Posted: . At: 12:09 PM. This was 10 years ago. Post ID: 7606
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Australian government considering draconian anti-terrorism data retention laws.

The Australian government is planning to bring in tough new laws to combat home-grown terrorism. This involves Internet Service providers being forced to hold customer data for two years. Prime Minister Tony Abbots new National Security Committee has signed off on the roll-out of controversial mandatory data retention laws which spy agencies claim are “critical” to combating the rising terrorism threat from home-grown terrorist cells. These laws make it mandatory for communications and Internet companies to keep customer data, e.g metadata, for at least two years. What is meant by metadata though, is this records of all Internet browsing and all e-mail conversations that will be stored for the two year period? This seems like a huge load on an ISP, having to record all customer data for this period. I know that hard drive space is quite cheap, but this is still quite an ask.

The future of the Internet will be quite draconian if this bill is passed into law, this on top of the other bill to combat online piracy. That is due to the fact that television shows in Australia are far behind America, we get the Simpsons on television ages behind America, and Game of Thrones. That is why people pirate movies and television, we have fast ADSL +2 connections, so of course we are going to use them to their full capacity. That is why websites like Kickass Torrents and The Pirate Bay are thriving. There is a massive demand for movie downloads, even if they are poor quality CAM or TS rips with peoples heads in the shot and a wonky view of the movie screen. The one thing you do not get from the pirated movie is the THX cinema sound.

But those people who are in a hurry to see the latest blockbuster movie like Guardians will of course download a screener or camrip to see the film and find out what happens. Draconian legislation against Internet users as a whole will not solve the problem of terrorism. A terrorist who wants to bring down a plane or plant a bomb in Times Square will find a way to do this without getting the attention of the authorities.

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