Metadata retention laws: eroding democracy, increasing risk, and otherwise pointless
“The social and economic costs of the metadata retention law are massive yet the public benefits miniscule” writes business analyst Carl Sudholz. Carl shares his concerns with The AIMN about this controversial law.
The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 increases our nation’s risk to terrorism and cyber-crime while fundamentally eroding our democratic rights and freedoms. By way of their support for this legislation, my local National’s member for Mallee, Mr Andrew Broad, the Abbott Government, and the Labor Opposition are considerably increasing the risk to all Australians of government abuse, corporate crime, cyber-crime and terrorism. This is not an act of responsible Government. These laws are dangerous!
Personally, I expect little from members of the National Party and the Abbott Government who collectively and continually prove themselves inept when it comes to matters of science, technology and the information economy. It is in Labor who I am most disappointed as they are now complicit in this gross act of anti-democracy. Of all the issues on which to take a bi-partisan stance, this is certainly the most obscene. I am proud to be a member of The Greens who through the voice of Senator Scott Ludlum in particular, remains the only party who outright and rightfully oppose the irrationality and inevitable consequences of these laws.
Let me explain by example of possibility why these metadata retention laws are fundamentally dangerous to our national public interest.
Firstly, if you are a genuine criminal, these laws are very easy to get around. The keywords ‘TOR’, ‘VPN’ and ‘Darknet’ are all you need to begin learning about how to hide your internet movements and thereby remain invisible to the government agencies seeking to find you through these laws. Either that, or just turn off your phone. It really is not hard to protect your metadata if you want to. The people the Abbott Government seeks to catch, nasty as they may be, are not so stupid to fall into such obvious traps. Once bitten, a hundred times shy will be the response of those these laws seek to apprehend. Hence, from this point forward, these laws will be pointless when it comes to catching genuine criminals and terrorists.
The bill states among other things, that the date, time and location of all communication on a service provider’s network must be kept for two years. For most people with a smart-phone this law will make their device a permanent GPS tracking device. These laws will create collections of ‘big data’ that contain the movements and habits of an entire nation of innocent Australian citizens. Regular people ‘with nothing to hide’ will not go offline, yet their data will be collected and stored by Australian phone and internet service providers. These datasets will contain the details of workplaces, homes, and habits of all Australian citizens, every hour, every day. Using widely available big data technology this data is incredibly valuable for a wide range of purposes, good, bad and ugly.
Any person with modest self-taught skill could use such a dataset to identify the homes of any person of interest: celebrities, policeman, military officers, criminals, journalists or politicians. Simply locate a building of interest and watch people as come and go in their daily routine. You could, for example, watch the Channel 7 studio in Sydney’s Martin Place and identify everyone who works there and arrives around 4am or 5am. Now, cross reference those records with the comings and goings from the Port Adelaide Football Club in Adelaide. Hey presto, you just discovered David Koch. Where he lives, when and how he gets around. All without him knowing about it. What would you do next? I wonder what a public figure like Kochie thinks about that?
It is not difficult to consider other ways that this valuable dataset could be used to cause harm. Using the very same dataset as above, one could identify the time and place where Sydney-siders gather with the greatest density and consistency – the ideal place to stage a terrorist attack. Imagine what the Martin Place siege might have been if Man Haron Monis had beforehand, such insights into the hustle and bustle of Sydney town?
When voting for such laws, I wonder if Mr Broad has considered what they may mean for his own political future? It is not unreasonable to consider he himself would become a ‘person of interest’ as leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister, as no doubt he aspires. What if someone wished to track him and his family? What would their motivations be? These examples are, at this moment, only harmless thoughts. However, if the metadata retention bill passes the Senate and becomes law, they will become potential reality. From then, it is just one mistake, one successful hack, one politically motivated Government Minister or one corrupt system operator away from becoming somebody’s harsh reality.
Make no mistake, these laws will create a database of our national habits and movements. The purpose we are told, is so that the Federal Police can capture and prosecute ‘persons of interest’. However, who is such a person depends on who is using the data and there is no guarantee over who that is going to be. Why? Because of the immense value of such a dataset and to who: terrorists, rogue nations and other nasty people for certain, but also to commercial interests and those maintain the data such as Newscorp or Telstra. This is not to mention the value to political interests and national and allied governments. The fact that they have passed this legislation in the lower house demonstrates how our legislators have no concept over the intrinsic value of such data in the information age.
Be assured, there are many who would pay millions of dollars for access including governments, advertisers, media and public relations. There will be others willing to pay equally as much to hack their way in. Furthermore, as defined within the legislation, this data is to be managed by the corporate sector. With such a high value resource at their fingertips, neither corporate or government interests can be trusted to maintain and protect this information. Such inherent value within a resource guarantees its abuse. This is inevitable. If the metadata collections do not get hacked, the Government will abuse them, if not that, the commercial interests will misuse them and if none of those, the data will be sold off to the highest bidder. This is a simple matter of supply and demand as applied to the information economy.
The social and economic costs of the metadata retention law are massive yet the public benefits miniscule. The metadata retention bill passed last week will create such datasets that because of their plain existence and massive inherent financial value, will inevitably be hacked, stolen or misused. The question that really concerns me is: when this happens what will those people do with it?
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23 comments
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Gilly -
Bronte ALLAN -
stephentardrew -
Loz -
Phi -
Cleanlivin -
Annie B -
Michael Taylor -
Matters Not -
Annie B -
Gilly -
csudholz -
Annie B -
Annie B -
Matters Not -
Annie B -
Annie B -
lawrencesroberts -
Harquebus -
CommonA -
flohri1754 -
Sir ScotchMistery -
Andrew L (@hannibal_i_)
Return to home pageSecurity … Law … what rubbish! This all about those in power misusing Parliament to rule the electorate instead of governing for the people.
I agree Gilly! What a waste of millions (billions?) of dollars of “our” money on this inept, hair-brained attempt at trying to stop journalists, whistle blowers & us ‘”ordinary” folk from using our devices as we want to! So long as there is no child porn or paedophilia, or terrorist actions involved then, what do “they” have to worry about? Snooping on innocent peoples’ computer & other devices, activities?Just increase surveillance etc on known (or suspected) terrorists & their activities in Australia, & keep on arresting & stopping these scum bags who prey on children with their porn & depravity etc
Spot on Gilly could not have said it better myself.
The thing is to make these bastards naked in the light of day.
After Labour did not do anything to oppose this law ( or only agreed to cosmetic changes) I am extremely disappointed in Shorten. Labour would have had my vote but not now. The last thing we need is for this very secret government to have more power to hide their shameful acts.
The bipartisan support for this legislation proves the mendacity of both LNP and ALP. However it’s possible that this legislation will trigger the widespread rejection of the two party system since they are essentially working a tag team game at our expense – if significant rejection of both parties occurs then the legislation might have one redeeming feature.
Once this Bill is in operation I will terminate my Telstra service. Don’t know how I’ll reconnect so as to avoid the data retention laws but I’ll be looking seriously at how best to stay connected but out of the data capture regime.
Steal a mobile phone, obtain a SIM under a false ID, and away you go, terrorist! No hope of identification!
A very frightening, but spot on article — – – — and frightening comments here.
Both ‘Phi’ and ‘Cleanlivin’ have said big mouthfuls. ( and not just because they are the last two I read before posting !!! ).
On another post ” re Larry Pickering” – [ we all know THAT one ]…. a commenter made this statement – although I admittedly use it now, out of context :
.. “Do you believe in free speech or censorship?”
With this data-retention situation, free speech has gone, and a form of censorship ( willy-nilly-whenever ) will be applied. …. But it goes much further than just censorship – as outlined in this article.
The following link is heavy going. … AND it is a wikipedia link, so is always subject to alterations …. but it gives some mind blowing facts about data retention and the VPN in particular. …. I haven’t had the heart (yet ) to research TOR or Darknet ( as mentioned in this excellent article ).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network
As a matter of interest, I googled Andrew Broad – as he was mentioned in the article, and it read as him being the Deputy Prime Minister or having aspirations to that end – which currently is wrong – the Deputy PM is Warren Truss.
But that’s beside the point.
What was interesting, was when I googled Andrew Broad – and then found him on the Government website, I found I could ‘track’ him ( that is exactly how the link showed – – “Track” )… by registering ( which I did ) …. and ( allegedly ) any situation he is in, his whereabouts etc., his speeches, his interaction with peoples, et al …… will be forwarded to me. ….. Not that I am ultra interested btw. !!
IT REMAINS TO BE SEEN !!! …. will they – or won’t they – honor this registration for info about Andrew Broad ?
I have a small story to relate …. on the next post, and hopefully it is of interest :
I can’t for the life of me work out why Labor supports this.
Bloggers and independent journalists are on notice. Can’t Labor see that bloggers and independent journalists are their best friends at the moment? Why on earth would they want to screw their friends like this?
They are going to lose a lot of those friends over this.
I can. It’s out of ‘fear’. Lack of support for same might imply that they (Labor) can be painted as being soft on ‘terrorism’, ‘paedophilia’, corporate crooks and the like.
Because (the fear) can be ‘sold’ as such, Labor/Shorten et al (believed) they were in danger of being ‘wedged’. They took the safe (political) option.
No doubt they were very mindful of what happened to Kym Beazley
It’s possible that they are aware of same, but believed that the power of the MSM is perhaps far above what the ‘ferals’ offer?
Sad. Very sad. But that’s how politics works these days.
I have a Gmail account, simply because it can retain up to 15Gb of emails, sundry notifications and social media notifications, for as long as I might be OFF the computer. …. My home address ( which is with iprimus ) is NOT a holding site, and will either forward my emails to me – continuously when on line, but if I end up unable to log on-line for a week or two … once it reaches a specified amount of data download with iprimus, it will begin to bounce back emails sent to me that would make it all go over quota. …. We all most likely know about THAT.
Gmail has several ‘saving’ options to choose – Primary (emails ), Social ( social media ), Notifications ( mostly advertisers ). I decided to ‘clean out’ my Gmail account last week, and deleted all references to the Notifications. …. which resulted in my Primary section rising to 2,321 emails ?????????? The Google beast transferred everything out of Notifications to my Primary section. Why ? … no doubt because they are paid by the proliferators ( advertisers ) of all kinds of goods and services – many of which I have never even heard of ??? and are obliged (?) to put them where I will see them. I certainly have NOT opted in to 99% of them.
So – I set about unsubscribing to absolutely everything – even those few I had opted into or used in the past, and certainly to those I had never heard of before !! ….. . And then deleted the lot – took me about an hour+ to do.
So what happens ? …. I am now getting into my Primary section, emails from spammers ( advertisers ) to replace those I have told to shove off. Delete and ubsubscribe is working overtime. To little avail I would think.
The point I make is this – that we are ALL, already spammed, hacked ( to a degree – certainly Facebook is ), and receive things we don’t want – why ? … Because spammers and hackers are in full force for the commercial side of things already. …. Don’t kid yourselves about that one.
I have an excellent Anti-Virus programme – one of the best. It stops in a nano-second, anything suspect that could damage or compromise my computer. Primarily for my home address inbox, and websites that are suspect. I also pay a tiny sum for a spam filter at iprimus and have Microsoft ‘Windows Defender’ free. So I have covered myself adequately – AS IT STANDS NOW. I also occasionally run Trend Micro scan, to further make absolutely sure.
….. coninued …..
Oh well, I am going to try and keep them on their toes. Every time I log on the first task will be to Google and visit a full page of; “terrorist Handbook”, “Explosives”, “Sniper Rifle”: “Extremist”, “Anarchy” etc. etc. Then apply for a position as a data analyst with ASIO.
Annie B. To clarify about MP Andrew Broad. He is the National’s member in one of safest seats in the nation. He is in his first term and a nobody backbencher right now (you are correct). However, chances are he will have his seat in Parliament for as long as he wants it. I also know him to be a very adept and aspiring young politician. So with time and desire on his side, I have no doubt he sees himself as leading his Party one day. Not now, but maybe ten or more years into the future. My problem with that is that I don’t believe my beloved regional Victoria can stand another decade of National Party policy laziness and political hubris.
>>>>>
I do believe, that those who use their mobile phones continually, are more at risk than anyone. I have a Smartphone – ( forced on me, when my former provider sold out to Vodaphone )…. and it is paid for at minimal rates – for a reason. First – Smartphones ( being Android, therefore Google run ) – are subject to hacking, viruses and a variety of other nasties. I use a mobile phone for phone calls and texts only. … However, silly me, did allow the app to my Gmail account, which is now deplete and there are far fewer tingles and beeps from the damned thing. However, the more apps are used, the more it can cost. And it is what is called an ‘open-source’ operating system. ( look it up ).
Unlike the Apple iPhone ( a much safer mobile – but which CAN be ‘mal-adjusted’ if Google comes into it ) …. Android simply means it is not an Apple product. ….. I am not here selling the idea of Apple, btw.
” Every time you save a number to the address book of your Android phone it will be synced to your Google Account.” … from https://recombu.com/mobile/article/what-is-android-and-what-is-an-android-phone_M12615.html …. this link is all pro-Android. Pffft.
From a Grade 1 in primary school bod – as far as technology is concerned ( me ) , the wear-with-all is already in place for tracking – of anyone – for any reason. GPS alone gives all tracking of a persons’ activities, if accessed by the Police or whoever else is interested, or who can hack. And it also can be ‘read’ by family members. Any mobile number can be traced, if one has the know-how. …. And that’s so simple for those who are in the know – even now.
So …. everything is already in place. …. this latest attack on our freedoms by this unutterably vile Government, is just a small step forward from what is already in place.
Turning off your mobile phone – is one way of defeating the purposes here. I turn mine off continually, just to shut it the hell up from its’ continuous ‘bleeping’ when another email comes into my Gmail account. ( often a post from AIM – LOL ). ,,,, But I can CHOOSE when to turn the bloody thing on, choose to read the latest emails I have, choose to send a text or make a phone call. Those reliant constantly on their mobile phones, attached to the user like glue, are possibly the bods who could be in trouble. ….. Horrifies me, how out of control technology has become – at our own behest.
But then – what’s trouble, if you are not doing anything wrong ?
I frankly think the whole idea will fall into a massive big hole – the Government will stop tracking people who are accepting a tender for a job, or talking about the latest additon to the family. And there are many ways of stopping hackers – if we are prepared ( as we must be ) to find out how to do that.
………
Yes Michael – I agree — what the HELL made the Labor party go along with this ludicrous idea ( which is just more of the dumbing down of Australian people, in effect ).
I think Matters Not answered …. with his comment about ‘fear’. … Labor is buying into it – and I cannot fathom that.
@ Gilly ….
???? …. I am tempted to say “PLEASE DON’T” …. but I like your intestinal fortitude and attitude to it all.
Been around ‘politics’, on all sides, for decades.
In my experience, most. if not all, enter the political arena with ‘good’ in their hearts but are soon corrupted, given the ‘environment’ they enter and by those who have learnt the ropes.
@ csudholz
Thanks for that info. …. Mind you – 10 years is a long time – even a week is along time in politics, so he may or may not achieve his ambitions.
Then again – you said it. … the Nationals ( particularly here in Victoria ) are a name only and do little to nothing to further the agricultural interests. ….. and they will probably do less ( if that is possible ) now that Labor is in power here in Victoria.
……..
@ Matters Not ….
How right you are –
I have only had small ( by comparison ) experience with dabbling in Politics. … ( was as a committee member to someone standing for the DLP when that was a viable party ). Was appalled at the manipulations that went on – even in that small party – and when voting day came ( the candidate was defeated by a very small margin ) …. I did not attend the ‘after’ party, and could not wait to get out of the whole scene as quickly as possible. . It had been rough going. .
Another DLP member ( not associated with that committee ) some years later, said to me ” it takes a real mongrel to be a politician – and they can never be trusted “. And he had been in politics for a long time.
It’s a sordid deal – for sure.
Another reason not to put Labor first. Average politicians can not understand this. It is beyond our present crop.
Political opposition will be the first casualty with this law. The Labor Party consists of very stupid people.
I’m with you lot, I have no idea why either side is either proposing or supporting this thing. Big attack on privacy / liberality, with dubious benefits, and lots of risk…. Just makes you think they are both dancing to someone else’s tune on this one.
Definitely disappointing ….
@ Michael T – ALP support it because they have no idea what it means.
Already we have seen the likes of Murdoch Press and what they have done with phone taps. This is going to take it to a whole new level but not just for the rich and famous. It is amazing how much corporate interests can control our politicians because that is what these new laws have been about.