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Australian government pushing ahead with data retention laws

The federal government is pushing ahead with reforms that could see consumers’ information kept on file for up to two years by internet service providers (ISPs).

This could include the data retention of personal internet browsing information which intelligence agencies could access in the event of criminal activities by individuals or organisations.

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14 Responses to "Australian government pushing ahead with data retention laws"

Xythan says:

May 29, 2012 at 11:47 pm

Considering many of us geeks will grab the $100 a month, 1Tb iiNet plan at 100/40 when we get the NBN in our areas I think it would be fun for all of us to run a "random webpage surfing application" for a few hours (or more) each week just to fill up the data storage with "spam surf data"…yeah?

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The Duke says:

May 30, 2012 at 1:06 am

This government is fucked. Either the political process is badly broken, or the people of Australia are dumb fucks. Sadly, I suspect both.

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cranky says:

May 30, 2012 at 4:31 am

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SpinelessInvertibrate says:

May 30, 2012 at 6:58 am

There needs to be some standard out there. Presently some ISP’s are incapable of providing evidence of IP addresses of their subscribers to court less than 2 weeks after the fact. Others can do it months later. And while we’re on the subject, they charge wildly different prices for comparitive data. and we’re not talking more expensive=better here. Vodafone charge government bodies insane rates for compliance related data.

In relation to whether government bodies SHOULD have access to that data, well why have police and intelligence bodies in the first place if you’re not going to equip them. It’s like saying to a network administrator "you have to make sure our network runs smoothly, but all the error logs are private information, and you’re not allowed to access them".

Most people don’t proxy themselves even if they are up to badness, they just have an isp account in a false name.

I, for one am in favour of pushing the telcos around a little. Not like it’s gonna be hard to implement.

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SpinelessInvertibrate says:

May 30, 2012 at 9:40 am

Settle down big fella, nothing in what I’ve said indicates that I am the one who is closed minded.

It would be nice to hear some actual argument in your response.

I’m not saying there should be no controls on what the government sees, I’m saying that where there is cause, the data should be accessible.

Are you saying you think that the authorities should be toothless?

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SpinelessInvertibrate says:

May 30, 2012 at 10:36 am

I agree. That’s not what’s being proposed.

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RaYdeX says:

May 30, 2012 at 11:23 am

It’s EXACTLY what’s being proposed.

And it’s stupid for several good reasons, and lots more to boot.

Reason 1. That much Data? Do you have ANY idea how much data, logging the surfing data of each and every user on a large ISP would take up? We’re talking in the realm of TB’s per day. And not only that, but it’ll have to be FAST, because we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of database transactions per minute.

Reason 2. That Data is BEING LOGGED. You know what logged data means? It means it can accessed. Sure, "Officials" might need to pay copious sums of money, and come bearing all manner of legal documents to access it. Having worked in IT, in Canberra for more than a good few years now, I have no doubt in my mind that A) The Police are the least of your worries. IT workers will have free reign to the data, and B) Accessing that Data by officials is actually, a lot more likely, and a lot easier than "Officially" stated.

Reason 3. When they access that data, what else will they find to be upset about? You may have done nothing wrong, and have been falsely accused – But give me 2 years of practically anyones internet browsing history, and I’ll be able to cherry pick elements to make whatever story I choose.

I don’t have to register where I walk, or where I travel in my car. I don’t have to register to use public transport with my initial location and destination addresses for some police officer to decide that I travelled to and from a place where a crime was committed, so I should be put under surveillance.

I do not want to live in a Police state, where the government have extremely detailed access into some of most important daily goings on. In today’s world, it’s not "quite" as extreme as I’m making it out for everyone. But the more people that get more technology connected in more ways, to more things, this kind of picture, owned by governments like ours is a horrible, horrible thing to contemplate.

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SpinelessInvertibrate says:

May 30, 2012 at 2:22 pm

What is being proposed is;
The federal government is pushing ahead with reforms that could see consumers’ information kept on file for up to two years by internet service providers (ISPs).

The journalist speculates;
This could include the data retention of personal internet browsing information which intelligence agencies could access in the event of criminal activities by individuals or organisations.

You then speculate;
It’s EXACTLY what’s being proposed.

In answer;
1. Yes, that would be a lot of data, but it isn’t what is being proposed, just speculated.
2. The telcos already have your personal data. As do the insurance companies, the banks, the tax office, the electoral office, the local pawn shop, the local porn shop, and everyone on Facebook. I hope this isn’t news to you, but the underworld also has your data. Let’s put the telcos (who, as stated, already have it) in some perspective.
3. Again, not being proposed.
Not sure where you are going with your next paragraph, but I think you are saying that you don’t want to be put under surveillance for visiting sites associated with criminal activity. Without inferring that this applies to you, please advise how you think the police should catch online child groomers.

Last paragraph: 1984 argument. Fair enough. Can’t say I’d want to live in one either. Would be good to live in a state where the government bodies could competently carry out the duties we pay them for though. If my kids go missing, I know I’d want the police to find what IP address was responsible for posting pictures of their bodies. At present, the ISP’s aren’t REQUIRED to retain the data.

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SpinelessInvertibrate says:

May 30, 2012 at 4:19 pm

Scythe;
Point 1: true, but unlikely given the government’s obsession with terrorism, and essentially beside the point since it hasn’t been demonstrated that this is what the proposal involves.
Point 2a) What laws? Frankly wrong. The laws don’t do the investigations, the authorities do. The Authorities need the tools provided by the laws. The tools are presently inadequate which is my point.
2b) Probably true, but not the point. Child grooming (not that my argument should be restricted to child grooming) IS on websites since that’s where the kids go.

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SpinelessInvertibrate says:

May 30, 2012 at 6:04 pm

Nice trolling.

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Scythe says:

May 30, 2012 at 7:07 pm

Pedantic much? Of course the laws don’t do investigations, stop trying to obfuscate the issue.

The fact of the matter is, police continue to make arrests of child abusers. They do so through entrapment, informants, plea agreements and a variety of other tools which continue to prove effective. The tools provided in this legislation, when applied to child abusers, would be a typical application of evolutionary theory. They would catch the stupid ones, who don’t use encryption or P2P networks. Then they get the occasional nice glowing arrest, and in the meantime all the really dangerous predators get to watch law enforcement try and use the useless data retention laws to figure out which of the millions of encrypted data packets sent ever minute in Australia are theirs.

Two other points:

First, child grooming does not take place on ‘websites’, it takes place in chatrooms and webcam sites. This is well-established fact. If the police want to monitor public chatrooms, they are entirely free to do so, and many successful arrests have been made this way. Are you seriously advocating that an efficient use of government and private enterprise resources would be to create massive databases of user communications so police could retroactively look for evidence in a tiny number of crimainal cases?

Second, the only person who has mentioned child abuse as a reason is you. It has not been used as a justification for this legislation, and since people screaming ‘think of the children’ is used to push most other draconian laws on western society, you might want to step back and consider that.

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Aardvark says:

May 30, 2012 at 9:42 pm

ISPs should all go the route of that Swedish mob who disabled all logging entirely, so that there was no data to retain.

Also, it would cut down on their storage costs, something savage.

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Kommando says:

May 30, 2012 at 10:20 pm

I’d wager the technical limitations of monitoring everyones data for two years will render this null.

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zedd_D1abl0 says:

May 30, 2012 at 11:04 pm

Does this really matter? Spend $20 and hey presto, VPN to X. And IIRC, you can’t really log the pages I visit through my VPN because it’s encrypted and stuff. Having a blank log might look suspicious, but with a blank log, there isn’t much they can do.

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