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Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

abc.net.au

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Re: Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

#321

Post by BLKNSLVR »

manicdee wrote: post #305
justinclift wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder how long it'll take for the Aust branches of the US copyright cartel to start demanding access to "pirates" comms through this. From memory, the Aust internet filter was originally introduced using similar excuses. eg stop terrorist recruitment, pedos, etc. The copyright cartel was having "pirate" sites blocked not long after, and has been expanding it's approach since. Seems like a similar play book in action…

That’s the whole point of this legislation, and one of the reasons the legislation specifically supports the death penalty is to allow this legislation to be used by Australia to support the USA, where the death penalty still exists.

There's a secondary point to this legislation: discouraging whistleblowers by making it more difficult to both hide yourself and be hidden by whichever journalist you're working with.

Chilling effects is a desired outcome of this legislation.

Re: Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

#322

Post by blkcoffee »

protonmail wrote: post #193
kazen44 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wonder if this would affect other, non autstralian mail providers (protonmail for instance).

No it does not, as we fall solely under Swiss jurisdiction since we don't have a presence in Australia.

From the Bill itself "A person is a designated communications provider if...

4 the person provides an electronic service that has one or more end-users in Australia

5 the person provides a service that facilitates, or is ancillary or incidental to,the provision of an electronic service that has one or more end-users in Australia

6 the person develops, supplies or updates software used, for use, or likely to be used, in connection with:(a) a listed carriage service; or(b) an electronic service that has one or more end-users in Australia"

I believe ProtonMail falls into these categories. As an Austrlaian and a user of your services myself, will this mean getting service "officially" cut off in Australia?

Re: Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

#323

Post by brokenmachine »

manicdee wrote: post #305
justinclift wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder how long it'll take for the Aust branches of the US copyright cartel to start demanding access to "pirates" comms through this. From memory, the Aust internet filter was originally introduced using similar excuses. eg stop terrorist recruitment, pedos, etc. The copyright cartel was having "pirate" sites blocked not long after, and has been expanding it's approach since. Seems like a similar play book in action…

That’s the whole point of this legislation, and one of the reasons the legislation specifically supports the death penalty is to allow this legislation to be used by Australia to support the USA, where the death penalty still exists.

I don't understand your logic. Is the death penalty specifically mentioned in this bill somewhere?

Re: Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

#324

Post by BLKNSLVR »

cyphar wrote: post #202
cmroanirgo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must build a custom made back door. eg. Something like ProtonMail would need to inject some extra javascript so that the government could obtain a copy before encryption, I expect. If I were to write some software of this nature these days, I'd make sure that the client would be aware of any changes in the api - sort of like a personal warrant canary. (Note that a warrant canary is legal in this legislation).

Warrant canaries are illegal in Australia, at least in the case of other kinds of secret warrants. I would be very surprised that a judge would (given the existing laws that have similar properties) consider a warrant canary legal. (For those wondering how they can be illegal, in Australia it's illegal to state the existence or non-existence of certain kinds of secret warrants. So a statement of a canary is, itself,…

So if I was an Australian citizen, I'd be committing a crime by saying:

I have not had any communications requesting investigative cooperation from any Australian law enforcement or intelligence agency.

Re: Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

#325

Post by magduf »

tossaccount123 wrote: post #289
magduf wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that there's other countries where their governments don't seem to have these problems.

where? From what I've seen Europe, UK, USA, Canada, and especially China are all moving in this direction of more privacy intrusions. Considering the West has traditionally offered the most freedom for its citizens I'd say things are trending towards authoritarian governments

EU seems to be pretty concerned with data privacy, and they even have laws protecting it.

Re: Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

#326

Post by brokenmachine »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #321
manicdee wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the whole point of this legislation, and one of the reasons the legislation specifically supports the death penalty is to allow this legislation to be used by Australia to support the USA, where the death penalty still exists.

There's a secondary point to this legislation: discouraging whistleblowers by making it more difficult to both hide yourself and be hidden by whichever journalist you're working with. Chilling effects is a desired outcome of this legislation.

Whistleblowing attracts up to a 25-year sentence, so yes this is terrible for journalists.

What's the maximum sentence for copyright infringement?

Re: Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

#327

Post by BLKNSLVR »

healsjnr1 wrote: post #15

This is another thing that adds to my deep sense of shame to live in this country (sadly, that list is long and growing). This bill does nothing to prevent the kinds of things it is intended to prevent. The apps this law targets were engineered specifically to prevent this kind of interference. The idea that passing legislation will suddenly change that, magically allowing decryption of messages is beyond idiotic. Th…

One of the best criticisms for the rushing through of this POS legislation was "if it's such a rush to get this done, why hasn't Australia's threat level been increased?"

The answer from the intelligence agencies is that there must be a known specific threat in order for the threat level to be increased (from "Probable" to "Expected")[0]

So, they're saying that it's important for this legislation to be passed for the sake of the safety of Australian citizens despite the fact there's no specific threat that's worth raising Australia's threat level for.

Add this to the huge list of WTF's surrounding this situation.

[0] https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/securityandyourcommunity...

Re: Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

#328

Post by cvwright »

StavrosK wrote: post #91
brokenmachine wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were going to supply a definition of "systemic weakness", but I can't find one in the bill itself. I'm patiently waiting for their proposed method of reading end-to-end encrypted messages without introducing a systemic weakness. But the meaning of words don't seem to matter anymore in the reality distortion field that is the Australian government. This is all supposedly to somehow make us more secure for Christm…

Indeed, the laws of mathematics make this impossible. Count yourself lucky to be living in a country where the laws of mathematics don't apply.

This line of argument is not helpful. What are you going to do if/when somebody shows up with a scheme that shows you're wrong, and the laws of mathematics do in fact permit such schemes?

Re: Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

#329

Post by StavrosK »

cvwright wrote: post #328
StavrosK wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the laws of mathematics make this impossible. Count yourself lucky to be living in a country where the laws of mathematics don't apply.

This line of argument is not helpful. What are you going to do if/when somebody shows up with a scheme that shows you're wrong, and the laws of mathematics do in fact permit such schemes?

Fix cryptography.

Re: Australian parliament passes encryption laws unamended

#330

Post by happybuy »

stephen_g wrote: post #264
anotherhuman0 wrote: post #201

Somebody over on Reddit [1] went through all the submissions (there was a consultation period) and summarised and tallied them [2]. Fully 99%+ of submissions were against the bill. A sad day for democracy indeed. A church in Tasmania was in favour, because child pornography. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/a3j466/assistanc... 2. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dowpZ_Xtr1N_DgkHJN8i...

Lots of people reporting that the offices of MPs and senators were inundated with calls today and over the last few days. Twitter was on fire too. Ignored, just like the expert testimony before the PJCIS. Who do these fools think they were representing? Today I watched my country's democracy die via livestream, with the words "Labor withdraws all amendments".

> Who do these fools think they were representing?

The US government and their agenda to spread similar laws in their country and across the world.

Labor was always on board with the core of the legislation; likely as they were aware of some unreported Five Eye's agreement that Australia will be the 'thin edge of the wedge' to introduce such laws worldwide.

Any amendments proposed wouldn't have changed the goal and was simply the basis for some political theatre to look like such a law has been considered and debated by the politicians. The outcome had already been decided a lot earlier than that point.

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