[LINK] Parliament Not Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Wed Jun 23 10:54:37 AEST 2010


The Australian Parliament released the less than impressive "Hackers, 
Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime" report this 
week: <http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/coms/cybercrime/report.htm>.

The report does not take into account Internet and security functions 
already in place in government. The report recommends assigning existing 
functions to agencies which do not have experience while ignoring those 
expertise and a role assigned by existing legislation.

The major recommendation of the report is to establish an "Office of 
Online Security" in the Department of Prime Minster and Cabinet. It is 
not clear how this role would differ from the Internet security related 
bodies already formed, or why it should be in the Prime Minister's 
department, rather than one of the agencies which has expertise in 
Internet security.

The report also recommends the Australian Communications and Media 
Authority detect malware compromised computers. It is not clear why ACMA 
is recommended for this role, over agencies which have expertise in 
Internet security. The report further recommends ACMA support emergency 
response functions of government, although this function is already 
assigned to the Department of Defence in the Telecommunications Act.

The 294 page report is available in PDF, as one 4204Kb file and as 
separate chapters. A HTML version is "coming soon". For those who can't 
wait, I have converted the recommendations into HTML by hand:
<http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/06/tackling-problem-of-cyber-crime.html>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au





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