[LINK] ZDNet: Senate passes net interception Bill

[James Collins]

> Reading the story, it seems there's a bunch of untidy legislation here...

Listening to them talking about it in parliament yesterday, it's an
amendment of the 1979 legislation and is obviously angled towards ensuring
that system operators can continue to operate in a role as net guardians,
without falling foul of the law. However it does have an awful lot of holes,
and does of course grant the same privileges to governmental policing of the
internet. The amendments which the greens wanted to make are not really that
important in my view. It just means that if someone who has monitoring of
packet logs from the distant past, that they don't have to delete them, and
things like that. It's doubtful that anyone would, and even if they did, it
would have to be with regard to securing the network anyway, and that would
be interesting to justify...

The most important part is that the monitoring and viewing of packet logs is
restricted to maintain system security and operations. Now this is one of
those really sticky points when it comes to security and system maintenance
work. System Operators (SysAdmins), really do have total access to
everything, and to do their job, they must have that. It is however
important that they respect that position and don't start engaging in
voyeurism. It wouldn't be the first time that I've heard a complaint about a
SysAdmin knowing more than they should about a topic. Like Priests in the
confessional, they've got to keep whatever they learn to themselves, unless
of it course it does refer to system security and maintenance. Goodness,
I've known some incredible things over the years! I just have to keep it to
myself and make sure it doesn't affect my interactions with people. I.e.: If
you see something you shouldn't while monitoring the network, you just keep
it to yourself, you don't blab it to everyone in town and you don't "take it
on board". 

There will have to be holes because of this. Unless they start ensuring that
all SysAdmins swear an oath of office! :) (I didn't say that!)

But it IS essential that System Operators are able to do everything they can
to secure our networks as the internet becomes host to greater and more
pervasive attacks. Anyone who doubts this exists, just view some of my
internet activity graphs. They're scary!

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