back to article Australia toughens cybercrime laws

Australian carriers and ISPs will be forced to retain customer’s private data such as email and text messages by police and authorities, without a warrant, if it is required for investigations into cybercrime. The requirements are part of legislation introduced to strengthen cyber security laws and enhance Australia’s ability …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    GPG anyone?

    Me thinks time to dust off that GPG installation.

    Mind you, a lot of my stuff would have the authorities rather bored if they were to peruse the emails I receive. And of course they're welcome to the spam.

    1. Graham Wilson
      Black Helicopters

      @Stuart Longland - Unless it's all in GPG will attract State snoops like flies around a shitcan.

      Snoops mightn't be able to read your email etc. but the fact you're GPG-ing it alone will single you out for special attention.

      Ideally, M$ should public-key Outlook and Outlook Express as the default then everybody's in. Individuals would simply be lost in the noise. But State pressure on M$ would see this never happens--perhaps also it's the reason it's never happened previously.

      Existing email standards are now almost archaic. Seems to me we need new email standards where privacy is intrinsic. Perhaps a standard based on torrents where the recipient's [first] email address is 'parametric'--a partial or random address which is only completed with the full (real) email address after it is obtained from metadata decrypted with the recipient's public key--the real address part being VPNed to the recipient.

      Alternatively, the public/private key combination would automatically set up an on-the-fly VPN which would both obfuscate the sender and recipient.

      Either way, the nett effect for snoops would be torrent streams filled with useless pseudo email addresses or copious seemingly-random data.

      Oh, one great side effect for users would be that it'd nuke spam stone dead.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        +1 to prehistoric email

        Indeed, SMTP was invented in a day where everyone on the Internet was either an academic or government employee, and when running an open relay was a *good thing*.

        Using Bittorrent as a delivery mechanism could be an interesting concept. However, why re-invent the wheel? GPG still provides a good peer-to-peer public key infrastructure which could be used to secure such communications.

        Anything that obscures the data will make the feds suspicious. Even if it's just little old me using an OpenVPN tunnel to my workplace to commit some C++ code into a Subversion repository. :-)

  2. Graham Wilson
    Black Helicopters

    Just another example of the Australian dog--err sorry mongrel--wagging tail to internat'l pressure.

    Does anyone really believe the Australian legislature will get this right?

    Not bloody likely! It's fucked up every other bit of legislation to do with the internet and the NBN etc. to date, so there's a snowball's chance of it acting intelligently now.

    However, what we can be absolutely certain of is that whatever law Oz ends up with is that it'll be in total alignment with what the US and EC told it to do.

    These gutless whackos wouldn't be game to do anything else other than to implicitly obey their masters.

    International treaties and secret alliances have fucked up democracy but unfortunately the populous are yet to realize it.

  3. N000dles
    Black Helicopters

    Let me get this right.....

    Foreign governments will be able to place an Australian's internet communication under a microscope without applying for a warrant?

    So my grandfather fought the communicsts and the fascists to stop them from doing things like opening his mail only for the government to completely sell out in this modern 'enlightened' era?

    I thought democracies had a small thing called judicial oversight.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      au contraire..

      My understanding of this is that only the request to *retain* the data can happen without a warrant.

      This then allows time to get a warrant to enable the authorities to *read* what has been retained.

      Mine's the one with 'comprehension skills for dummies' in the pocket..

  4. qt101
    FAIL

    Oz Cybercrime efforts highly confusing and largely inaffective.

    Im not sure that they know what they are doing. To start with; let alone passing Warrant-les bills.

    This is a total violation of peoples privacies and can be abused by authorities. Im all for Counties sharing information when it comes to Nabbing the bad guys. But mostly the bad guys get away with their crimes. It would seem the small cyber criminals are the ones that get caught, while the large Cyber Criminal rings go unpunished; due to lack of Funding, Lack of White hat skill; Lack of Sites for people even knowing where to report these crimes.

    I sadly see our Cyber Crimes Units in OZ failing. They haven't even got all their departments properly worked out. If you go to the 'Australian High Tech Crime Centre' www.ahtcc.gov.au it just bounces of the The Federal Police Website; Then there's a large list of what The Federal police will and won't handle. Not clearly outlined.

    Then there's the NSW Cyber crimes task force - I don't know where thats gone, because when you go to that website, there's no real reporting there either its just basically a police site. Then there's the ACCC for Scam reporting, they are largely overworked, lack of funding to do anything really concrete. They have no jurisdiction to overseas scam's. To enforce anything. But keep the public aware of such scams etc.

    Mostly all these departments just pass the buck and nothing gets fully sorted due to chaos.

    I think our Country needs to work out how they are dealing with Cyber crimes and have there correct channels sorted out; before any bills are passed; with other countries.

    Re: More than 40 countries have either signed or become a party to the Convention, including the US, UK, Canada, Japan and South Africa.

    I wonder if that includes India? coming party to the Convention.

    Because the scamming thats coming out of those Indian calls centre's is beyond a joke!

    One of India's largest call centre's is rife with Cyber Crime syndicates. Money Scams, Software Antivirus Scams, Bank and Social Security Scams, Tax scams, you name it; these dudes are doing it.

    Because we allow our Comms to be outsourced to these people. Therefore they have our client databases, to make those nasty scam calls too.

    Wake up Australia. Lets get Cyber Crime working constructively!

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