Thread: Draconian new internet data law

What the hell are the authorities here afraid of? This is quite extreme by anyone's standards I think.

Internet data law goes into force Aug 23

KING-OUA LAOHONG




From Aug 23, private firms, organisations and government agencies will be required to store all internet traffic data for 90 days so it is available as digital evidence for police. Pol Col Yannapol Youngyuen, commander of the Bureau of Technology and Cyber Crime at the Department of Special Investigation, said the IT Ministry order has no exceptions and will include banks, hotels, schools and internet cafes.



He said digital evidence gathered from computers is useful in tracking those engaged in cyber crime.



Cyber offences, ranging from email forwarding of pornographic pictures to posting libellous messages on forums, are on the rise, Pol Col Yannapol said, but police agencies find it hard to gather the evidence to bring the perpetrators to justice.


He said internet cafes will also be required to collect information to identify computer users, such as ID cards, time of logging in and sites visited. Shops that fail to heed the rules will face fines up to 500,000 baht, he said.

...from the Post.

Bangkok Post | General news | Internet data law goes into force Aug 23

...and commentary from a blog.

They did it : law requires companies to store all Internet datas for 90 days Thailand Crisis

They did it : law requires companies to store all Internet datas for 90 days

Published 13 August 2008 Censorship , Economy , Weird/Bigotry

Until this day, we had doubts. It seemed too big to be true (read here)… The shamefull Cyber Crime Act, pushed by the Junta in 2007 (read here)… included an obligation for “Internet services providers” to store Internet traffic datas for 90 days.
Log systems for everybody ?

The burning question was : what is the definition of a “services provider”. Internet cafes or other public places ? Or all privates companies, with a just computer network and an Internet access (for email for instance) ?

This article published in Bangkok Post today, with quotes from an official of the IT Ministry seems to give a final answer…

They dit it !

It’s important to note that Thailand is the only country in the world to have such obligation… I mean even China does not have such requirement…
Can you imagine the mess ? And the costs of such broad technical obligation ? The endless new opportunies for corruption (what we can call “targeted implementation of laws and regulations”)… ?

It’s unbelievable, astonishing.

And what is even more astonishing is the silence of the current government (democratically elected as we say). They should abrogate this infamous law designed by the generals. But it seems that Samak has other, more urgent, priorities…


And what about the “opposition”, the so called Democrat Party, led by Abhisit, the so called “new thai politician” educated in the UK ? Again, a striking silence.


If we can assume that Samak and all his friends don’t give a rat shit about Internet, right to privacy and freedom, what are the positions of Abhisit on these issues ?


Accomplice nothing less…


Poor Thailand…

Unbelievable is right.

All internet traffic data.

Do they know how much data that is for a nation of 60 million? Do the shops even have the space on their systems?

Who writes these laws? Have they never heard of ultrasurf? google caching? proxies? www.bypassrestriction? Do they not know of browsers that can shadow information?

The only part that made sense was the part about fines. Just another way to extort backhanders from mostly small mom and pop shops that can ill afford them. If enforced, it will just put most of them out of business. IMO

Military coups, restricted internet, bureaucratic oligarchs. Starting to look more and more like of its neighbors.

Whoops. Can they trace this?

Singing as always, my nom de plume: KMS 101

Sounds like the government has finally realized that they should have a national database for tracking cybercrime and instead of putting up the cash themselves they are going to make the business world pay for it.

^ Scat lovers?

Pigs?

Gardeners (great fertiliser don't you know)?


Nice to see you Arnold....'appy as ever

Originally Posted by Arnold!

Thailand is a sh*thole.

Why live in a sh*thole?

gee...draconian law, thailand? go figure!

Originally Posted by D-Man.

Fuck all that, me condo just blocked asianappleseed.com

My ISP blocks anything with the letters ...sex....

So when I am trying to look up things on google like lessons plans for biology. (asexual reproduction) I am blocked. But if I type something like : Debbie Does Dallas. No problem. Go figure.

Originally Posted by robitusson

This is quite extreme by anyone's standards I think.

Except maybe the EU's standards. On 15 March 2006 the European Union formally adopted Directive 2006/24/EC, which directs member countries to store electronic communication data (telephony, mobile telephony, Internet access, Internet email and Internet telephony) for a period of between 6 months and 2 years.

In Italy, internet cafes have to store traffic data by law or users have to enter ID card or driving licence numbers as part of their login information.

Am I missing something here, or is this just another, "moan at the Thais and ignore what the rest of the world is doing" threads?

Are the EU gonna treat the mailing of a dirty picture as an offence? A "libelous messages" on forums? I'm fucked on both those counts personally. Or are they after serious fraud and proper cyber-crime?

It was what they wanted it for that was the worrying aspect. I specifically mentioned the authorities in my op, not Thais in general.

Give it a chance Sage. No-one's lashing the anti-Thai whip just yet.

Well you said:

Originally Posted by robitusson

What the hell are the authorities here afraid of?

and I pointed out this has been EU law (with up to two years retention, not 90 days) for two and a half years. So what the hell are the authorities afraid of in the EU? Also in the blog you quoted it says that no other country in the world has such obligations, which is clearly complete bollocks.

As for the authorites Vs Thais, I meant it seemed to be another case of complaining about things happening in Thailand when they are happening all over the world. That blogger you quoted also has such headlines as how badly Thai Airways are doing and the Thai automobile industry for instance - hardly isolated cases in the current economic climate and although he does mention problems in other countries, all this crap is posted under a blog called thaicrisis - rather a biased and factually incorrect source if you don't mind me saying.

^^^...and to be quite fair, the libel and pornography laws have been discussed before and are hardly news, so I had to assume that you were highlighting the new internet data retention laws in this thread, which is what I responded to.

Originally Posted by Killing Me Softly 101

So Thailand does this meanwhile Vientiane is figuring out how to make the whole city go free wifi.

Sorry, and this is relevant how exactly?

I wonder if there is actually anyone out there who may actually be able to cope and actually decipher all the information that is collected.

Another case of let's follow the rest.

Baaaaa goes the sheep and Baaaaa are the Thai's

Thailand is now the world hub of ''STUPIDITY'