NSW Police Named as FinFisher Spyware Users 73
Bismillah writes Wikileaks' latest release of documents shows that the Australian New South Wales police force has spent millions on licenses for the FinFisher set of law enforcement spy- and malware tools — and still has active licenses. What it uses FinFisher, which has been deployed against dissidents by oppressive regimes, for is yet to be revealed. NSW Police spokesperson John Thompson said it would not be appropriate to comment "given this technology relates to operational capability".
Not surprised (Score:3, Funny)
You'd expect they're using it as part of their day to day jobs to help keep people safe.
Here in Australia we don't fear our police - they have a strong history of generally doing the right thing by the people they serve.
Trust? (Score:1)
Let me fix that for you:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=NSW+police+brutality
Ta.
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You forgot the F in NSFW. Oh, wait...
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Here in Rome we don't fear our great generals. So let's just give one some emergency power to one to solve a problem scary to our democratic sensibilities. We can take it away later.
Romanes eunt domus (Score:2)
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Don't feel bad, it's ok. You'll catch up with the rest of the world soon.
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Right. I guess if your white and middle class (or better).
Otherwise the trifecta was your most likely result of interacting with the police.
Re: Not surprised (Score:1)
You are completely unaware of the systems and services my firm was selling to your national law enforcement institutions and private paramilitary corporations based in Australia.
Before you say they were doing it for good, think again. The growing mercenary presence in African countries is hands down dominated by Aussie corporations. Those civvies massacred in Sierra Leone? Some of the perpetrators are walking around as free men in Melbourne. Hell, one of them runs a tech group for a contractor in Brisbane t
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See what happens when you let the government take your guns?
Now their only real value is as an example of a warning to others.
Kind of like a ship scuttled on a reef.
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Your government is using it, and software like it, against you every day, and you still have your guns.
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Yeah, but they're not going to DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, because of the guns.
Aus on the other hand is going to be monitored for online infractions, just anything that pisses their gov. off, and pay penalties.
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But the NSA isn't going to drag me to court for every free expression that I loose or any file I download. If you hadn't noticed , the less guns are controlled , the less violent crime we have. Dumbass.
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Guns have nothing to do with this.
Even if the 'gubment' lets you keep your guns, what chance to you think you stand against MRAPs, ricket launchers, gun ships and pretty much everything else the military (or even your local friendly SWAT team) can throw at you? Good luck defending yourself against the government with the feable material you have!
Does it begin to dawn upon you now that you being allowed to keep a hand gun or riffle means NOTHING?
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Yes, they do.
The government isn't going to turn the military against civilians or they WILL have every shotgun, handgun, lynchmob aimed directly at their personal lives.
It WILL be revolt then. SWAT will be hopelessly outnumbered along with the rest of the cops. Did it ever dawn on you that you live in a fantasy world?
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Our government screws us within the limits we allow. Australian slaves have no say, with no guns.
I notice all my replys are from cowards. I think that makes my point.
BREAKING (Score:2)
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This is why I came, because I wanted to read, to the comments. It gives, which is very satisfying, me a sense of validation.
Obvious (Score:1)
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Tell me about it. And don't even get me started on the Anglicans -- they do almost nothing except plot terrorism. Given the number of current and former Anglicans in Australia it's hard to believe you can walk down the street with getting blown up.
/ Or maybe reducing the entire world to the single dimension of religion is not a terribly useful way to understand "terrorism"
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Coffee mornings. Plotting coffee mornings. Getting a nice cup of tea and a lovely moist bit of cake, not blown up.
I hate it when people get these things confused.
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Getting a nice cup of tea and a lovely moist bit of cake...
As long as it's not Yellowcake [wikipedia.org] they're after.
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Or maybe reducing the entire world to the single dimension of religion is not a terribly useful way to understand "terrorism"
When the religion commands acts of terror, and many of the followers commit acts of terror then maybe it is. You might as well say "the single dimension of nazziism is not terribly useful in understanding Germany's terrorist acts against the jews in WW2"
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Yay for Godwin's Law! Let's compare a religion to Nazis! And judge everyone who practices that religion for the actions of extremist believers! I wonder what the percentage of Muslims who practice their religion and don't bother people is compared to the percentage of Muslims part of extremist groups? Also, are there other religions where there are extremist groups? Hm...Christianity....Westboro Baptist Church sound familiar? Hm, all Christians hate gays etc etc.
The Westboro baptists are much better than Islam in many ways. How many people have they beheaded? How many sex slaves have they taken? How many bombs have they set off, or planes flown into buildings? Also where are the hundreds of Christians from Britain, France, Denmark, Australia and other countries leaving their countries to join the Westboro baptists and lay down their life?
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I guess a better example would be the nearly exclusively Catholic IRA fighting against a protestestant majority. Bombings, torture, murder, rape... yep all present. Sympathetic Catholics in other countries providing them support, aid, even joining them, etc... yep that happened too.
Didn't get as bad as Iraq/Afghanistan mind you, but that's not on the merits of Islam vs Catholicism, that simply because the UK was never a failed state the way Iraq and Afghanistan have been. The UK even at its "worst", still o
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Yay for Godwin's Law! Let's compare a religion to Nazis! And judge everyone who practices that religion for the actions of extremist believers!
I wonder what the percentage of Muslims who practice their religion and don't bother people is compared to the percentage of Muslims part of extremist groups?
Also, are there other religions where there are extremist groups? Hm...Christianity....Westboro Baptist Church sound familiar? Hm, all Christians hate gays etc etc.
The Westboro baptists are much better than Islam in many ways. How many people have they beheaded? How many sex slaves have they taken? How many bombs have they set off, or planes flown into buildings? Also where are the hundreds of Christians from Britain, France, Denmark, Australia and other countries leaving their countries to join the Westboro baptists and lay down their life?
And yet...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
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There are a lot of Muslims in Australia, and it makes sense to keep an eye on them as a lot of them support terrorism
That seems like an obvious trolling comment, but sadly I'm not sure.
You just need to look at the Rise up Australia [wikipedia.org] party for that. (Run by the same person as the "Catch the fire" ministries in Melbourne)
It doesn't appear to affect linux based machines. (Score:2)
I seems like a return to the bad old days of corrupt NSW Police practices.
It doesn't appear to affect linux based machines. (Score:2)
On some consumer OS versions all you have to do is get under the consumer grade antivirus by not having to use in the wild malware thats been found.
That product has to avoid consumer grade antivirus behavior analysis, cosumer software firewalls over days and get the data out.
The 'out' part can be just as fun. A waiting consumer computer that looks like any other home computer in an empty home at the end of a city street with rental phone company reco
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Tell me about it. Here in the US -- where we aren't a nanny state, presumably -- there is never any sort of communications surveillance.
Yeah for the United States to be a nanny state it would have to care about the welfare of its people first. No, it is a hypocritical "moralist" state.
Bwahahahah! (Score:5, Informative)
Australian cops are *dirty*
NSW!
Good cop, bad cop: how corrupt police work with drug dealers http://theconversation.com/goo... [theconversation.com]
Corruption is endemic within Australia's police agencies, and certainly within the Australian Federal Police and New South Wales Police, which between them cover the Sydney airports. It also embraces crime commissions and other institutions charged with responsibility for police governance on behalf of the public. http://www.expendable.tv/2011/... [expendable.tv]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... [abc.net.au]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... [abc.net.au]
Pressure grows for NSW police inquiry
Posted 8 Oct 2012, 7:18pmMon 8 Oct 2012, 7:18pm
Up to 200 police officers may have been spied on with listening devices and telephone intercepts.
VICTORIA!
http://www.theaustralian.com.a... [theaustralian.com.au]
Victorian police corrupt: ex-judge The Australian
VICTORIA'S police force is riddled with "deep-seated and continuing corruption" that will only be flushed out by a powerful and wide-ranging royal commission. Don Stewart, one of the nation's most respected judicial figures, says Victoria Police and the Bracks Labor Government oppose a royal commission because they do not want the extent of corruption within the force made public. "They know that it would reveal what they don't want revealed," says the former Supreme Court judge and founding head of Australia's first national crime agency. Dismissing arguments that dirty police are already being driven out of the force through the courts, he says the recent convictions of senior Victorian officers on corruption charges are "the tip of the iceberg". "The arrest of some corrupt police only proves that corruption is deep-seated and continuing," Mr Stewart says in a book to be published in March.
CANBERRA!
http://www.canberratimes.com.a... [canberratimes.com.au]
A long history of police corruption. In 1990 the AFP officer Michael Anthony Wallace was convicted of stealing $20 million worth of drugs and cash exhibits. In 1995 Standen's colleague, Alan Taciak, rolled over in the NSW Police royal commission and alleged 78 AFP officers - 15 per cent of the force - were corrupt. Taciak's allegations sparked the Harrison inquiry in 1996. Its final report, which is understood to have alleged widespread corruption in the AFP, has also not been released. The head of the inquiry, Ian Harrison, now a Supreme Court judge, said many agents escaped investigation by quitting the AFP. In 2001 Standen's former boss at the Sydney drugs unit, Cliff Foster, committed suicide while under investigation over corruption.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA!
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/... [adelaidenow.com.au]
DARWIN!
http://www.abc.net.au/local/st... [abc.net.au]
NT police oppose anti-corruption tests. The Northern Territory Police Association says it will oppose Federal Government plans to secretly test officers' integrity as part of new anti-corruption measures.
QUEENSLAND!
Queensland police misconduct files reveal corruption, favouritism, sexual misconduct
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Internet snooping by cops is a double edged sword, sure it can be used as a tool of oppression
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How do you tell the corrupt ones from the non-corrupt ones? You can't. I follow the example of law enforcement and assume they are guilty until proven innocent.
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You left out western australia. I mean it's only a third of the damn continent :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Western Australia.
operational capability (Score:2)
NSW Police spokesperson John Thompson said it would not be appropriate to comment "given this technology relates to operational capability".
Indeed. The newfound ability to do very bad things always relates to operational capability.
We've got Not Safe for Work police? With spyware? (Score:3)
Is Australia different? (Score:2)
In Australia aren't the people allowed to know what their police force's "operational capability" is?
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In Australia aren't the people allowed to know what their police force's "operational capability" is?
Nobody expects the "operational capabilities" of the Australian Inquisition!
Strat
Is Australia different? (Score:2)
Communist using the under the cover of workers rights, trying law reform, Vietnam war protests or other national or State issues.
That would need a close working relationship between national and state gov staff, local police. To find the foreign aspect and have real locals watching every public meeting or protest and befriend the group or person.
The operational capability of hardware and software once in the hands of the mil or national gov due to buying and running costs i