[LINK] NBN security?

[Roger Clarke]

At 18:12 +1100 19/10/10, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>In terms of traffic privacy, Roger, what's the difference between the
>NBN and any other carrier network?

As I wrote in the reference that I cited:
ttp://www.rogerclarke.com/II/NBN-PC-0912.html#Surv
"governments have sought to detect and repress behaviours by adding 
functions to intermediating nodes on the Internet.  ...  [Any network 
infrastructure] could be designed to embody, or to facilitate, the 
surveillance of content [e.g. through] the accommodation of the 
function in the NBN architecture and the NBN infrastructure, the 
provision of space on NBN Co.'s premises for specialist equipment, 
enabling the connection of extraneous devices to the network, 
enabling the inclusion of extraneous software in its own devices, and 
the permission of access to its premises by organisations that 
conduct surveillance".

The NBN is a singular.

The NBNCo is (pro tem, we're told) government-owned.

The NBN is to a considerable extent directly government-funded 
(27/43rds of a big number, according to one metric).

The NBN has objectives that are nationally-strategic (e.g. the 
stimulation of innovation), some that are politically-strategic (e.g. 
recover ownership of the lower layers of information infrastructure 
and achieve structural separation), and some that are 
party-political-strategic (e.g. sustain a majority in the House of 
Reps, in part by wedge-politics, i.e. running an agenda that splits 
the current Opposition leader from the heir-apparent).

A Government that is largely funding an NBN, through a single 
corporation that it owns, can be expected to swing a bit more lead 
than an alternative Government that instead relied on a gaggle of 
competitors to stump up the money in the hope of gaining enough 
monopoly power in the future to make a motza on the investment.

And note that I've left Conroy's predilection for censorship out of 
the analysis, so far ...


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
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Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University