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NZ Government Pushes For Wide Spying Powers 215

Posted by timothy from the silly-party dept.
lim-bim-tim-wim writes: "The New Zealand government is planning to introduce powerful legislation to enable the Police, GCSB and Security Intelligence Service to hack into computers without the knowledge of the owner. Owners will also have to give up cryptographic keys and passwords on demand. ISPs and telecom companies will have to provide backdoors for government agencies. So how does this affect you? It appears this has been brought about by pressure from the FBI. So maybe your country is next. There is a short story at www.stuff.co.nz "
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NZ Governent Set To Introduce Wide Spying Powers More

NZ Governent Set To Introduce Wide Spying Powers

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  • It is right, what you say. It would be a nice way to get those crackers and cyber criminals. But what about the possibility of industry espionage? Who guarantees us that this tool will not be missused? I would not trust in this shit. There are other ways to prevent crimes or catch those who are responsible for it. Cutting in the flesh of "normal human beeings" as you and I is NOT the right way. Once the government has the possibility to do all these things, they will use it. And history showed more than once that they wont stick to the original purpose of this law, it will be extended to be more and more intrusive. No, forget it, this is definetly the wrong way! Have a nice day, I will try to get my breakfast into my body again after I coughed it out while reading the article. cu, otaku
  • "My personal freedom is an *entirely* separate issue from my personal privacy. I cannot see for a moment how you can say that (if..) my freedom is not restricted, then I should be unconcerned about the loss of my personal privacy.

    A non sequitur    "

    a fair point, and one that i'd hoped someone would make.

    "What happens when "my" government re-defines what's legal and what's illegal?

    How can I be safe from any future, arbitrary changes in the laws, over which I have *no* control, and probably no knowledge, until the Secret Police are knocking at my door?    "

    at what stage did we lose our right to vote, our right to protest, and our right to referendums? we have as substantial control over decisions of laws as is possible in the current political system. if you feel that you don't have the power to influence law changes, then you should be doing something about it.

    "A utterly naive attitude.

    How *completely* aware are you, of all laws and statutes that are in effect where you live?    "

    i am aware enough of the laws to know when i am breaking one, and when i am not. i am also aware of which ones i disagree with, and am actively working towards having them corrected. the legal system is a system that is supposed to work for us. if you feel that it isn't working, then rather than flustering about in paranoid fits, you should be working to change it.
  • So, if somebody slaughters your family, and criminal investigators find detailed directions to your house, diagrams of the surrounding landscape, and various observational details (i.e. lights go out from 10:00 pm - 10:30 pm), and photos of the owner's prized rifle, yet they have no warrant, you would want this person to go unpunished? The government isn't using this as a submissive measure, it's using this as a measure to uphold justice and national security.

    After all, even if they do snoop around on your computer, so long as you have no child porn or anything, what do you have to fear? They'll read your school notes?


    -CoG

    "And with HIS stripes we are healed"
  • "why don't we make a DNA database of every man, woman and child"

    Already proposed. Any person convicted of a crime gives up DNA. Man, woman, child.

    Hello, Big Brother.

  • Yeah,

    a friend of my girlfriend always covers up the webcam on her boyfriend's computer when she goes to stay round his place. I think she has watched 'American Pie' a few too many times, rather than read 1984 too much.

    The principle: Without special, judicial permission the state and her representatives should enjoy exactly the same rights as its citizens (except that in the UK, NZ, Aus etc... technically we aren't citizens depite what it might say on our passports, we're subjects of the Queen). The way it should be is that the citizens ALLOW the state certain powers to investigate criminals and make legislation etc... whereas the politicians seem to have forgotten this.

    Elgon
  • While it may seem a bit dodgy from human rights perspective, really it is not much of an issue really. The fact is they don't know what they are talking about, and they are never going to get anybody working for them that know's what they are talking about... I mean, take the case of the NZ Police and their new system... They went to IBM. Hmm.. and surprise surprise the whole project was a flop, got nowhere, and lost the government tons. I think the same thing will happen with this... They hire idiot Commerce graduates who know how to make buttons work in VB and expect them to crack into an high security system. It's not going to happen.

  • Article from NZ Herald (Score:3)

    by judd ( 3212 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @08:45AM (#667401) Homepage
    This article tells a bit more. The headline angle is that taxpayer money will pay telco's for their trouble. It sounds promising, in that the Herald is usually a pretty conservative paper.

    The article appears here [nzherald.co.nz].

  • I'm sorry: *you* have twisted my knickers, as it were...

    "...is if your personal freedom isn't being restricted any more, then does loss of personal privacy with regards to the government really matter?

    My personal freedom is an *entirely* separate issue from my personal privacy. I cannot see for a moment how you can say that (if..) my freedom is not restricted, then I should be unconcerned about the loss of my personal privacy.

    A non sequitur.

    "...if you're not doing anything illegal, then does it really matter if the government knows about all your legal activities?"

    What happens when "my" government re-defines what's legal and what's illegal?

    How can I be safe from any future, arbitrary changes in the laws, over which I have *no* control, and probably no knowledge, until the Secret Police are knocking at my door?

    Honestly!

    "...if you're not doing anything illegal, then does it really matter..."

    A utterly naive attitude.

    How *completely* aware are you, of all laws and statutes that are in effect where you live?

    t_t_b
    --
    I think not; therefore I ain't®

  • The majority of the press are pretty lame, just like most places. However, there are a few around who have a history of being able to bring this sort of thing to light, and presenting in a way that makes everyone understand.
  • This is my bazillionth post in the past half hour...

    Everyone keeps asking "If you don't have anything bad on your system, what do you have to fear?" What?!?! Okay, let's try this. "I've just cracked into your computer. Do you care?" Most likely, you'd call the police. Suppose I didn't do anything but read everything on your system? Would you think that was okay? I hope not!

    The point is that, even though you may not have anything illegal, you should not turn your head the other way and allow this to happen. The government has no right to do this - they are, in my opinion, just trying to gain control. The people who sit there and think "I have nothing to fear, so I'm okay with this." are the same type of people that didn't stop the Holocaust when Hitler was just some wacko with an idea. I did a big study of this last year, and the only reason the Holocaust got off the ground was because the people who thought it was wrong didn't stand up to it, because they hadn't done anything wrong. If an entire country were to have stood up to Hitler, then he would have just been regarded as a laughingstock. People need to stand up to things like this, even if they're not going to be adversely affected by it. For all of those in New Zealand, fight this. And for those of you not in New Zealand, fight this. Because if we let it get started in New Zealand, then it's that much harder to stop when your country sees that it's going on, and that it worked in New Zealand.

    ...............
    SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name

  • This reminds of a story I heard (can't remember where). Anyway, some people were discussing privacy and one person said just what you said "What are you trying to hide?"

    Another person, whom she was arguing with, picked up her purse and begin looking through it. She immediately snatched it back.

    The person who took her purse said "Get the point?" She did.


    --
  • It's pretty obvious that our governments have been reading our mail and tapping our phones whenever they felt like it, for years. After all, they own the post office and the phone companies own them. We'd be pretty naive to think that there hasn't been a lot of winking and nodding going on when it comes to spying on citizens. The recent use of the net to organize demonstrations against the World Bank and the IMF, not to mention corporate boycotts, has led us to the spot we're in. That and the fact that governments and police agencies see our net as a power tool, for them. I don't know what the answer is but we better come up with one quickly. One possibility is that we treat countries with regressive privacy laws as ill and quarrantine them. Refuse to communicate with their citizens. Drastic I know, but if we don't take dramatic action soon we will all be in quarrantine. We all know that the net was a force for good, enabling the exchange of ideas between citizens of the world, and we damn well better do something drastic to protect it or we'll lose it.

  • Keyboard loggers are an easy way to get around encryption, and we've got a product of our own which apparently has been very popular with the US TLA's - KeyGhost.

    When I say we, I say we as a Kiwi, not as someone from KeyGhost. That might have been a little ambiguous. I don't work for them.

    Cheers
    rediguana

  • I wasn't talking about people who are smart
    enough to use a "secure by default my ass"
    BSD instead of easily rootable Linux RH 6.x
    okay? So relax. I hope you don't have any
    non-audited daemons running. I was talking
    about the growing pain-in-the-butt-crowd of
    "installed linux yeehaa cool" people, who
    constantly manage to annoy me because they
    give script kids an unattended playground.
  • Um, dude, in a relative sense when comparing to major world cities I suppose you could say the major cities in NZ were towns, but don't take it too literally. 600,000 people (in Wellington, close to the same in Christchurch) is WAY too big for everyone to know each other as you seem to be suggesting with your "no anonymity" comment. :P
  • Where do they send the bill, then?

    They don't. It's called pre-pay.

  • One of the wonderful things about the US is that their are no guards along state borders, no documentation is needed to travel inside our borders, and other things along these lines.

    Oh yeah? Try being hispanic in the US. Or even worse, hispanic with Canadian passport, like me. First, you get stopped a lot more than the average WASP, because of racial profiling police practices. Second, they don't believe your documentation ("This guy has Canadian ID? Must be fake."), and call the INS on you.

    The people at the Canadian consulate in L.A. know me very well-- they have to confirm I am who I claim I am all the time.

  • That's not from Handel, it's from Isaiah 53:5. Check it out.

    It was also where the 80's rock band Stryper got its name.
  • The idea is to waste their time sifting garbage so it isn't worth the effort. Sorta like trying to kill all the DECSS stuff out there to find a bunch of it is referring to cacading style sheets. Web pages mentioning DECSS attract attention. FTP sites with noise would do the same time and take much longer to verify if any content was there. The idea is to make snooping unproductive.
  • One of the wonderful things about the US is that their are no guards along state borders, no documentation is needed to travel inside our borders, and other things along these lines. I think that this is part of the reason why we do not see many terrorists attacks in the US. Blowing up a building where there is no security and hurting innocents does not make for good relations with the people whose opinions you are trying to sway. However, some people think that terrorist activities in places where the government is supposed to protect them will make the people feel less secure about their government. Having said this, I think that there is an important lesson here - how people behave is usually directly related to how they are treated. If you let people have their freedoms and privacy chances are they are going to do the right thing. Of course, there will always be a few jackasses who will do bad and destructive things, but I feel that this is inevitable. What I hate about are politicians and some of the general public is that they feel that they have to protect us from anything and everything. I would much rather have things they way that they are now, and run the chance of accidentally getting caught in a terrorist incedent (which are probably less than winning the lottery), than live in some nazi-like Orwellian future. People never realizing that things really are not that bad, and the fact that we have a bunch of jackasses running around trying to scare people into justifying their jobs now that the cold-war is over, is not conducive to the public well being. street sweeper 2565 reporting from the land of anthem

  • Protecting against giving up keys (Score:4)

    by KFury ( 19522 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @12:26AM (#667416) Homepage
    Someone needs to write a pgp-driven encryption tool that works as follows:

    It take a file to be encrypted, encrypts it, appends it to either another encrypted file using a different key, or a noise file encrypted using a random and discarded key, then merges the two and encrypts again using the first file's key.

    Use this tool all the time whenever you encrypt anything. It will result in files twice the size of the original, but you can legitimately say you only have the key for one half of the file, and the other half is noise, as demonstrated by examining the open-source encryption program. However, it's entirely possible that the person could choose to merge in another, 'secret' encrypted file instead of the noise file, and this could only be proven if that key is discovered or cracked.

    If such a program went into widespread use, the Enzed gov't would either have to prosecute everyone who used the program, despite the fact that they're breaking no laws, or they would lack any means of obtaining keys (which they can't prove even exist) to uncover data they similarly can't prove the existence of.

    Kevin Fox
  • Already proposed. Any person convicted of a crime gives up DNA. Man, woman, child.

    I think I mis-spoke. I'm sure I saw this proposed in the Omaha World Herald [omaha.com](dead-tree edition) within the last two weeks, but now I can't find it in the online archive. Hmmm, strange.

  • I prefer the freedom to life over the freedom to privacy. I am not a criminal, and therefore have nothing to hide!

    If you would actually be willing to die simply because a government official looks at your computer, you certainly are a fool.


    -CoG

    "And with HIS stripes we are healed"
  • I finally found the link I was searching for. The article originated in the Washington Post, and was carried by the Omaha World Herald. The article, as published by the OWH can be found at [omaha.com]http://www.om aha.com/ind ex.atp?u_div=3&u_hdg=3&u_sid=26996 [omaha.com].
  • I'll go ahead and get the stupid responses out of the way:

    1 - This is good. It will catch paedophiles. You do you want your children safe, don't you?

    2 - So what if it means the government has access to your encrypted files. You shouldn't have any illegal files inthe first place, and by encrypting anything you might as well be sticking up a flashing light and big flag above your house saying "Woo! Mr. Policeman! I am a criminal and wish to harm others!"

    3 - Only dirty evil hackers want privacy. If this prevents fæRym4n from hacking into the missle control systems using your grandmas stolen credit card numbers...then good! Joe Citizen has nothing to fear since we only want to protect you from yourself.

    4 - All Kiwis are backwards anyway. Who cares?

    With that said, discuss!

  • Er....Norman Kirk continued in popularity until the day he died of natural causes in hospital in 1974, two years into yet another term of office...got a point? :)
  • Here in The Netherlands, there was also a plan to ban encription and force anyone who wants a license to hand in both his public and private key. Naturally, widespread protests arised around the country, and it never came through. Had it came through, though, I don't think many people would give up their PGP or give away the key.
  • One interesting information in addition: here in Germany there also was a similar approach that would have forced any telecommunication provider (phone, mobile and internet) to implement an interface for surveillance institutions. Sure, they wouldnt have get any bucks for implementing it. Well, the law did not pass, but it is interesting to see that there are similar tries in other countries. I await the moment that this law will be brought back into discussion, then they will argument as following "Hey, guys, look at NZ, there it works. Look at , there it works. We have to do it also, in order to be able to catch that bad bad guys". No, thanks. :( cu, otaku
  • Well, instead of voting for one side of a two headed coin, you could vote for a third party for president. Or you could vote for every one except the president.

    I'd love to see an election (in the USA) where 70% of the voters turned out, and the Republicrats only got sixty-some percent of the vote.

    That would mean that the Replicrats _did not_ have a "mandate", and that some worthy third party will be on the ballot in '04.

    Remember, your vote is only wasted if you don't vote.

  • and, of course, I am moderated down for my political viewpoints. this is on-topic!!!! the article asks what will happen in our country...being from america, the election will affect us. as for gwb saying we have too much freedom, i would like to see where you got that from! if you have a link, post it.
  • That is what the U.S. is. I'd leave this fascist shithole, if I could find a place that wasn't gasping for air from the weight of it's heavy hand.
  • Hell no. wakeywakey, I personally can't believe that the Government of Good'ol Aotearoa could maintain a secure network. Imagine having a database of everyones ISPs and Passwords hacked? I prefer to look after my own security thnx.
  • . The absurd situation in the US where you can't even get a mobile phone without presenting your SS number and photo ID drivers licence (and damn you if you don't have a drivers licence) doesn't exist back in Britain.

    As far as I know, all you need to get a mobile phone is a credit card. And it's illegal for SS cards to be used as ID.
    --
  • Don't forget that NZ has been going after private gun ownership. I'm sure life in NZ will be so much happier and safer sans guns and privacy!
  • Most republicans I've seen have been fascists at heart. Look at Reagan and the War on Drugs.

    To be fair, Gore might not be much better than Bush anyway, so that's why I'm going to vote for Nader [votenader.org]

  • No, I don't think I will. Perhaps snail mail should be censored and monitored to prevent potential criminals from conversing through snail mail? Maybe we should tap all phone conversations to prevent possible conspiritory activities. Hell, why don't we implant a device in every person that transmits every word spoken to the proper authorities so that criminals won't be able to converse.

    "But our children will be drawn to porn!" Well, as a 13 year old, I was not drawn to porn. I don't look at porn now. Maybe my parents raised me correctly (and no, I didn't live in a censored police state of a home), maybe I just got lucky. Anyway, I learned more dirty words/jokes/stuff from the other 13 year old boys than all those nasty porn sites that [failed to] suck me in. Maybe it's time to stop conversations in grade school and even high school too?

    Can't you realize that anything can be used as a tool of criminals/terrorists/groupofpeoplethatscaresyou?


    --
  • I bought my player back in January and the store I got it from (big chain store from Aussie) had multizoned all of the players it had on sale.

    If you didn't ask for multizone, they wouldn't have told you and it would have been a nice surprise when you found out! :)
    --
  • Prepay phones. Dead simple.

    You walk into the shop, pick up a box with one in it (or more likely, ask the one of the salespeople to grab one for you), give 'em your EFTPOS card and punch in your PIN, or if you're really concerned about privacy, pay cash. Walk out of shop.

    Apparently the police here (NZ, so it's sort of on-topic) want showing some sort of ID to be introduced into this process because... according to them, criminals have been using this process to get untraceable communications. The phone companies really don't want this, as it makes buying their products much less convient.

    --
  • The last time I bought a mobile phone (outside the US) I didn't even need to supply my name or address.
  • "If the FBI indeed pressured the NZ government to do this then a similar plan is in effect here. I mean we do have carnivore, but to have a backdoor to everyone's PC? That is an Orwellian nightmare! What about fourth amendment protection against searches and seizures?" Except, of course, this being New Zealand, the 4th amendment to some American laws doesn't really apply.
  • WTF? Where the hell does the FBI get off deciding they have any right to push this sort of law in my country! As a kiwi now living in Vancouver, BC, I was mortified to read this, its not bad enough that it was passed in the UK, but to now read that they are trying to push this on my little nation not only enrages me, but makes me wonder just how many countries in the world these government agency freaks seem to want to have control over.
  • Ignoring all the issues of the role of government, etc. this is the usual response of a government. To wit: You are behind the times by about 5 years. In a peer to peer high speed interconnected world, something that I wanted to keep from others eyes might not even be on the same continent as my computer. Indeed, it might not be on any one computer, but on several computers in seemingly meaningless pieces. Thus this sort of action will only "catch" the small fry. The governemnt will (of course) trumpet this as a grand examaple of the sucess of the action, but the folks who are running the real crimial exercises (and for whom such draconian measures might possibly, in the wildest imagination be justified) will conduct business as usual.
  • I wish more people read William Gibson. Maybe then we'd believe where the corporations and governments are eventually headed. Technology is neither good nor bad, neither are corporations and governments. It's simply that what a corporation and government wants is very different from what a person wants. Sigh...
  • Are you playing devils advocate? Or are you really that stupid? Why not put a camera in the bedroom of your house and connect it to the police station (ala 1984). I mean what do you have to hide.
  • Hey. I'm kind of new here, but I don't see the problem with all of this. What if they catch a terrorist or pedophile? Governments NEED to be able to do things like this for the protection of the citizens.

    -CoG




    -CoG

    "And with HIS stripes we are healed"

  • imagine a beowolf cluster of these laws! i'm sorry, i really am. there goes some karma, oh well.

  • I think the Kiwi can't count.
    Wellington was 158,275 in 1996.
    Chch is about 324,300.

    In most parts of the world those are towns.
    refs 1 [wcc.govt.nz] 2 [ccc.govt.nz]
  • re the German Enigma code..

    come on, give credit where credit is due.. Poland was the one that initially cracked Enigma. It was only when the Germans took it from 3 encoding wheels to 5+, and the Polish intelligence agency couldn't afford to build the larger Bombes that would crack Enigma, did they give it to the Allies. Then, yes, at Bletchley, Turing was able to break these larger key'd Enigma ciphers. Check out The Code Book by Simon Singh for a great read on cryptology!

  • The defense that the NZ government is using; Swain says the driving force of the law changes is the wish to protect privacy because there is no legislation to say "wandering into someone's internal communications system is illegal If the government is to use this; what would stop a hacker/cracker in that country from using it as well? AND Relating to a story a few days ago; if this were to pass, it would mean NZ couldn't sign the 'anti-hacker' treaty they were proposing..

  • Your statistics are incorrect. Wellington is substantially larger than Christchurch, which is one of the most minor of the "large" (relatively speaking) citys in the country, being in the south island (which also contains the significantly lower portion of the population compared to the North). I suggest you check your sources. And your point about those being towns in most countries is something I agree with, but it's also irrelevent to the point I was making, which was that there *is* anonymity in a city of several hundred thousand - people don't all know each other in a town unless you're talking about some hick shanty of about 10,000 people at most.
  • sorry; here it is with formatting

    The defense that the NZ government is using;

    Swain says the driving force of the law changes is the wish to protect privacy because there is no legislation to say "wandering into someone's internal communications system is illegal

    If the government is to use this; what would stop a hacker/cracker in that country from using it as well?

    AND

    Relating to a story a few days ago; if this were to pass, it would mean NZ couldn't sign the 'anti-hacker' treaty they were proposing..

  • Oops, left out part of that post (Hey, it's late, I'm tired).

    The Wellington CC website is a matter of some local embarassment, as well as being out of date I believe some errors were mentioned on it, which would explain the discrepencies in population figures - if one of them is right, the other must be wrong, since Wellington (the capital city) has a much larger population than Christchurch.

  • Of course.. And while we're at it, why don't we make a DNA database of every man, woman and child just to make forensics all the easier. And we should give up our firearms, our books, all our freedom.

    After all, heaven knows we need to do this so that Big Brother can keep us safe from ourselves.
  • Stop it, else I will cough out my breakfast again! Only dirty evil hackers want privacy. Where the heck do you come from? There are tons of reasons why anyone could have interest in encrypting private data. Damn, how about companies that try to keep their secrets, are those companies hiding anything illegal? Im a dirty evil hacker because Im not interested in anyone reading my private data? DROP DEAD! cu, otaku
  • Swain says the driving force of the law changes is the wish to protect privacy
    They actually present those laws as way to protect privacy! First the make electronic eavesdropping etc illegal, which is a somewhat good thing.
    But after those laws are voted for, they introduce massive spying powers to various govermental agencies. Now, it would be nice if anybody from NZ could give us some more insight.
    Is there a "public discussion" about those things? What about oppositions parties?

    I know of personal experience that it is pretty hard to explain why you are against such laws.
    Most People are willing to accept some cuts at their privacy as long as it seems to them that it's a effective way to fight crimes Where I live(Austria) we currently are in the midst of a major political scandal because as it seems various political forces have abused police data
    Still a lot of people say "Why should I care, I have done nothing wrong".
    So I guess a lot of people in NZ curently think "Hmm, doesn't affect me, I don't want to crack computers, actually it's a good thing that tghe goverment protects me of those filthy cyber criminals". It's hard fighting against invasions of privacy when they are hidden well.
  • NZ might be introducing laws like this, yes, but at least the NZ gov't has the balls to say that region protected DVD players can't be sold in NZ :)
  • Better question: What's wrong with having something to hide? People have many reasons to keep secrets. What if I happen to disagree with the government? What if I belong to a minority social group and wish to feel safe?

    Yhe right to privacy was one that was missed because it was something that was taken for granted. Noone envisioned what has become of the world. If the founding fathers of the United States honestly knew that something like this could exist, how much do you want to bet that a fundamental right to privacy would have made it to the Consititution? If they got to read a copy of '1984' (or should that be '2000') would they be whistling the same tune?

    After all, isn't there some bit about people being able to feel safe in their homes from unwarranted search and confiscation? Sure, this is NZ we're talking about, but this is something that ought to be a basic human right.. The right to privacy.
  • Are you out of your mind? Take a trip through US customs sometime. Try traveling without a licence to travel. (Drivers Licence) Try doing anything without a social security number and state issued ID.

    It's the saddest thing when people live in a police state and don't even know it. It's not the future, it's NOW and it has been for quite awhile!
  • If this gives the police the right to demand cryptographic keys, then encyption wouldn't help. You get a choice: give them the key and go to jail for warez distribution, or refuse and go to jail for obstruction of justice. Man, I can't wait for freenet to become usable (not that I'm a big fan of warez, but it would just be very satisfying for me to know that despite the laws passed, the FBI still can't control us).
  • Hey, there's exceptions to every rule. =)

    Forgive my ignorance regarding the political workings of New Zealand.
  • YES! Of course...

    You see, I live in New Zealand. So let me tell you a bit about it.

    First of all... New Zealand is a small province off the coast of Australia. Not a seperate country as some people think. And, there are lots of sheep. They're everywhere. Infact, most familes have a sheep as a pet (no need to go into detail here). Sheep are infact considered a native species here in NZ. And they are allowed to roam freely amongst the villages and gravel roads.

    Occassionaly... we do have power outages. But this is usaly only in Auckland. And is casued by a bird or something getting sucked in to the one and only two-stroke generator.

    We do have some nice skiing though... according to Bill.

    We are also well knowen for our kangaroos.

    Seriouly though... it does kinda piss me off that this has gone though. I was kinda hoping that our country would be last for something like this.

    But then again. There arn't that many terrorists in NZ anyway. so I spose the guy is right really. Damn, all that witty sarcasim for nothing.

    Question is though, which country is going to be next?
    And what other new laws are going to be passed? Should I be supprisd when I see an SIS agent wandering through my house, and sitting down to use my computer like he owns the place? Will locks have to be removed from toilets? What about frosted windows in the bathroom? Won't me and my sheep have a place where we can go to be alone?

    *sigh*

  • I'm an IT student, and this is the first I've heard of it. So much for public discussion. There seems to be more interest in rugby than protecting freedoms.

    As for the politcal parties, they're all as bad as each other, so I'm not expecting any debate there.
  • Usually Resident Population, 1996

    Wellington........................334,051
    Upper Hutt Zone.............35,192
    Lower Hutt Zone.............95,381
    Porirua Zone....................46,492
    Wellington Zone...........156,986
    Christchurch.............. ........325,250

    source: www.stats.govt.nz [stats.govt.nz]
  • Do we let authorities break in to our houses undetected?

    How would you know?
    ___

  • Given that our SIS can't get into a house without being caught

    I have doubts. Incompetant as they clearly are, luck played a significant factor - it would have looked like just a normal burglary otherwise. I know people who have been persecuted by the SIS (for apparently "terrorist" activities like opposing nuclear weapons while the Bomb was still trendy), and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they were busy violating civil rights left, right and centre. The only times they even have to admit possible involvement is when the victim happens to have the money, time, and evidence to achieve the half a dozen successfull court verdicts and appeals needed to wring an admission from them. You don't need to be competent when the full force of the law places you above the law (even if, in theory, you're not above it, but it seems that that theory is really just a fairy tale to satisfy the citizens).
  • Doubtful, since they woulnd't be after the guy until after the fact. i take it that you'd rather be a mindless robot told what to think and belive. 'Policital manipulation' occured in Germany in the 30-40s. Think that was more advantagous then letting a few random killer get away?
  • its amazing the change of attitude that has occured. Nowadays if you carry a gun even just to protect yourself, you are seen as dangerous, yet years and years ago people thought you were odd if you didn't carry a sword or knife.
  • So, if somebody slaughters your family, and criminal investigators find detailed directions to your house, diagrams of the surrounding landscape, and various observational details (i.e. lights go out from 10:00 pm - 10:30 pm), and photos of the owner's prized rifle, yet they have no warrant, you would want this person to go unpunished? The government isn't using this as a submissive measure, it's using this as a measure to uphold justice and national security.

    With evidence like this, obtaining a warrant would be a matter of child's play. Your strawman argument lacks straw.

  • Is there a "public discussion" about those things? What about oppositions parties?

    The new laws were proposed by the opposition when they were power, and the current government (which Does Not Get Along with the ideas of the previous government) is happily continuing the work.

    Unfortunately, if you try to watch the intelligence game, it emerges that all parties who have been in power tend to be enamoured of "intelligence" powers, because (among other things) "national security" is so damn useful for keeping the public from finding out about all the dirty laundry when, ironically, it would be the nation's best interests to know when major botch-ups and gross incompetence takes place :-)

    I competely agree about public apathy. Here, if you claim the SIS are watching you (be it because they're so incompetant it's obvious, or that they're overtly trying to intimidate you), the result is public derision and ridicule that "you obviously have an inflated sense of your importance". Most people seem to have the spy-movie idea that these agencies are competent enough (and idealogically balanced enough) to target actual threats and not Joe Bloggs on the street because his flatmate painted a "free Tibet" banner or some other "terrorist" activity...

  • This isn't a flame - this _is_, at least in terms of population, a low density backwater.And that's the way we like it. Less people, less pollution. And we've got a high rate of per capita technology uptake.
  • However, this may be slightly OT, but no matter...

    Laws are crazy - here in the States, they get so convuluted, arbitrary, and strange - esp. from state to state!

    I was recently looking up a California law regarding a speeding ticket I got (I rightly deserved the ticket). In the process of looking up the law on the net (as well as checking the Arizona equivalents - AZ being my home state), I came across an interesting Cali law:

    Did you know, that in CA, if so much as a single spark leaves your vehicle, you are "breaking" the law? The law was designed (I presume) to prevent smokers from throwing lit butts out their windows while going down the freeway, setting the dry, drought stricken land on fire. Which sounds OK - however, the way the law is worded, a simple, single spark would be enough to "trip" the law. IOW, say you light up a cigarette in your car, and the flint on your Bic breaks, and a trailing spark flies out your window. As soon as it does - you are breaking the law, regardless of whether the spark is still burning (or even hot) by the time it hits the ground...

    Crazy, huh?

    I support the EFF [eff.org] - do you?
  • So you tell me whose running the show - it sure ain't the FBI.

    I think you're idea of international diplomacy is a little off the mark. The coercion you talk of is far in excess of what is needed to pressure a small nation like NZ. It's done in the name Maintaining Good Relations. Blackmail is unwarrented. This doesn't mean that pressure cannot be applied. (Though as you suggest, it appears to be a case of the pressured party being reasonably willing to head in that direction to begin with...)

  • Long term strategy (Score:3)

    by judd ( 3212 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @05:42AM (#667477) Homepage
    New Zealand is seeing a steady erosion in privacy and individual liberty, all in the name of crime prevention and detection. We host the Echelon system, we have passed laws restricting freedom of association with known criminals (tough shit if you're a social worker, eh?), we've made it easier for the police to obtain telecomms interception warrants, and we have a proliferation of cameras whose main effect is to drive street crime onto the fringes of cities instead of the centre.

    This has happened with the best of intentions, aided by people who would be horrified at the suggestion that they were bit by bit contributing to the apparatus needed for a totalitarian state.

    Unfortunately, privacy violation has no direct physical effects on people - it enables other abuses - so it's hard to muster public opposition until the abuse of power leads to some outrage. Of course, by that stage it may too late.

    Therefore, I don't see much hope of a mass movement supporting privacy rights, especially when the inflammatory issues of paedophila and gangs get dragged in. Rational debate is futile in the face of Paul Holmes. (Overseas readers: The Holmes show is a popular television programme masquerading as a current events show but specialising in the pornograpphy of emotion). Abused children are a concrete wrong people can get upset about, invaded privacy is an abstract hurt that doesn't motivate sympathy.

    However, every concerned Kiwi reader should think about joining the political party of their choice to try and make this an issue in their own party. This is an issue that crosses party lines. It's cheap to join any of NZ's mainstream political parties, and now that membership is so low in most of them, individual participation can have more effect than it could in the 70s or 80s.

    I don't think crypto is the answer, since even when it is easily used, most people cannot protect their keys, and behave in ways that compromise security. In any case, I want to live in a society where I can assume I am not being monitored, not one where I have to consciously protect my communications.

    Personally I feel despondent about checking this trend. We're seeing more instrusive "news" (how did you feel when your husband was shot), a rise in gossip and scandal, and shows whose whole rationale is snooping. The more and more we use invaded privacy for entertainment, the more we become inured to the idea that our private lives can be fodder for other people, and our privacy of little value. But I can't sit still.
  • --I'm sure any president would veto something like this; if not the courts would likely strike it down.--

    Like they'd never authorize a national ID card? BUZZ...that law was passed in 1996, and went into full effect this month. Now you can't even get a fishing licence without it. (AKA social security number)

    But this is not the point of my post...
    The reason the US is pushing these countries is two fold:
    #1 It wants to control the world
    #2 There is a 'loophole' in the federal U.S. constitution stating all treaties must be fully recongnized. So what you ask? It allows congress to pass a treaty with another country, that if it was put into effect as a normal law, would be subject to the courts knocking it down as unconstituional. But instead since the treaty is an 'extension' to the constitution, the courts won't touch it.

    Dereliction of the courts? Of course...but any excuse they get to weasal into your rights they take.

  • Let me clue you in on what's REALLY going on (Score:5)

    by erotus ( 209727 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @12:56AM (#667484)
    How many people out there with a computer are actually terrorists? How many people have been caught plotting a terrorist activity by the FBI using something like a network sniffer or Carnivore? Pedophiles, on the other, have been caught under certain circumstances. I would love to see pedophiles and terrorist get thrown in jail, but to give up everyone's right to privacy and to make potential criminals out of everybody is not the way to do it. I will NEVER consent to this type of fascist orwellian abuse of power. I will stop surfing the net alltogether should this happen. I know what you're thinking... "yea yea, whatever dude." However, I'm dead serious on this one. I value my freedom and my privacy more than anything and no I don't have anything to hide and I'm no criminal, however I do believe I am entitled to certain rights! On the other hand, I can only stand in horror and dismay at the eroding freedoms in the US. I posted a rant on Kuro5hin called Has the US government become to hungry for power? [kuro5hin.org] In this rant I pointed out some abuses by corporations and government both overseas and on the local front. I encourage you to read it.

    If the FBI indeed pressured the NZ government to do this then a similar plan is in effect here. I mean we do have carnivore, but to have a backdoor to everyone's PC? That is an Orwellian nightmare! What about fourth amendment protection against searches and seizures? If they can go into your computer at will, the fourth is standing on it's last leg. Wait, civil forfeiture laws already have the fourth amendment on it's last leg. Well, so much for the fourth.

    My point here is, if you give the government and inch, it will take a mile. This is an attempt by government to make potential criminals out of it's citizens. If everyone is suspect then the police don't have to justify a warrant. This is the end of your civil liberties buddy! It is sad that governments are using this technology to spy on their own citizens. What is more sad is that you buy into their lie and believe that government is doing this for your protection. It is doing this to have more control under the guise of "protecting the innocent." Sorry, I don't buy this and neither will anyone else with half a brain. Whether we can do anything about it is another story alltogther.

    "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
  • the government knows more and more about what individuals are doing, which allows them to quickly focus on the dangerous ones

    Unfortunately, for reasons of "national security" the SIS are above public scrutiney, which means there is no accountability or safeguards (the legal safeguards are effectively useless - you need to prove involvement before you can use them, and you need to use them to prove involvement) - a one way ticket to incompetance and abuse.
    As happened in the past, and happens today, the SIS will be too busy pursuing those who deviate from their preferred ideology to ever actually get the real threats.

    The classic example: The SIS is charged with defending NZ from enemy intelligence agents. The Rainbow Warrior was bombed by said foreign intelligence agents, and the SIS didn't do squat because they were too busy watching their ideological threat - the anti-nuclear protesters whom the agents bombed. To the SIS, French intelligence were the good guys because France had the Bomb, and anyone who opposed nuclear weapons was either a dumb housewife, a commie terrorist bastard, or both.
    The closeted, inbred, secretive, paranoid culture of the SIS precludes them ever being effective, or ever not being a threat to average Joe-on-the-street.

  • The leftist attitude is we are all...

    You've missed most of the picture. Intelligence powers are beloved by governments across the spectrum. Leftist ones don't like surveillance powers, but like those on the right, quickly discover how useful it is to keep the dirty laundry under "national security" and away from the public.

    You should also note that many of these laws you claim come from the left actually came from the right. New Zealand for example, is acting on laws drafted by the previous, right-wing government.

    I think you're making a mistake in twisting and interpreting the events to support your ideology.
  • I'm working in the UK right now. On Friday, I made the mistake of telling a meeting full of Englishmen that their government was bad and stupid, and how things were better back in New Zealand. After all, we have a Bill of Rights, a Privacy Commissioner, and the most uncorrupt administration in the Southern Hemisphere.

    I'm going to take it all back on Monday.
  • It looks like what is needed is a multi-key type system. The idea is you generate some keys and get a semi-trusted 3rd party to keep one. Then to decrypt the data, you need your key and the trusted 3rd pary's key to decrypt any data. Even if you are forced to turn over your key, the other party may simply refused to turn over their key. This can be assisted by having either several keys that are all required and having friends that are far away. Add a tamper switch on the box that can be remotly tested by the 3rd party and you'll have one tough system to crack.

    The Eftpos machines (credit card swipe devices that also use atm like encrytpion for debit cards) used in Australia have a key loaded into ram with the program. The tamper switch kills the power to the ram so the program and keys are all destoryed when you open the case.
  • I must claim my fair share of the blame. When the UK govt passed the email monitoring bill recently, I rolled my eyes and felt confident that the NZ Govt would be too busy destroying the economy than to mess with the privacy of the normal citizens back home. Oops.
    What's more important? The privacy of everyone, or the economy of an oligarchy, ran at the expense of eveyrone else?

    I never cease to be amazed at how anglo-saxons are so anal about the economy, when there are many other things in society as the economy. It would seem that anglo-saxons do not know anything else...

    --
    Americans are bred for stupidity.

  • Re:Not necessarily a bad thing (Score:3)

    by nyet ( 19118 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @01:05AM (#667501) Homepage
    When you get a bit older, and the government consistently oversteps its bounds to screw you over bit by bit, inch by inch, all in the name of "protecting you," sooner or later you will wonder how it happened.

    Maybe you'll be audited. Maybe you'll sell your car to somebody who racks up $15k of violations, but due to a filing error, the DMV still thinks the car is yours and the cops have a warrant out for your arrest (don't laugh, this is happening to a friend of mine). Maybe you'll write a piece of software that somebody doesn't like. Maybe you'll write a book that somebody doesn't like.

    You sound like you still have a lot of life to live. Once you spend a few more decades in the REAL world, and learn a bit more about human nature, and the nature of governments you will realize how naive you sound.

    On the other hand, maybe you are a troll.

    The history books are full of martyrs who died at the hands of somebody with a righteous cause of "protecting the innocent"

  • Re:Not necessarily a bad thing (Score:3)

    by nyet ( 19118 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @01:09AM (#667502) Homepage
    What if you are being persecuted under laws you don't happen to agree with?

  • But the NZ SIS are a bunch of cowboys .... (Score:3)

    by taniwha ( 70410 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @01:15AM (#667506) Homepage Journal
    rank amateurs - they keep getting caught for god-sake (breaking into people's homes, faking bomb threats to cover themselves up etc etc) ... do you really want them breaking in to random computers ....they're going to do more damage than your average cracker ... because they are soooo inept .... and they are acting under the colour of the law.

    I bet they're not going to be very good at it .... you wait - pretty soon they'll be licensing private firewalls ... and demanding their own backdoors ...

    I remember them at a political demonstration in the early 80s - they stood out like sore thumbs - they were all ex-military and still looked it .... they opened a 'secret' office in my home town to watch the russian fishing boats .... disguised as a 'law office' of course all the local lawyers figured it out right away .... and they had their phone number in the phone book .... if you stood outside and called them you could hear the phone ring inside :-)

  • What you perhaps don't appreciate is just how small New Zealand is.

    With the exception of Auckland, the one decent-sized city, the rest of New Zealand's population centers really rate as large towns rather than real cities, and as anyone who lives in a town knows, there is no such thing as anonymity in one. This makes it *extremely* difficult to do anything covertly - for both sides of the law-enforcement and intelligence fence. Additionally, the antipodean intelligence services have been a bit of a disaster area lately, according to the news media. This *might* be a propaganda screen to hide their real effectiveness, but I don't think so - they have to fight for funds just like everyone else and bad publicity doesn't help.

  • This will work for exactly as long as it takes to pass a law forbidding the practise. No longer.

    Example 1: France for a long time forbade strong crypto. It was possible to use it to protect information, but the risks of being caught doing so must have often outweighed the benefits of privacy.

    Example 2: Australia now requires ISPs to be responsible for Internet content, even though they can not effectively monitor or filter content. No doubt some poor ISP will find themselves prosecuted under this law.

    Essentially, we have a political problem here, and the best solution is also political: to prevent such laws being passed, and to repeal existing ones. This is hard to swallow for people who would rather hack on computers than society, but I think it's the only long term way.

  • Re:... (Score:2)

    by Zemran ( 3101 )
    Either you are an American with a sense of humour (so rare as to be unlikely) or you live somewhere like Denmark. There are now very few countries left that do not spy on their own. America, UK and Canada started it although Eschelon was designed to spy on others it is more effective at internal intrusion. The UK has now strengthened its powers and France, Australia and others are following.

    The Russians are cutting funding of their projects and as the system decays they become one of the better places to be. They may start funding again though that cannot be trusted. Most sensible EU countries (like Denmark) are the best because they actually believe in Human Rights instead of just claiming to like the US, UK, et al.
  • Of course the UK, NZ, Oz, Canadian and US governments are all doing the same thing -- they agreed to do so in 1947 when all 5 countries signed the UK-US Security Agreement (UKUSA for short). This formalized the cooperation that took place during WWII at Bletchley Park in the UK where the German Enigma code was broken and the world's first digital, programmable computer was built (Colossus).

    They were real h/crackers. And they're still at it in the name of protecting freedom and democracy. You may disagree with that, of course, or disagree that this is necessary, but others are entitled to be concerned. For example, the Northern Ireland Omagh bombers are believed to have been identified by their used of cellphones and the British government's analysis of 15m (yes million) cellphone calls. This will have been traffic analysis, I doubt whether they bothered attempting to record/listen to every call.

    Now, where's the balance, that's the question.

  • Circumventing ISP monitoring in NZ

    The requirement that ISPs in New Zealand must provide a means of monitoring traffic for surveillance can be circumvented really easily.

    Use a foreign ISP.

    The price of international telephone calls has dropped dramatically in the last decade. Using a foreign ISP is now cost-effective, particularly if the only traffic is e-mails. A drug cartel that has $300 million of drugs to import won't care about a $3 international telephone call.

    Circumventing decryption keys

    To circumvent the requirement that a person sending a suspect e-mail divulge the key on demand is also simple. Separate the sender of the message from the author of the message, and have no direct contact between them. The sender could collect a message left on a floppy disk at a drop-point and send it, and even if questioned they would not have a decryption key to divulge.

    Circumventing e-mail

    The legisative presumption that a message is always sent via encrypted e-mail can also be used to send a message in an unusual way. For example, sound and image files can be used to send a message, as has been demonstrated in the past here on Slashdot where the DeCSS source code was encoded in this manner and posted to a web site.

    By legislating in this manner, governments only make their job of law enforcement more difficult as various criminals find new ways of hiding their communications. What technology can reveal, technology can also hide.

    --

  • Re:Not necessarily a bad thing (Score:3)

    by ChadN ( 21033 ) on Saturday October 28, 2000 @11:50PM (#667544)
    And what if they use these powers to persecute political enemies, blackmail innocent people, or subvert the processes of the political system? Nah [cjr.org], couldn't ever happen... [schoolnet.co.uk]
  • England, under the Labour party, is working towards the same thing in GB.

    Germany just wrapped up their "Cybercrime" convention, attacking individual "hackers (sic)" as the biggest threat to the Internet and ecommerce.

    Clinton holds his emergency summit with Internet companies and wants billions for a "Cybercrime" law enforcement centre in cooperation with the FBI and NSA with broad sweeping powers to prevent Amazon and Ebay from being taken down again - oh, the horror!

    And now NZ does this.

    Ironically, nearly all of these governments are left-leaning and make claims to be soooo concerned about the rights of the individual citizen, but look who is penalized and whose liberties are at stake here.

    The leftist attitude is we are all just cattle to herded and sand to be shoveled and they use their patsies the news media to fan the flames of misinformation and hype.

    There is nothing these people hate more than our ability to think for ourselves, move around as we please and question their motives.

  • I must claim my fair share of the blame. When the UK govt passed the email monitoring bill recently, I rolled my eyes and felt confident that the NZ Govt would be too busy destroying the economy than to mess with the privacy of the normal citizens back home. Oops.
    1. Hey you, you there; why are you wearing clothes? What's behind those clothes? Submit to a body search?
    2. Why does your house have curtains?
    3. Why don't you have the new photo driver licence ID? Why can't you produce one? Who are you? I think you've got something to hide.
    4. Why do you want to use cryptography on your letters? What do you have to hide? (why do you want to use envelopes for your letters? use a postcard always, what do you have to hide?)

    Nope, the government are just a big group of people - like any other - and they have no particular right to go through your stuff more than your local bowling club or supermarket.

    They're not special, don't take their shit, and I'm going outa' protesting tomorro'.


  • Okay New Zealanders, here's what you should do! (Score:4)

    by jesterzog ( 189797 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @03:34AM (#667562) Journal

    Sorry this post is slightly biased towards NZ'rs, but then so is the story.

    First, go here [parliament.govt.nz] and find out who your local Member of Parliament is. Yes, even if you didn't vote, they still represent you. If you're not sure what electorate you're in, look at one of the maps. (North Island [parliament.govt.nz] or South Island [parliament.govt.nz] or Maori Electorates [parliament.govt.nz])

    Next, go here [parliament.govt.nz] and find the email address and postal address of your local MP. Write them a polite email or letter stressing why you think that this legislation is bad. Try to summarise the main, interesing points in the first paragraph or two and then break into more detail. Use a spellchecker and if possible get someone to proof-read it. Wait for a couple of hours, re-read it, and if it still looks okay then send it.

    Writing a letter is better, but since many IT people haven't written a normal letter in several years, email is better than nothing. Remember, you don't need a stamp when you're sending a leter to someone on Parliament. Just address it to "[Name], c/- Parliament Buildings, Wellington" where [Name] is the name of the MP you're writing to.

    If you don't get a response from your local MP within a couple of days, resend it and apologise - suggesting that it might have gotten lost in the mail. If you still don't get a response, phone (04)471-9999 and tell them that their email relaying might not be working. Whatever you do, don't let it rest if nobody answers and don't be impolite.


    ===
  • Whenever I get portscanned I hack back and do
    a chkconfig --del network, change root passwd
    to some shit, and then shutdown -h now the whole
    damn thing. If you did that too, the Internet
    would be a much nicer, and quieter place!

    I am happy the NZ government intends to help me.
  • What great timing--I'm in the midst of an argument with a friend as to why encryption is important to the average user. The funny thing is, he's a serious warez pirate, yet he doesn't see how anyone would care about what he does...

    Anyway, this just goes to show that we should all encrypt everything...
  • ISPs and telecom companies will have to provide backdoors for government agencies.

    I see at least 1 problem with that; ISPs and telecom companies dont make my operating system? How are they supposed to 'provide backdoors' that are not there? Sounds like a bunch of clueless people there in NZ... and even if there were these supposedly backdoors, what would be keeping all the 13337 kiwi script kiddies from using them? I think this is all a bit absurd...
  • If noise files are illegal then only criminals will have noise files.

    Kevin Fox
  • It would make an interesting twist to the torture scenario described in the above link if Rubberhose, at the outset, had a way of specifying that this given data file must contain at least 15% (or 5%, or 50%, whatever) noise, and this number could somehow be encrypted into part of the noise in a keyed fashion that even the user wouldn't have access to. This way the torturers would feel even more uneasy because they'd realize that just because there's still 15% of the data left unaccounted for, that 15% could easily be Rubberhose's allocation.

    Interesting stuff. Just another example that when you think of a cool software idea, you should check google and see where you can download it.

    Kevin Fox

  • Who's next? As someone else has mentioned, it will be the UKUSA countries (US,UK,Canada,Australia,NZ). And it won't stop with a change of government. These alliances and treaties have been going for 50+ years now, I hardly think a change of govt in one of the member countries will affect a change in the SIGINT treaties. For example here in NZ, this change is coming in under the Labour govt, the least likely to implement it. National are far more likely to keep the alliance running smoothly, as they are the more conservative country when it comes to international politics.

    As to the SIS being thugs? Yeah well thats true. But remember that everyone makes mistakes and that we only hear about their mistakes. We often don't hear when they are successful, for that would advertise sources etc that they have. And odds are it won't be the SIS going through the offending computer, but the GCSB. And they will be pretty smart. They trade places with other UKUSA orgs to learn tips and tricks and this includes rotational trips to the NSA. Odds are you won't notice them.

    Do we need this legislation? Probably, as long as we have trusted people to supervise the proper use of the granted powers. Currently there is little protection against cracking into computers - I think you'd only get caught on wire fraud - so the law does need to be updated. Pedophiles and terrorists don't deserve the right to hide behind technology. OTOH individuals are entitled to protect their information and communication. We know this arguement, and I'm not going to bring it up here. We do need good oversight and clear reporting and control by elected officals though to ensure proper use of this tool should it be implemented.

    Re ISP/Telcos role. Remember that NZ is a fantastic testbed for new technology. We currently have one of the largest VoIP installations in the world [yahoo.com] completed by Cisco (outside of CSCO itself). With the potential for VoIP, don't you think we would also make a great testbed for signal analysis testing of this new tech? Also, everyone knows that the Internet is an untrusted medium and should be treated as such, you should already assume that your ISP/Telco is logging and analysing your traffic. You'd be foolish not too, which means that the ISP/Telco role potentially changes little. Your traffic is travelling over a commercial service, and they have control. Don't like it? Get off our pipes, they'll say. Oh, and the Southern Cross Cable [southerncrosscables.com]? Half owned by New Zealand Telecom, and a quarter owned each by Optus Cable and MCI Worldcom, it is going to carry a large amount of data between Australasia and North America. Odds are it will carry much of the South Pacific data. Of course they want to legalise access to this bandwidth.

    It comes down to this. Use a firewall. Use special machines to access the net. Dumb them down. Remove the services that aren't required. Companies should completely segregate their trade secrets and critical info anyway, so the excuse of crackers using the proposed systems to perform industrial espionage just doesn't cut it. The corporate secrets shouldn't be on Internet connected machines anyway. This mirrors to individuals also. Keyboard loggers are an easy way to get around encryption, and we've got a product of our own which apparently has been very popular with the US TLA's - KeyGhost [keyghost.com].

    But most of all, ensure accountability and responsibility of the organisations involved. They better not criminalise the tools though - that would be going way too far.

    Cheers
    rediguana

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