While our Communications Minister has been trying out every possible idea he can to destroy Australia’s digital economy, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications has been studying cyber crime and has come up with a few recommendations. Like making installed anti-virus software and a firewall on PCs a condition of getting internet access.
According to Andrew Ramadge at News.com.au, the study titled Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime has recommended that customers would have to have anti-virus and firewalls in place before their internet connection is activated, and if they do contract a virus, ISPs will be able to disconnect them.
While this is all pretty common sense sort of stuff, I can’t help but think that by legislating it, we’re just asking for trouble. Some ISPs are notoriously bad at customer service as it is – imagine if they switch off your connection because a bit of spyware pops up on your computer. Worse, imagine trying to sort out that issue with a customer support team based overseas.
At this stage this is nothing more than a report with suggestions to try and curb online crime. Hopefully those suggestions get a bit of refinement before the Government even thinks about introducing them.