back to article Christmas Eve email asked Oz telcos for metadata retention costs by Jan 9th

Australian telecommunications companies and internet service providers were given until January 9th, 2015 to offer an estimate of what it will cost them to comply with data retention laws, and appear to have been told of that deadline on Christmas Eve. The Register has sighted an email sent from a senior executive of the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've had the pleasure of having to provide extremely important estimates in an unreasonably short time frame to various Oz government departments.

    Essentially I've discovered the secret is to pretty much put down "1 MEEEEELLION DOLLARS!" in every row of the spreadsheet and when questioned about it later said that due to lack of time assumption were made that it would be very very very hard. This usually ends up with the same estimate coming out again at a later date with a reasonable time frame.

  2. BasicChimpTheory

    "“providers of internet access services will not be required to keep destination addresses for SIP, FTP and other protocols running over the top of their internet access service – provided that they do not operate these services.” "

    So the lesson here is not to use your ISP's VOIP products?

    1. P. Lee
      Mushroom

      Meta data and its lies

      Apart from the fact that meta data and data are the same, there are weasel words all over this.

      >defined as starting when that user logs onto their internet service via an access network, such ADSL, and finishing when that user logs off from that network

      "Users" haven't logged into networks since modems were in use, and even then it was normally automated. Routers log into networks and not that often. I take it this is the MPAA's request.

      Then we get into what a "network" is and what an "internet service" is. It could pretty much mean anything.

      >The FAQ also attempts to make it clear that carriers won't be required to record the content their users access

      Unless they do, such as for (multiple) emails where interesting data may not be in the source and destination IPs. So the ISP's don't have to record all the content, but they do have to be able to scan content such as email. That won't be costly will it? I wonder if they will have to include the ability to vector off all the content to some government network. No actually, I don't wonder that at all. It doesn't really matter. This will just be stage one. Once the principle of monitoring everything is in place and the kit is in place, its just a matter of time and capacity until everything is recorded and may be used against you in a court of law.

      Note to Oz.gov, you're supposed to bury bad news during a busy news period, preferably involving great angst. Don't try to bury it during an ultra-quiet news period. P.S. I despise you.

      1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

        Re: Meta data and its lies

        Are they weasel words, or just ignorance on the part of whoever drafted it?

  3. poopypants

    Question

    Can anyone recommend a good VPN? I'm asking for a friend.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Question

      Used Easyhide-IP for over two years now.

      No problems to report.

      Fast enough for streaming overseas catch up TV

      Cheap too.

      http://www.easy-hide-ip.com

      ...so says my friend....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Question

      My friend recommends VyprVPN

      1. Steven Roper

        Re: Question

        VyprVPN apparently do keep logs and will hand them over upon request, according to TorrentFreak. I've been using Private Internet Access for over 6 months so far and I've no complaints.

  4. Tom 35

    Service providers?

    So are they going to get Gmail, yahoo, etc. to save spy data for them? How about mail.ru? Flybynight.com web hosting?

    How about that VPN connection? Are they just working from home? Watching US Netflex! or uploading pirated pedoterorist films!!

    I'm sure it will be a very cost effective method to fight serious crime. :p

  5. sbd

    7 days sounds great

    That's how long they should store data before uploading it to the government.

    Why should ISP's (customers) foot the bill for storing it, just dump it daily or weekly to the Gov and let them pay for it!!! Of course it will NEVER be deleted, but since they can grab copies of it with no justification they'll be able to cherry pick the data they think is useful and just store that for 100 years after your death. This way they have to foot the bill for all of it.

    1. Bill Redmond

      Re: 7 days sounds great

      " This way they have to foot the bill for all of it."

      Actually either way YOU have to foot the bill either through increased ISP costs or the use of YOUR tax money that could be used for non-essential things like Health, Education, Infrastructure etc.

      1. Colin Tree

        Re: 7 days sounds great

        I wouldn't hold it for a minute, pipe it to the government storage after the metadata is filtered by the ISPs. Then the cost estimates won't need to be estimated.

        It will also allow a future government cost savings by scrapping the project.

        grep metadata &> /dev/null

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So they're spying on all our overseas communications?

    The interesting thing is what it reveals about government monitoring. They can only regulate Australian companies and they want not only circuits monitored, but they also want over the top apps (e.g. email, VoIP) monitored that are hosted by the Australian companies because these are typically only carried over domestic links, and hence difficult to tap given the current laws and infrastructure (it would require a lot of taps and collection equipment). The obvious thing missing is over the top apps that are provided by overseas companies (e.g. an email service hosted by an ISP overseas). They're obviously spying on all our overseas communications sessions (including the encrypted stuff) because they're not asking to have those sessions logged by your ISP here and they'll want it because they're asking for the equivalent domestic services to be logged.

    They're obviously up to something because whenever they get asked what they're spying on regarding overseas communications by our citizens and what all the weasel words and phrases in the legislation means, you get an equally bamboozling response that is trying to obfuscate the truth.

    From the Snowden leaks we know the US and their partners (of which Australia is one) have broken or compromised the common use encryption schemes.

  7. jjcoolaus

    I'm no ISP expert, but...

    ...why is there all this talk of access sessions and log on/log off times.

    My modem last logged off during a planned maintenance session on 25 November 2014. Let's say it's next log off is during another maint sesh on 25 June 2015.

    Is the 7 months one session? I don't get it.

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