One commenter there wrote and I'd like to read some reasonable answer to that:
This is old news, obviously no one watched 4 Corners years ago – I think 15 – 20 yrs ago. I think it was about a program called Echelon. Remember the time a New Zealander broke into one of those unmanned “Pine Gap” sites (in NZ) and found mainframe computers downloading telecommunications data. Did we care then?
Nobody cared then because they didn't understand it.
If all you show someone is a building with some equipment and say that they're monitoring you, it doesn't take much hand-waving to convince someone that these complex systems are only targeting certain people, etc.
Now, rather than just knowledge of a room with blinking lights, we have dumbed-down presentation slides that definitively show even the most computer-illterate person that their own personal data, not just the data of specific people, is being targeted, collected, stored, data-mined, etc.
It goes from a feeling of "it's probably legal, and targeting criminals" to "that's MY data they're stealing"
That's why people care. Moreover, it's just important that people DO care. If everyone adopted the same "why should we care now" attitude, then the powers that be have already won.
Nobody cared then and nobody cares now, except for a few IT geeks.
In a 15 - 20 years from now the whole lot will have been mostly forgotten and accepted as normal.
There and more important things in the politics such as gay marriage and immigration. Try watching CNN or Fox News and ignoring technical sites. The politicians want votes, they couldn't give a shit about your privacy.
Australia and the US have been keeping call records (number called and time) for well over 20 years. I don't see how any of this is new(s).
Pine Gap is in Australia not New Zealand, not that anyone really cares. :)
And for the tedious people that want sources;
Look up how General Patreus got busted with his gmail.
Look up the Tampa incident and see how Australia listened into the telephone calls between the boat and Norway(or some such country).
There are loads of incidents that spell this shit out but I need sleep and most people would rather watch a speech from Obama/Bush/Palin/Trump than learn what their government is really doing.
Having discussed such issues with people internationally for 15 years, my experience paints a different picture. This is becoming an issue within many societies around the world, from China to north Africa to Europe to the Americas. While youth are certainly more aware of the challenges, the issues cross a generation gap and I have seen evidence of significant growth in concern even in the older parts of populations. Years ago, the number of people I could have a discussion with on these matters with was miniscule, these days absolute strangers broach the subject themselves.
I don't think so. We just need a compelling human story to make the average person understand.
For example, "police militarisation" is a bit of an abstract idea, but once you start telling stories of how the police broke in and shot the 8-year old labrador who was sleeping on the couch, everyone gets it.
There's already been a compelling story: the Stasi[1].
> By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that methods of overt persecution which had been employed up to that time, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious. It was realised that psychological harassment was far less likely to be recognised for what it was, so its victims, and their supporters, were less likely to be provoked into active resistance, given that they would often not be aware of the source of their problems, or even its exact nature. Zersetzung was designed to side-track and "switch off" perceived enemies so that they would lose the will to continue any "inappropriate" activities.
1) It's too abstract and distant. It feels like it screwed around with people in weird ways in a different world to ours. Communist Germany does not seem like a reasonable parallel to our society for most people. "It wouldn't happen here" is a natural reaction.
2) Even though it's not that far off the reality of what could happen, it sounds like an exaggeration, a bit like a Godwin Law condition. The fact that it sounds like "Nazi" (and that probably some sizeable percentage of americans have never heard of the Stasi and so will hear "Nazi" and repeat that) really doesn't help.
What we need is a more immediate and tangible human story, something that arouses sympathy and at the same time a clear realisation that "this could happen to me".
Maybe nobody cared because nobody figured they'd be able to retain the data they captured forever, or that eventually governments would acquire enough processing bandwidth to use the captured data in near realtime.
In the age of social media, we do the public outrage thing a lot better these days, too.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The existence of the Echelon network was only confirmed a few weeks ago when US National Security Agency documents were declassified. Essentially it's a surveillance network capable of intercepting any telephone call, fax or e-mail made on earth. Echelon is run by the US National Security Agency using satellites and ground bases in Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It can sift through a million electronic messages every half hour.
Worse, a number of ISPs use Telstra's lines, eg. iiNet, Internode, TPG. I have no idea if that agreement also covered others using the same cables.
(Telstra was government-owned until it was privatised from 1997-2000, and as such has a monopoly on most of the phone lines; the government sets the wholesale rates at which the lines are leased to other companies. Optus ran a bunch of their own cables, but the coverage isn't nearly as extensive.)
At least when running on Internode hardware, the traffic only runs on Telstra copper; once terminated at the exchange (on Agile/Internode DSLAM), it pushes out into Internode's backhaul/network. (It's a moot point if the backhaul is Telstra owned I guess, or significant parts of the private network is leased from Telstra...)
Still worse, as mandated by the Australian government, won't all internet traffic eventually switch over to the new government owned/controlled FTTP and wireless infrastructure of the National Broadband Network?
In our area the NBN has gone up recently, and we've received letters saying that the existing copper network will be decommissioned in a year so all landline phone users will need to get an NBN connection.
If the Aus govt is baking intercept points into the NBN (not hard to imagine) then they'll be able to intercept phone traffic as well, whether they get cooperation from telcos or not.
There's nothing like that happening. They are paying Telstra and Optus a pretty good deal to migrate customers off legacy HFC and copper telephone networks though. But no forcing is happening...
Note that Telstra was once owned by the Australian government. Recently their stake was reduced to about 10% (according to wikipedia) but IMO the Aussie government still dictates a lot of what Telstra can do.
Interesting that nobody I've talked to over here seems to be that surprised about the extensive data collection. A few people are annoyed about the unaccountable way it's been done and the abuse of power, real or potential, though.
It takes a lot to shake Aussies out of the "she'll be right" mentality, and we don't have a Fourth Amendment to be violated like the US does.
I also fear that the aware, technically literate people here won't attempt to move Parliament House on the issue, they'll just resort to stronger encryption.
Every time I try to explain the implications of privacy intrusion to friends some always argue, "who cares, as long as you're not doing something wrong" - they also don't care about identity theft or anything...they simply don't care. And I want them to care...how do I force them to?
Those attitudes are what makes a system like this incredibly scary, and what ultimately makes it most effective. What we've created is more or less a panoptic society where by knowing they are being watched all the time, people become self policing. At that point it's just a matter of how you define what is 'wrong' which is likely just going to be what opposes the current status quo.
Why do you think you have the right to "force" them?
Just explaining, only when they are interested to hear, and not giving theory but the real-life examples is the only sensible advice. Of course, you have to do your homework first.
Do you remember the blue ribbon internet campaign back in the late 90s? At the time, I went into Australian #irc channels raising awareness. I was assuming that most Australians on the Internet (back then) were technically literate and would care.
I had quite a few people who said "go fuck yourself" in different forums when I raised the issue. I hate to say it, but I do consider many of my Australian bretheren to be "redneck" like, but not quite like the "stereotype" you see in the movies.
Hoping for the average Australian to "give a fuck" is not going to happen.
Big Telcos are at the mercy of big governments for anti-trust issues, contracts so this is not a surprise. DOJ and FBI can cause them many headaches.
This should bite them though when trying to buy foreign firms, cable links etc. No rational and influential country would let them do it after these leaks.
This is old news, obviously no one watched 4 Corners years ago – I think 15 – 20 yrs ago. I think it was about a program called Echelon. Remember the time a New Zealander broke into one of those unmanned “Pine Gap” sites (in NZ) and found mainframe computers downloading telecommunications data. Did we care then?