[LINK] NBN security?

Kim Holburn kim at holburn.net
Thu Oct 21 14:40:27 AEDT 2010


On 2010/Oct/19, at 6:30 PM, Roger Clarke wrote:

> 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".

This is a worry.  Still, the government has always had the power to  
listen on telephone lines, to open letters.  Would this be anything  
new?  And in Australia we have had till recently a government monopoly  
on the last mile copper and the nodes and exchanges those connected  
to.  I don't see this as a lot different.  The government is playing  
catch-up as regards internet bugging.  Listening on the internet is  
not necessarily so simple as tapping phones.  The internet gives  
people several ways to by-pass listeners if they want to, so overall  
we are probably better off.

> 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 ...

-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
T: +61 2 61402408  M: +61 404072753
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