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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

#21

Post by kbd »

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.

> but this compromise will deliver security and enforcement agencies the powers they say they need over the Christmas period

"We need this bill to keep you safe over Christmas" is an obscenely cynical justification to rush this bill through, esp since it's obvious no implementation changes based on this bill would be made in time for the holiday.

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

#22

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

schoen wrote: post #19
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

Ah, good to know!

I thought, from first glance, that the next news headline would be "Shadow Council Already Owns Your Secrets [And Your Souls]" if this trend continued.

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

#23

Post by shiado »

I was trying to figure out what exactly this bill says. I encourage people look for themselves.

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislat...

It is utterly and completely incomprehensible and it offers little to no technical definitions of what exactly they want. There is a complete absence of technical concrete definitions of what they want and the memoranda seem to be highly conflicted. It reads as if some lawyers watched Mr. Robot and used it as inspiration for their creative writing paper that was due the next day.

Edit: this appears to signal the true intent of the bill

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bi...

It all seems to be one giant five eyes power play to make their jobs easier.

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

#25

Post by hvklos »

rocqua wrote: post #12
hvklos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They’d probably try to compel app stores to support individual targeting as a first step. If the Australian versions haven’t shut down in the next few weeks, it’s a pretty sure bet that they’ll have been compromised.

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

#26

Post by zmmmmm »

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.

It's a ludicrous thing to say because the parts of the bill people are concerned with (technical assistance orders, ie: forcing companies to backdoor products) have no possible way to be acted on in the time period they are suggesting. So it is pretty much bald faced lying. And then you have to ask, if they are straight up lying about this, what are the real motivations? If we are lucky it's pure petty politics with a benign obliviousness to the fact they have just breached a major waterline in how far Western democracies are willing to break the internet. Hopefully we are that lucky.

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

#27

Post by zmmmmm »

rebuilder wrote: post #16

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?

Bottom line, they can ask a technology manufacture to do anything (literally last time I looked the bill had the phrase "do a thing") and they have to do it. But the specific intent is to have the manufacture deliver targeted malware to people they want to monitor. A warrant is not required, but a crime with a jail term of 3 or more years must be involved ("involved" because you do not have to be a suspect, just useful to the investigation to receive the malware).

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

#28

Post by zmmmmm »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #4
jwr wrote: post #2

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

Signal would have to find a way to send a special app to you which does not encrypt or specially encrypts in order to funnel data to AU government. If it does not, it becomes illegal. Considering signal warns people if the key changes, it probably means Signal is now illegal as it might be physically/mathematically impossible to satisfy the law. Secure communication is now illegal in Australia.

I haven't checked the text that passed but I think non-feasibility is a defense. Which might mean that this just inspires a new round of canarying and end-to-end encryption wrapping to defeat the bill. However presumably there are very few companies willing to die on that hill, and it may be too expensive to fight those battles.

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

#30

Post by manicdee »

zmmmmm wrote: post #27
rebuilder wrote: post #16

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?

Bottom line, they can ask a technology manufacture to do anything (literally last time I looked the bill had the phrase "do a thing") and they have to do it. But the specific intent is to have the manufacture deliver targeted malware to people they want to monitor. A warrant is not required, but a crime with a jail term of 3 or more years must be involved ("involved" because you do not have to be a suspect, just usef…

And all that is required from the agency making the claim is their word. This assertion of justification is untraceable, unverifiable, the tech employee can’t talk to anyone about it, and there are penalties in a secret court for refusing to perform as demanded.
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