Australian Gov't Says ISPs Should Spy On Users... At The Same Time It's Trying To Attack Google For Doing Less?

from the um,-hypocrisy-much? dept

We've been writing about the Australian government -- mainly Stephen Conroy -- the politician who is actively trying to censor the internet, who is absolutely livid at Google, mainly because the company has accurately pointed out what a bad idea the censorship program would be. He's been making ridiculous and uninformed fear mongering statements about Google for a few weeks now. The latest, which is a blatant falsehood, is that Google's WiFi snarfing collected personal banking details. But, of course, as anyone who actually knows how these things work can tell you, banking sites use encryption. Google can only read unencrypted data, and all of the evidence suggests that Google discarded any encrypted info (not that it could do anything with it anyway).

Of course, while Conroy is grandstanding about how Google might have possibly, maybe collected a tiny snippet of unsecure info that passed through an open WiFi network while it was driving by -- saying that it was "the largest privacy breach in history across Western democracies," -- his government, in his area of regulation, is working on data retention plans that would require ISPs to spy on your internet usage. They don't just want ISPs to store your IP addresses. They want your browsing history and every email stored -- just in case the government wants to go back and check it some time.

That seems like a significantly bigger privacy breach than anything Google did.
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Filed Under: australia, data retention, isps, spying, stephen conroy


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  • icon
    Karl (profile), 11 Jun 2010 @ 1:54pm

    Privacy

    "Seems like" is a bit of an understatement.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2010 @ 1:57pm

      Re: Privacy

      This is what happens when people are too stupid to have a real job but hey, being a politician these days . . . .

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      :Lobo Santo (profile), 11 Jun 2010 @ 2:05pm

      Re: Privacy

      [satire] -=Australian Government Clarification=-
      This is just a misunderstanding. You see, all the data we collect on you goes to our 'Internet Doctor' and, as you are aware, doctor/patient confidentiality prevents the Internet Doctor from telling anything about you. Feel better now?
      [/satire]

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2010 @ 2:26pm

    "(If) you were doing a banking transaction, or transmitting personal information, they could have hoovered it up, sucked it up into their machine," he told ABC TV yesterday.

    hahahaha

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Awesomo, 11 Jun 2010 @ 2:33pm

    Fear GOOGLE

    ...and their awesome ability to collect data publicly available to anyone... Mwahahahahahaha!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2010 @ 2:41pm

    -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
    qANQR1DDDQQJAwIJzHMxKVS1DpDSagFydg5a7X+RTA0+QA7NmywZ8mky+qRE78bd
    uOGY8ZB016hbeQVbBQfe 8r+l7Kik7Jbqv9IRqHfWwdiPYdgt84L2vIBzZxXLPMQB
    AwWV0BdfGnX70zd0eGRZS+0ZXti7rXqqzEtGXNv9xQc=
    =pmal
    - ----END PGP MESSAGE-----

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    sehlat (profile), 11 Jun 2010 @ 3:35pm

    You just don't understand.

    When a [insert epithets, including greedy] corporation does it, it's evil.

    When a government does it, it's "for the people/children/public safety/your protection."

    See?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    bigpicture, 11 Jun 2010 @ 4:06pm

    Follow the Money

    Maybe someone should a do a background on Mr. Stephen Conroy's financial transactions to find out whose pocket he is in. We had an elected representative here deny that he had any conflict of interest in the purchase of some Airbus planes instead of NA made Boeings.

    But when they followed the money, they found out that he was getting it in envelopes. Not "for the people by the people" but "screw the people". We got to get rid of these corrupt jerk politicians

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Vlad The Impaled (profile), 11 Jun 2010 @ 4:12pm

    Its getting silly...

    Conroy needs to leave politics. He'd be far more useful to work for some security department, or even better... become a network administrator at some corporation that has draconian network policies. Yep, that's perfect for him.

    This is a perfect case of his paranoia over his facist, draconian tactics being threatened by the 'Do no evil' company. If you want to try and derail their human initiatives tell the news media and unware/don't care general public that they are evil. Yep, it moves the spotlight off your own facist activities onto someone else while you can further manipulate what was once a freedom loving, fun, country into a military Stalinistic place.

    Mr. Conroy IS big brother. Plain & simple.

    V

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    athe (profile), 11 Jun 2010 @ 5:42pm

    Here's a link to the original article

    Couldn't seem to see one Mike's article above, so here it is: http://www.zdnet.com.au/govt-wants-isps-to-record-browsing-history-339303785.htm

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Alan, 11 Jun 2010 @ 8:39pm

    Politician has devolved into a term that means little more than a willingness to flaunt your ignorance in public.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    soap, 14 Jun 2010 @ 7:53pm

    worth noting...

    They want to store the data for 5-10 years. Thats all browsing history, all email.. everything they can soak up.

    ...and the ISP's will have to hold this information.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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