Dutton shines light on dark web crime wave

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has hailed new laws allowing Australian cyber cops to target the worst of the worst online.

Cyber cops will be able to clandestinely control computers linked to criminal networks of paedophiles and terrorists hiding on the dark web under new laws to be introduced today.

The laws will give police and intelligence agencies greater powers to gather intelligence and disrupt crimes inside the dark web, including child abuse and terror operations.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the laws would allow the Australian Federal Police and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to “shine a light into the darkest recesses of the online world”.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton

“These key new powers are critical in enabling law enforcement to tackle the fundamental shift in how serious criminality is occurring online,” he said.

“Without enhancing the AFP and ACIC’s powers, we leave them with outdated ways of attacking an area of criminality that is only increasing in prevalence.”

The dark web is a hidden section of the internet where users interact anonymously that is increasingly being exploited by organised criminals, terrorists, paedophiles and as an illegal drug marketplace.

The Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020, to be introduced today, will vastly expand the ability of authorities to operate in the dark web under three new powers.

It will give the agencies power to collect intelligence from the worst criminal networks operating on the dark web, remotely modify data such as deleting images of child abuse and takeover the computers of anonymous offenders.

CYBER cops will be able to clandestinely control computers linked to criminal networks inside the “dark web”.

Introducing the new powers follows mounting concerns within the government and law enforcement agencies about the rapid expansion of criminal activity on the web and increasing sophistication of the networks.

The changes are expected to help combat the increased use of anonymising technology but do not address end-to-end encryption.

Under the laws officers will be able to apply for warrants to access the networks of criminal groups even if the identities of the members are not known.

Data disruption warrants would allow investigators to remotely modify data held in computers to frustrate ongoing criminal activities such as modifying or deleting child abuse images to prevent them being shared.

And officers would no longer need permission from a suspect to control online accounts, allowing them to gather evidence and trick other members of the network into revealing information about their crimes and location.

Similar laws were used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States to dismantle the massive Silk Road illicit drug marketplace.

FBI agents took control of the account of a Silk Road forum moderator and impersonated him to trick the site’s founder into providing information that exposed his location.

Mr Dutton said the changes would equip the AFP and ACIC with “modern powers” to hunt and disrupt serious criminality online as “resolutely” as in the physical world.