Australian Officials Pushing For Data Retention Had No Idea What A VPN Is
from the government-follies dept
If you haven't yet, you really should watch the video we pointed to recently of Australian Attorney General George Brandis trying to explain his internet data retention plan when it's clear he has no idea how the internet works. It's the one where he's asked if it will track the web pages you visit, and Brandis vehemently insists that it will not, but that it will track the web addresses you visit. Some people have said that perhaps he meant it won't record the actual content on the pages, but just the URL (which might matter if it's dynamic pages), but later in the conversation, he also implies (almost clearly incorrectly) that he means it will just track the top level domains, not the full URLs. Here's a reminder snippet:Brandis: Well, what we'll be able... what the security agencies want to know... to be retained... is the... is the electronic address of the website that the web user is visiting.While it's a bit of a third hand story, Reason recently did an interview with Australian Senator David Leyonhjelm (who is against data retention, and describes himself as libertarian). Towards the end of the interview, he discusses data retention and tells a very troubling story about how those pushing for data retention had no idea what a VPN is. The story involves a much more knowledgeable government official -- which Gizmodo Australia suspects is Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull -- demonstrating a VPN and leaving them all dumbfounded:
Host: So it does tell you the website.
Brandis: Well... well... it tells you the address of the website.
Host: That's the website, isn't it? It tells you what website you've been to.
Brandis: Well, when... when you visit a website you... you know, people browse from one thing to the next and... and... that browsing history won't be retained or... or... or... there won't be any capacity to access that.
Host: Excuse my confusion here, but if you are retaining the web address, you are retaining the website, aren't you?
Brandis: Well... the... every website has an electronic address, right?
Host: And that's recorded.
Brandis: And... um... whether there's a connection... when a connection is made between one computer terminal and a web address, that fact and the time of the connection, and the duration of the connection, is what we mean by metadata, in that context.
Host: But... that is... telling you... where... I've been on the web.
Brandis: Well, it... it... it... it... it... it... it records what web... what at... what electronic web address has been accessed.
Host: I don't see the difference between that and what website I've visited.
Brandis: Well, when you go to a website, commonly, you will go from one web page to another, from one link to another to another, within that website. That's not what we're interested in.
Host: Okay. So the overarching... if I go to... SkyNews website, it'll tell that, but not necessarily the links within that that I go to?
Brandis: Yes.
The other one that's causing a fair bit of grief is a metadata retention plan, the equivalent of what your NSA does. We don't have metadata retention at the moment and the agencies have been saying, "Oh, well we should have it. You can't use it if you haven't got it," sort of thing. But I spoke to one of the ministers last week about this because he does know what "metadata" means—he knows quite a lot about the Internet and how it works—He said to me people who are asking for this data, people who are thinking this is a good idea, actually have no idea what they're asking for. They don't know what they're going to do with it. They don't know what the implications of requiring it are. They haven't really thought this through.Now, the story does not make it entirely clear about who he's talking about. It could be read to be Brandis or his staff that didn't know about VPNs. Or, much more troubling, it could be read to be the intelligence community -- though I find that hard to believe. Either way, however, it does suggest a sort of blind adherence to the "collect it all" philosophy of intelligence gathering, without any real understanding of the issues or consequences.
He gave them a demonstration on a VPN [virtual private network] and said, "By my IP address, tell me what you can find out about me now." And they had no idea there was such a thing as a VPN. It indicates to me that these people are not well-informed enough to make these kinds of decisions. As it stands, it may be that the government may only require the Internet companies to store the IP address of the originating Internet use, so they'll know what computer you're from and what IP you're working from, which is not a lot different from keeping a record of the phone you're calling from. So if that's the case, it's probably not going to pose too much alarm. He's a minister and he knows what he's talking about. But he's surrounded by people who don't know what they're talking about who think that they need something more. We don't know yet where this will end up. It does have the potential to be very dangerous.
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Filed Under: australia, data retention, david leyonhjelm, george brandis, malcolm turnbull, metadata, vpn
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Ahhh... memories of asking a customer if their network cable is plugged in and getting an answer of "huh?". Additional explanation of asking them if they "see a line, coming out of the back of the box, that connects to the wall" and getting an answer of "what's a line?" Eventually after 20mins, the old gentleman says he'll wait till his son is back then call again.
God I have such disdain for humanity after that job...
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However, they are the minority, far and few between. People who gets set top internet device are really on the less knowledgeable end of the spectrum. I personally think that the product is a good concept (in the early 2000's) and it does help some of the old folks who doesn't use PC to get on the internet and do emailing and surfing etc. However, when it breaks, these types of users are really not in position to self-trouble shoot.
PS. I don't really believe that Texas gentleman who threatened to call the police on me because I can't stop "people in the IRC channel bad mouthing President Bush" are pulling my strings... wait a sec...
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My problem is the use of the term "old folks". I've not noticed a strong correlation between age and competence on the computer. Most people aren't competent regardless of age. Your statement would be much better if you omitted the word "old".
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So from your lofty all-knowing perch you have disdain for older people because they don't know as much as younger people about newer technology.
That tells us little about older people but much about you.
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Not saving url
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Re: Not saving url
or, store the name. then you can't tell when someone bad uploads something bad to where they uploaded it.
name + ip + path = meta data.
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Fear is a powerful thing
He asked me this question: "What if a terrorist bombed a building and your family got killed?" and I asked him "I hope that I would remain sane enough to still feel the same as I do now, because I am sure you wouldn't want me to go kill innocent people, torture them and destroy our society that you love, for your sake, if it happened to you. That is basically what we are doing now"
He agreed that he wouldn't want that... and then he said "but still we need this".
My point is that there is no reason in fear. Logic is often left in the dust when fear is involved, it doesn't matter to these people that they don't know enough or that the consequences of their decisions could be catastrophic because fear has a tight grip.
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Re: Fear is a powerful thing
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First they collected
Then they collected more to identify domestic terrorists, and I did not speak out for I am not a domestic terrorist.
Then they built a huge data center and collected more to identify whistle blowers, and I did not speak out for I am not a whistle blower.
Then they collected everything about everyone, and no one dares speak out for fear they will publicaly expose the most intimate details of your life.
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Australian Officials Pushing For Data Retention
Privacy is not about hiding criminal behavior although unfortunately it sometimes does. Even still I am totally opposed to data retention on everybody.
If these laws go through it will be like living in an open prison.
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After all they just hooked up with US for this WW3 CRAP
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Its not Signals Intelligence...
Irony is under the AG's office are people that do know, but they arent being asked the question. The AG is asking the media company lobbyists that got him elected for his talking points.
Only problem is he doesnt understand them.
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Re: Its not Signals Intelligence...
OTOH, not asking the experts until after determining and announcing policy is pretty normal for ministers in general. The problem isn't so much that they don't understand what they're told, but that they don't ask until it is too late.
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