
Indeed, my theory is that they could have stopped the Puritans from making the voyage, but ... why would they?
I can picture them now. "Heh, let THEM get upset over any future exposed nipples!" And long before there was television or a Super Bowl. That's some real foresight.
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Not every colony was used for prisoners. It does explain Georgia though :)
Re:It's Psychostory (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny how Australia gets the rap as being a prison colony, when in fact one of the key reasons for it being so was because, post-1776, they couldn't send prisoners to the American colonies anymore. The two countries have a more similar early history than most people know. Australia seems to have ended up with the convict stereotype though.
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Estimated number of people transported to British North America is 50,000
Estimated number of people sent to Australia as prisoners in 80-years of transportation is 165,000
Estimated number of free people who emigrated to Australia in 1852 alone 370,000
The number of convicts transported is tiny in both countries compared to the number who emigrated ...
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You spelled his name wrong, it's not Harry, it's Hari. And I've read all the Foundation books, but your "if a people begins as a prison colony it must necessarily end up as a police state" is nowhere to be found in my meatware database. Which book?
Pgp (Score:1)
Going to have to start encrypting everything
ASIC SEC? (Score:1)
Not being american *or* australian, the summary was not terribly helpful.
What is the SEC?
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ASIC is the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The SEC is The Securities and Exchanges Commission.
Re:ASIC SEC? (Score:5, Informative)
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Not being american *or* australian, the summary was not terribly helpful.
What is the SEC?
ASIC is an Application Specific Integrated Circuit [wikipedia.org]
SEC is the South Eastern Conference [wikipedia.org]
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Don't they have Google where you are? The first result takes you to an article where each acronym is explained.
Datacenter Super sized. (Score:2)
Re:Datacenter Super sized. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they even comprehend the amount of data this will be?
This is just one step away from recording all telephone calls as well.
1984, we didn't learn anything.
Oh I think "we" did... "we" being our overlords - they read 1984 as a howto guide.
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Whoa a TISM signature!!!!!!!!!!
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I was going to say something similar. If they added phone conversations to the list would people be outraged? I would have thought so, but really, if they're not outraged over this already, what difference would adding phone conversations make?
Re:Datacenter Super sized. (Score:5, Interesting)
Because most of the voting populace believe telephone to be a real communication medium and email, chat and texts just some toy for the youth.
Because the vast majority of people is inherently short-sighted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came [wikipedia.org].
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Almost like they'd need a national broadband network to pull it off.
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learn anything from 1984? (Score:2)
No, we didn't.
My high school English teacher had it pegged:
1984 was neither predictive nor prescriptive. It was descriptive.
An allegory for society as we know it, through a lens double-tinted ever-so-slightly to two extremes, to bring a known secret out in sharp relief.
1984 is the world as we know it, viewed through the glasses of someone who thinks he is smarter than the rest of us trying to see it from the eyes of the rest of us.
Which is why it gave me a headache to read.
Very instructive book. Too bad mos
Encrypt everything (Score:5, Interesting)
Encryption of all your Internet comms has been recommended forever and a day, but the bulk of the population hasn't bothered so far because the "postman opening letters" hasn't been very overt and in the public eye.
Now that the politicians are all in the game of demanding their "right" to monitor everything, perhaps it's time that people will respond by finally encrypting everything and telling the police state advocates to sod off and stop terrorizing the population.
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Email via Mozilla Thunderbird + Enigmail should give gnupg encryption good enough for most mail users. Can't find too many social media systems that offer gnupg as an option...
Usually the purpose of encryption is to keep communications private. That's difficult when getting lots of attention is mostly the point.
You wouldn't encrypt a billboard, would you?
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You wouldn't encrypt a billboard, would you?
I wouldn't no... but someone has http://www.npr.org/2004/10/09/4078172/solve-the-equation-get-an-interview [npr.org]
Re:Encrypt everything (Score:5, Interesting)
Also that implementing and using encryption for personal use is more techy than the average being can handle. I'm hoping that https://silentcircle.com/ [silentcircle.com] can approach this issue. Extra points for taking note of the founders...
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You know something's wrong when your 'Quick start' guide has a table of contents:
http://www.enigmail.net/documentation/quickstart.php [enigmail.net]
Enabling encryption is going to have to become *much* easier for more people to do it.
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Whether in Australia or the US or anywhere else for that matter the people shouldn't "need" to worry about encrypting their communications in any form when it comes to their government wanting to monitor everything. Not only is it simply a violation to peoples right to privacy but in my opinion it is also a blatant move towards what will inevitably result in a complete police state in the civilized world. Instead of worrying about encrypting your transmissions in whatever form we need to stand up and put
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...perhaps it's time that people will respond by finally encrypting everything and telling the police state advocates to sod off and stop terrorizing the population.
Or, perhaps... they could vote for people that will put an end to this. I mean, if they really want to..
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Or, perhaps... they could vote for people that will put an end to this. I mean, if they really want to..
Unfortunately it is difficult to vote for a government representative who has the courage to be vocal enough to put forward a good reason why stupid proposals like this should not be made law. The problem seems to be that the majority of people in nearly all political parties are IMHO a "bunch of technological cretins". While I don't think I am wrong with Australian government I would not be surprised if most governments world wide actually fall into this category.
To be fair the average voter would not ha
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In concept, yes, encryption is a good thing to have. Many web sites are now providing the option of https access.
But what about email? Even if you encrypt the connection between you and your email server, there's no guarantee that the next hop will be encrypted. What then?
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Very true, but I argue that it's not exactly trivial. The problem is you have to:
a) create keys
b) give your public keys to everyone and anyone that you want to do encrypted traffic with
c) Get everyone else to do the same.
Not a trivial proposition. Even if you can do it with immediate friends and family, good luck getting your institutions like, say, your bank, to do it.
Unless PGP has come up with a solution that makes using an Apple product seem like brain surgery, It's not going to happen... at least in
Cheaper to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be cheaper to close down the Australian stock exchange? Or just monitor the people who actively trade?
Not that this will prevent people from encrypting messages, or passing insider messages face-to-face.
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Surely its a typo for ASIO. Why the hell would ASIC get any data at all.
Me too (Score:2, Funny)
Dear Australian Government,
I am having a yard sale next weekend. In order to achieve fair market value for the more valuable goods, I have implemented a closed bidding system. I am worried that some of my neighbours might game the system by discussing their bids and making backroom deals. I am seeking the power to log their phone calls as well as access to the contents of emails, social media chats and text messages.
Sincerely, John R. Citizen
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Dear John Citizen,
we are sorry that we cannot allow you to do this because you did not append the mandatory cheque^W^W^W^W^W^W^Wthis would violate the privacy of other people.
Sincerely, the Australian Government.
Mandatory surveillance of innocent people (Score:4, Insightful)
So in effect:
1. You're only innocent because you haven't committed a crime yet
2. Thus they capture your data and store it
3. After you've committed your crime, the data is there to prosecute you
4. They've justified with reverse time causality.
5. Ergo time travel is real.
And if you don't commit a crime? Well obviously you haven't YET committed the crime that justified us putting you under surveillance in the past. So you must be a super cunning criminal. We'd better keep your data longer than 2 years, otherwise it might break the time-space continuum.
That's what it amounts to, calling everyone a criminal and using that to take away their right to privacy.
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You forgot a few steps;
6. Law is changed.
7. Data is checked for violations of the changed law.
8. You are a criminal.
To me the scary thing about data logging isn't what will be done with it now, but how those who inherit the data tomorrow will abuse it.
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Or how about this one?
They charge you withsomething.
They find no evidence to support the charges.
So they troll through your history and keep looking until they find something they can make stick, to show that they were right all along.
ASIC is useless (Score:3, Interesting)
ASIC is an absolute joke.
Their failure to act borders on the laughable, and now they want to read our private communications, presumably so that they can .... wait for it.... yet again, do nothing.
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So the description "Australia's version of the SEC" is correct.
Given up the pretence to freedom and privacy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Australia, you used to be cool. What happened, bro?
Never mind frog boiling, they've just tossed the toad of liberty into the seething cauldron of totalitarianism and slammed the lid.
Seriously, guys, you're even making Soviet UKistan look like a shining beacon of individual rights now. Poor show.
1984 - There, I said it, you have to read my post (Score:3)
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Not really ... thats hyperbole. There's a big difference between ASIC wanting these powers and it actually getting them. A lot of crap like this has been tossed around by various government departments and MPs and senators over the last few years (e.g. Internet filter proposal from a few years ago, which never even made it to the Bill stage), but not much of it ever sees light of day as enacted law.
This is in the context of wider discussions at the moment in Australia about introducing data retention laws t
ASIC!? Oh... (Score:3, Funny)
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Me too. My first thought was a spam filter on a chip... Then I read the summery.
Just goes to show... (Score:1)
This is how it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's already begun, but it's another interesting example of how the police state develops. In an established democracy it's kind of difficult to simply introduce something akin to the Stasi - that worries people.
The trick is to grant unreasonable powers to a group that doesn't appear to have much to do with the average citizen (such as ASIC), or instead give it to a group with what people see as a very specific remit to act only in certain areas (TSA). In the case of ASIC, why should the average guy in the street worry about those stock exchange guys having this power - it's not as if they'll be using to snoop on regular guys. With the TSA, turning airports in to constitution free zones, people are fine with that because they think it's only happening in airports, when in fact they're spilling out in to other aspects of transport. Get people used to presenting documents at airports, train stations and state borders, and before long you'll be able to stop them anywhere and do it. Same with intrusive physical searches. When stopped on a random road, the patriotic dad will proudly hum "God Bless the USA" as his daughter allows a former Wall*Mart shelf stacker with a badge to get his hands down her pants in the name of security and freedom.
Asking for such a broad and patently unjustified ability to snoop has no place in a modern democracy. Ship them out to an embassy near to a country such as North Korea or Iran - in the hope that they'll defect to a place where their Orwellian urges can be sated.
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How is Department of Homeland Security not the Stasi? Even the name doesn't even try to hide this fact.
Here in Europe we really crinch about "Homeland" because it sounds to close to "Fatherland". But we also crinch about the pledge of allentience, and saluting to your flag, becuase it feels to much like the hitler greeting.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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It doesn't need a guiding intelligence. It's like corrosion: Nobody plans corrosion, but if you let things corrode at places where it apparently doesn't matter, the corrosion will slowly spread and finally find its way to a vital part.
Checks and balances (Score:2)
There is a guiding force, but the leader of it all has this compulsion of self-contradiction. Likes to cause a lot of confusion by pretending to be God, and then saying that, since he is not God, God cannot be,. Etc., etc.
But you are right. Corruption is a continual and necessary part of the present natural world.
Which is the reason that national constitutions that waste little space on idealisms and focus primarily on checks and balances seem to be the most stable. (And why traitors to those constitutions
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That sounds an even worse situation than if there were a coherent vision.
It implies high-impact decisions like this are thought of only in the short term. Little consideration for how such legislation could be abused down the track, etc. That can't be a good thing.
Why stop there? (Score:2)
Nearly speechless (Score:3)
Can anyone explain? (Score:2)
Can anyone explain any advantage to these rules, other than "it makes the cops job easier".
And they casually talk about destroying our privacy (and by association related rights like freedom of expression) not to mention security.. .... just to make their jobs easier..
Imagine if every new road, even out in the desert had to have cameras and microphones, to record not just who drove on the road, but what they were talking about. All installed at the users expense.
And the authorities have complete access to i
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Can anyone explain any advantage to these rules, other than "it makes the cops job easier".
It provides extra backups for your mail. Lost a mail? Just ask ASIC, they still have a copy. ;-)
Oh that's okay then! (Score:2)
Before, I was worried that the big, faceless government might be snooping on me, so I resisted the proposed laws and changes. However, now ASIC is asking, I can see that actually it's far more important and far less dangerous. I'll be supporting this move, as I'm sure will all my fellow non-Australians.
I'm really hoping that the likes of Fosters will ask for all pubs to log who drinks what beers, how often and with whom. I'm sure that'll be for an equally important reason, and so obviously supportable.
Woz (Score:2)
"In the interview with the Financial Review, Wozniak said the national broadband network was one of the reasons he wants to become a citizen."
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To be stored where? (Score:3)
Do they have an idea of the amount of data "to be stored"?
Politicians are all the same everywhere. They rule over things they don't understand.
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OK, it's 15 PB [wikipedia.org] per year which is doable for storage of raw audio data. ...
Then you need the mandatory meta-data the intelligence will need, like phone numbers, equipment ID (IMEI), cell ID, times and dates
How do you think those petabytes will be searched?
Doing a backup or two will bring some more hassle.
Yes, you are right. It's doable. Defintely stupid, but doable.
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Actually, 15PB is likely a a gross understatement.
When I looked at the data for australia's largest ISP, I found 1.3ExaBytes was transmitted via their network during the 12 months up till July 2012.
They want to log at least more than 1% i would imagine so little would be near useless, so it has to be somewhat larger than 15PB once all the other ISPs and applicable network service providers are tallied together.
Interesting implications... (Score:2)
This wasn't the first plan (Score:4, Funny)
They went through quite a few alternative solutions.
1) Ask criminals to copy ASIC on all emails and Facebook messages sent. It's about as effective as what they proposed, and will be way cheaper and less intrusive for the public.
2) Have the Internet burn a daily DVD of the entire contents, which will then be sent to ASIC to be stored in boxes. Estimated physical storage space required for first 3 months: New Zealand.
3) Have vagina-cams installed in all female residents of Australia in case they happen to be naked at the home of someone considering fraud, and positioned in such a way that the camera catches the content of the suspect's screen.
4) Require that all Internet communication stop at the ISP level, who will then print it and send it on to the ISP of the person to whom it's address, with a copy being posted to ASIC.
5) Crime is committed only by the living. Kill everyone.
6) Receive funding to have ASIC agents stationed in every home, to sit behind computer users. Agent will periodically tap the user on the shoulder, and ask "Whatcha doin'?"
Number 4 was the preferred option. Greg Tanzer prefers reading personal emails on his tablet while relaxing in a hotel room full of semi-naked pre-teen girls. Having to carry around print-outs was out of the question.
They want every freedom you have... (Score:2)
Just what is the problem the few have with ... (Score:2)
... the many? Are they becoming that skerd of those they are supposed to represent? If so then why, unless they are lying their asses off to the people they are supposed to represent and fear retaliation by the people if or when found out.
If it is for the continued investigation? (Score:1)