Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: PaulMuadDib on July 11, 2012, 02:41 pm
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Looks like the FEDS are going into big brother mode lvl 70..........
If ever there was a time whereupon the justification for TOR onion browsing technology could be justified; it is now:
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/spies-want-our-net-data-20120711-21wdf.html
THE telephone and internet data of every Australian would be retained for up to two years and intelligence agencies would be given increased access to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter under new proposals from Australia's intelligence community.
Revealed in a discussion paper released by the Attorney-General's Department, the more than 40 proposals form a massive ambit claim from the intelligence agencies. If passed, they would be the most significant expansion of the Australian intelligence community's powers since the Howard-era reforms following the terrorist attacks of 2001.
The discussion paper containing the proposals was released as part of an announcement by Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, who has tasked the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence security with reviewing them.
The review will seek public submissions for the next month and will then hold public and classified hearings.
''It will be one of the most controversial inquiries the committee has ever held,'' a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
''Once people get their head around this stuff it will be very interesting to see what their reaction will be. In the UK it has led to some very vocal opinions,'' the official said.
A similar data retention regime proposed in the UK - though of only 12 months, rather than two years' duration - has been widely debated and England's Information Commissioner Christopher Graham has stated the case for such regimes has yet to be made.
The Australian proposals will also be sure to attract strong criticism from the Greens and civil liberties groups.
The discussion paper outlines changes to the various acts governing Australia's six intelligence agencies, which include ASIO, ASIS and the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD).
They are also divided into three categories - those the government agrees with, those it is considering and those it is seeking advice on.
The proposed reform likely to cause the most outrage is the intention to force all telecommunications providers operating in Australia to retain users' data for up to two years.
While some telcos voluntarily retain data for such periods, other companies delete users' call records and internet usage data almost as quickly as they receive it.
Such data retention schemes have been a subject of much global debate, with law enforcement and intelligence agencies saying they are finding it increasingly hard to monitor their targets online due to proliferation of new tools such as social media, cloud computing and internet communications utilities such as Skype.
Civil liberties groups and some politicians, however, say it is a first step in a systematic
erosion of privacy online. ''This extreme proposal is based on the notion that all our personal data should be stored by service providers so that every move we make can be surveilled or recalled for later data mining,'' Greens senator Scott Ludlam said.
Also among the proposals are changes to some of the most fundamental divisions between agencies. For six decades ASIO has been the only Australian intelligence agency authorised to routinely collect intelligence on Australians.
However, under a proposed change officers from Australia's foreign intelligence services, ASIS and DSD, would be allowed to monitor Australia citizens overseas if an ASIO officer was not available.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/spies-want-our-net-data-20120711-21wdf.html#ixzz20KCqLUGd
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At first I thought you were another aussie who just got himself a quarter of mj off silkroad and went ballistic happy but youre not haha.
I don't think this is a good idea though... our history could then be used to bring forth mass injustice to the internet community.
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Yeah, the national security inquiry looks like an enormously horrible piece of shit. All Australian SR users should dust off their real identities and join the privacy & civil liberties advocates and make a submission to oppose this:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=pjcis/nsl2012/index.htm
Pirate Party Australia has some stuff on it here:
http://pirateparty.org.au/2012/07/10/pirate-party-demands-extension-of-submission-deadline-for-national-security-inquiry/
The request to extend the submission time was denied:
http://pirateparty.org.au/2012/07/12/email-responses-regarding-national-security-inquiry/
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I forgot to mention, submissions can be emailed and they have to accept pretty much everything they receive (though they prefer .pdf and .doc). Also, you can request the submission be anonymous (although they still want your identity).
I'm not sure how they'd treat a submission made by an anonymous remailer.
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Supposing this went ahead, or that they already had some of this info without our knowledge, off the record, would they be able to reverse-engineer or straight up view the torrified data as if it were plain? Suppose they already know about a given users tor web activity to a T, and are just waiting for the legitimate way to spring the evidence without it being wiped out, is there ever any way to know about it before it's too late?
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ASIO began to hold close ties to Telecom decades ago, to the point of having full time staff working at at major telephone exchanges managing wiretaps etc. Telecom re-branded quite some time ago to Telstra, there was a partial public float of the company on the Australian Stock Exchange, but the close ties between security service and major communications provider remained.
This has already been happening. For a long time.
Previously Telecom was the only telecommunications provider in Australia for so long, so it was easy for government security information consumers to manage what they needed access too (one hand to shake). But With industry diversification, deregulation, competition, duplication of infrastructure and advances in telecommunications technology, the security services no longer have a single point of contact to get all of what they need, so instead they are now pushing the onus onto the multitude of individual communications companies to keep track of the data for them, providing access when deemed necessary.
Which in the end equates to a lot of storage. A LOT. Buy shares in disk drive and tape storage vendors. Why not make some money out of it, convert to bitcoins and buy some gear off SR to get high. And if you're haven't already, investigate the use of stronger internet communications VPN security and obscurity. For everything.
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^Bump for HIGHER learning :-)
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Supposing this went ahead, or that they already had some of this info without our knowledge, off the record, would they be able to reverse-engineer or straight up view the torrified data as if it were plain? Suppose they already know about a given users tor web activity to a T, and are just waiting for the legitimate way to spring the evidence without it being wiped out, is there ever any way to know about it before it's too late?
Traffic analysis of a link will identify Tor, VPN, SSL and SSH transmissions, but won't be able to crack the encryption. Not in real time at least (well, maybe the SSL traffic depending on how sneaky they get, there was a report on this in one of the Oz PC mag websites a couple of years ago). If they capture all the data for an entire session they might, depending on the protocol and encryption algorithms be able to crack it at a later date.
The advantage to people here is that VPNs are used all the time, mostly by corporations and governments. Although there are enough Australians and Kiwis using them to get past geolocation blocks (usually to stream US TV shows).
Finding out what intelligence agencies actually know is a guessing game. A good way to drive yourself nuts, though. Law enforcement might be a little easier, depending on which part of it, but they've been known to keep some secrets from time to time.
If you're going to use Tor directly (as opposed to through a VPN connection), I'd suggest using it for non-SR stuff as well so that they can't link every time you've used Tor to an event on SR or the forums. Non-SR Tor activity doesn't need to be on the same system/installation as your SR stuff, though, because from an intercept perspective they'll just see the traffic from your Net connection.
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Supposing this went ahead, or that they already had some of this info without our knowledge, off the record, would they be able to reverse-engineer or straight up view the torrified data as if it were plain? Suppose they already know about a given users tor web activity to a T, and are just waiting for the legitimate way to spring the evidence without it being wiped out, is there ever any way to know about it before it's too late?
Traffic analysis of a link will identify Tor, VPN, SSL and SSH transmissions, but won't be able to crack the encryption. Not in real time at least (well, maybe the SSL traffic depending on how sneaky they get, there was a report on this in one of the Oz PC mag websites a couple of years ago). If they capture all the data for an entire session they might, depending on the protocol and encryption algorithms be able to crack it at a later date.
The advantage to people here is that VPNs are used all the time, mostly by corporations and governments. Although there are enough Australians and Kiwis using them to get past geolocation blocks (usually to stream US TV shows).
Finding out what intelligence agencies actually know is a guessing game. A good way to drive yourself nuts, though. Law enforcement might be a little easier, depending on which part of it, but they've been known to keep some secrets from time to time.
If you're going to use Tor directly (as opposed to through a VPN connection), I'd suggest using it for non-SR stuff as well so that they can't link every time you've used Tor to an event on SR or the forums. Non-SR Tor activity doesn't need to be on the same system/installation as your SR stuff, though, because from an intercept perspective they'll just see the traffic from your Net connection.
Thank-you for this reply. I shall take it to heart. As far as self-directed tortures go, at least some measure of it is productive to be sure, as God knows I am fallible enough as it is without whatever else I can get into the bargain.