Australian Gov't OKs Its Spies to Crack Servers

Rev Simon Rumble writes "The Australian Parliament has passed a law to allow the domestic spy agency ASIO 'to enter and modify computers remotely.' The spokesperson for slightly the left-of-centre political party The Democrats claims the 2000 Olympics are being used as an excuse to give more power to the spooks." You might think this is bizarre, but we're talking about the Australian government, so: business as usual.

This is too much.....

[Malto]

What's next in Australia? Only specific firewalls with holes that government officials can get through? The government just wants all power over everything there. I am surprised we haven't heard of any large scale rebellions there yet. It would surprise me greatly if we didn't hear from one very soon.

Just my humble opinion
Malto

Australian Government has more important things.

[ZNemesis]

Standard Disclaimer: I dont work for anything mentioned below, take my opinons with a grain of salt.

For those who don't know the Australian system of democracy at the moment, there are two major parties, Labor and Liberal. Labor is left-wing, and Liberal is right-wing. Although, not in exactly the same sense as American politics. The recent screw-ups of the Australian Government (GST, censorship, this....) has been under the Liberal government.

Although the Australian government sometimes does the most stupidest things from a technical standpoint, it has other things to worry about. The people of Australia have other things to worry about, so noone is doing anything.

The hot topic for the Government is the Republic. Australia voted NO for it, and the government is trying to think up a republic so that the people will like it, and the politicans can't get screwed.

Another recent issue is the leaking of information that the government wanted HECS to be scrapped. For non-Australians, this means that we have to pay student loans at the standard interest rate, rather than the current system, with no interest. (OT: American rant: Universities are four times cheaper here, for the same quality of education)

Both of these issues are what Australia is fired up about. The censorship bill, which will take effect in Jan 1, 2000, has noone worried. Sure, computer advocacy groups are fired up about it, but the general public doesn't know about it yet. (Prediction: Y2K in Australia will see a massive influx of tech support calls asking why they cant visit some porn site...)

And now this, the ability of Australian spies to crack into other people's computers. Big deal. Australian spies are a piece of crap, and I suspect they buy their information from other countries. Technically, it is stupid, and an outrage, but this will have no practical benefits. About the only thing Australian spies have done recently that's any good is admit to a having access to scanning equipment.

Another issue: 'It's business as usual' for the Australian government? It's true that the Australian goverment is giving education and computing fields a big shove up the ass, but the American government seem to be doing the same thing. (We dont have the 'Digital Millenium Copyright Act' yet...)

I dont even know where to begin summarising this.. so I'll just reinstate my main points:
1) Australian government has more important things
2) Education and IT sectors hate our government
3) This spy thing is worrying, but I doubt much will happen because of this
4) Our government is just as screwy as the American one


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I propose...

[TomG]

I propose slashdot stop linking to articles that use hack and hacker in terms of criminal activity. It would be irresponsible of slashdot promote innacuracy :) :)