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Australia Encrypted Messaging Bill to Pass After Labor Strikes Deal with Govt

tendaily.com.au

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Re: Australia Encrypted Messaging Bill to Pass After Labor Strikes Deal with Govt

#11

Post by ubernostrum »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #8
gsreenivas wrote: post #6

Fastmail users should be on notice with this legislation if they chose this service for privacy/security purposes.

Indeed. Fastmail is no longer secure by law as it is now illegal to have a secure service the moment a govt official asks for access.

Their statement:

https://fastmail.blog/2018/09/10/access-and-assistance-bill/

Which drives home the point a lot of people are forgetting: it was never secure to begin with, unless you were going to the effort of encrypting all your own emails client-side before sending, and only communicating with others who did the same. Fastmail was never an end-to-end encrypted service, so they already could have been served orders from a government to hand over data, and if that government had jurisdiction and the orders were properly formed for that jurisdiction, they would've had to comply.

So as bad as this bill is, it doesn't really change things for Fastmail.

Re: Australia Encrypted Messaging Bill to Pass After Labor Strikes Deal with Govt

#12

Post by rocqua »

hvklos wrote: post #10
jwr wrote: post #2

So, what happens to Signal in Australia if the bill passes?

Compromised version dropped onto phone of a target? Most people are reliant on App Stores for their apps, so that will be a likely vector. We don’t run checksums on desktop software, let alone software from App Stores.

How easy is it to target a play-store update? I doubt google allows binaries to be targeted to individuals, so you'd need to push the update to a rather large set, and have the update only activate for the target.

That isnt very covert.

Re: Australia Encrypted Messaging Bill to Pass After Labor Strikes Deal with Govt

#13

Post by zajd »

kodablah wrote: post #3

Maybe I don't understand all of the issues, but I'm gonna be as straightforward as I can: if you are a messaging platform doing explicit business in Australia under these rules, we have to assume you have or are willing to backdoor your software. It is a reasonable assumption that it will be hidden and that the backdoor is general enough for use outside of Australia (even if you don't explicitly deploy/enable it else…

> I have to assume you are compromised or are willing to be compromised

Why wouldn't you assume this about any company. They only exist as an creation of the state, you're obviously at their whims.

Re: Australia Encrypted Messaging Bill to Pass After Labor Strikes Deal with Govt

#15

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

From the article:

> "This bill is far from perfect and there are likely to be significant outstanding issues, but this compromise will deliver security and enforcement agencies the powers they say they need over the Christmas period, and ensure adequate oversight and safeguards," shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said on Tuesday.

... shadow attorney-general? That sounds rather ominous.

Re: Australia Encrypted Messaging Bill to Pass After Labor Strikes Deal with Govt

#16

Post by rebuilder »

What does the law require, exactly? That service providers build in the ability to let law enforcement start monitoring specific communications? Or that they build in the ability to decrypt messages already sent, if requested to do so by law enforcement?

Re: Australia Encrypted Messaging Bill to Pass After Labor Strikes Deal with Govt

#17

Post by parliament32 »

jwr wrote: post #2

So, what happens to Signal in Australia if the bill passes?

Australia can't enforce its laws on a foreign company, especially considering Signal doesn't generate any revenue in Australia (afaik). Best they could do is find some way to block it (like the great firewall of China does with any sites/services that won't comply with their filter demands).

Re: Australia Encrypted Messaging Bill to Pass After Labor Strikes Deal with Govt

#18

Post by turblety »

Obviously this law and ones like it have no place in a modern, free society, but in regards to the risk with using business apps, it's just the same as before. You can not trust app's from companies incorporated in the five eyes [1]. If you are using a product made in any of the five eyes you are already compromised. By compromised, I mean you can be almost 100% sure that if the owner's of those countries want your data they will get it, and they will get it easily too. They do not need warrants, courts or judges to sign of on anything and haven't done for a long time.

To clarify my position on this. Whether a law like this is actually passed or not, you should assume that every company incorporated in these countries have been forced to place backdoors in their systems. I'm not saying that every company has done this. I'm saying you should assume they have.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

Re: Australia Encrypted Messaging Bill to Pass After Labor Strikes Deal with Govt

#19

Post by schoen »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #15

From the article: > "This bill is far from perfect and there are likely to be significant outstanding issues, but this compromise will deliver security and enforcement agencies the powers they say they need over the Christmas period, and ensure adequate oversight and safeguards," shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said on Tuesday. ... shadow attorney-general? That sounds rather ominous.

In parliamentary systems, parties in opposition commonly appoint members of Parliament as "shadow ministers" who keep track of (and speak on) issues that the parties in government have ministers handling. They can present the opposition's official position on these portfolios.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Cabinet

Re: Australia Encrypted Messaging Bill to Pass After Labor Strikes Deal with Govt

#20

Post by grepballsoffire »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #15

From the article: > "This bill is far from perfect and there are likely to be significant outstanding issues, but this compromise will deliver security and enforcement agencies the powers they say they need over the Christmas period, and ensure adequate oversight and safeguards," shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said on Tuesday. ... shadow attorney-general? That sounds rather ominous.

Ha! It does, but it actually just means the opposition party's counterpart to the attorney-general.
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