By Graham K. Rogers

Yesterday, I wrote a two-part article about PRISM, focusing on the devices we use (see below). As part of the background, I mentioned the push for many countries, particularly Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and the USA to bring in legislation that allows the authorities to monitor communications on the internet.

Ostensibly this is to track the bogeys of terrorism, pornography and (now) international crime, although the latter has been on the go for a lot longer than the Internet. In the UK this legislation has been called the "Snooper's Charter" and the insistence of the Tory government minister responsible that this is so, so necessary, seems a little hypocritical as the Tories were most certainly against it before they were so enthusiastically for it.

Following in the footsteps of those who would monitor their citizens is Japan, Zeljka Zorz reports in an article on HelpNet Security. The intention is to create a system like that of the NSA that is causing some disquiet currently and there is a need to change some laws to allow this monitoring to take place legally. Data protection laws will also need updating.

In an attempt to mollify certain concerns, Shinzo Abe the Prime Minister, who heads the National Information Security Center (NISC) claims that he is not proposing deep packet inspection as the ability to monitor headers and to use lists to stop distributed denial of service attacks might be sufficient.

Keep watching that "might."

See also:

• Japan aims to monitor Internet-based communications
• PRISM and the Mac User (1): Background
• PRISM and the Mac User (2): The Devices We Use

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.