Stop spying on activists! Say NO to NOSIC!

Thursday, January 12, 2012 - 16:30

Martin Ferguson MP's Electoral Office, 159 High Street, Preston, Australia

On Saturday it was revealed that the Federal Government has been contracting a private intelligence company to spy on environmental and community groups' communications on the internet.

Unlike ASIO and the AFP, NOSIC (National 'Open-Source' Intelligence Centre) is unaccountable to Parliament, and thus the public. Their actions have seen community groups and environment groups labelled subversive and akin to terrorists; if you've written on the Facebook wall of a community group opposing housing developments or participated in a tree planting day, you're likely to have been monitored and spied on by this company.

We at Occupy Melbourne believe that this is an highly invasive and unacceptable and will be taking action against Martin Ferguson MP, the Minister for Resources, Energy and Tourism.

We invite all Occupy Melbourne supporters, all community groups and anyone interested in expressing their anger to meet at City Square at 3:30PM (2:30PM if you're someone who runs late) so that we can make our way via Tram to Martin Ferguson's office in Preston by 4:30.

If you can't, or don't want to meet up there, please be at Martin Ferguson's office by 4:30PM to protest against this intrusion into our civil liberties.

Comments

Information that's come to me recently suggests that (Microsoft) hotmail in particular is susceptible to hacking, most likely through bribes being made to hotmail employees around the world to gain access to email addresses once they're known.

If you engage in activism, the safest thing is to start an entirely new set of email accounts amongst your group that are not advertised anywhere, not used on facebook, MSN, etc, and use those accounts exclusively to communicate amongst yourselves. Never send a note back from these accounts to an existing free, cloud-based email address you use regularly (such as hotmail, gmail, yahoo mail), as the PI firms will buy access to your account, then follow up everyone who has sent mail to you or you have sent to and hack their accounts in turn and build up a database of people and information.

Don't think hotmail or any other free mail provider in the cloud is the least bit secure or incorruptible. This particularly goes also if you have a smartphone for syncing all your information in the cloud, particularly Android phones and Windows 7 phones -- the cloud is eminently compromised by bribed employees of the respective mail companies.

They can usually bribe public servants to pass on info also (not that the govt has to do that), and possibly the phone companies to pass on SMSes. Illegal wire taps at Telstra exchanges are also rife in this country for fixed lines.

Make sure your laptops and PCs always have a lock put on them when you walk away (shortcut: Window key-L) so people cannot easily put malicious software on them or get into your mail accounts and other information that way. Password protect your PC logons. (These things are not foolproof, but they slow PIs down.)

The private intelligence firms are also expert locksmiths and can get into most places easily.

Further, bear in mind that most 802.11a/b/g/n wireless 'security' features can be easily hacked with a couple of free downloadable tools, especially if someone is especially determined to tune in. If you use the same wireless router at home or at your workplace or another meeting place, consider that communications can be intercepted from nearby given enough time. Use a physical LAN cable from your PC to your router if you're concerned. The standard security measures -- WEP, WPA, MAC filtering, disabling SSID broadcasting -- the whole lot can be gotten around with enough effort.

For another $15K, apparently it's possible to buy gear that will intercept GSM mobile phone calls also, so be warned. These things hook up to a laptop and sit on the front seat of a car. Those PI firms need to make their money back from clients for all that expensive gear they've invested in!

Spooks like to drive round in cars with heavily tinted windows and two aerials for some reason (!), so look out for that one as well.

Just so you all know. There are steps you can take to avoid the surveillance such as the new email account approach.