[LINK] Deep Packet Inspection

Stilgherrian stil at stilgherrian.com
Mon Jun 7 07:58:13 AEST 2010


On 06/06/2010, at 11:04 PM, Crispin Harris wrote:
> First off IANAL & I have not spent time looking at the TIA (and the 2009
> ammendments) with respect to it's affects on public carriers (and other
> telecommunications suppliers).
> 
> I am aware, however, that the ammendments to the ast that were passed in
> 2009 have provided protection for interception as required for provision,
> maintenance and continuance of the systems.
> 
> In particular, this was to support backup/recovery of Email servers,
> implementation of Intrusion Detection Systems. It also had the effect of
> making it legal to restore an Exchange Server where messages are unread
> (nobody actually used this provision of the act, but the definition of "a
> communication" was such that reading *any*message* in-transit, or
> storage/recovery of any unread message was potentially a federal crime - 'an
> unauthorised interception').
> 
> My understanding of the ammendments if to provide protections: where the
> processing of the information is completely automated; and does not involve
> the capture & storage (for replay) of content; is required for the efficient
> functioning of the system; or facilitates the recovery of the system in the
> event of failure.

And my understanding is that the amendments that eventually passed only applied to government employees protecting government networks.

The sum total of my understanding is based on my fading memory of a Crikey piece I wrote last August and follow-up news stories.

    Proposed intercept laws could create thousands of "Little Brothers"
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/08/31/proposed-intercept-laws-could-create-thousands-of-little-brothers/

    Some government agencies have been protected by an
    exemption, but that expires 12 December. The proposed
    changes to the TIA Act fix that, and extend the coverage
    to private networks.
    
    An accompanying discussion paper presents two scenarios
    which working systems administrators will recognise as
    quite normal.

    http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/(084A3429FD57AC0744737F8EA134BACB)~Discussion+Paper.pdf/$file/Discussion+Paper.pdf

The amendments WERE meant to cover "everyone" (for some value of "everyone"). There was IIRC some sort of protection for government which was expiring, and the plan was for new legislation to cover all such normal sysadmin monitoring of networks. Public submissions weren't made public -- not even the non-classified ones. Certainly issues were raised such as: What constituted "normal monitoring"? Did that include monitoring to check for compliance with acceptable use policies? Did that in turn mean monitoring for copyright-infringing material? How did this extend to situations where network monitoring was outsourced?

All too hard with the sunset-clause deadline approaching and AFACT v iiNet in the Federal Court, so the the idea of extending it to all networks was dropped.

We eventually got this:
Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2010
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;db=;group=;holdingType=;id=;orderBy=priority,title;page=0;query=Dataset%3AbillsCurNotBef%20interception;querytype=;rec=4;resCount=Default

Here's a direct link to the PDF of the Act as passed.
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/r4196_aspassed/toc_pdf/09163b01.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf

This has been passed as Act no 2 of 2010.

Someone else will have to read it, 'cos I'll soon be busy this morning.

Stil


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