111–120 of 265 posts
Apple should suspend selling any products into Australia and announce layoffs of all Australian employees for the day before the law goes into effect. The Australian market is small enough to make a stand without impacting the bottom line.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, just remember not to go to Australia on holiday. It's more of an issue for companies that have a business presence in Australia, the usual suspects that sell proprietary software or advertising there. It also makes it hard to trust software developed in Australia. Perhaps people outside Australia should also be wary of software from companies that do business in Australia, if there's any reason to think that th…
That's a good point. There's no guarantee that compromised devices will stay within Australian jurisdiction. How are diplomats affected by this law?
I'm grappling with what to do about this law. I develop software in Australia, for a company, separately as a private software vendor and separately again as an open source contributor. From what I can understand, this law can compel me to silently insert malware into any of these. Morally I feel like I need to modify the licenses, READMEs and terms of conditions for products I sell and the contracts under which I do…
Also you stating that you might have been forced to insert malware by the government surely breaks the rule that says you can't tell anyone too, if I'm understanding it correctly.
What problem does Australia have that could possibly justify this? Gangs in Sidney? Drug traffickers from New Zealand? Terrorists from Vietnam?
Being the the country with the weakest civil rights protections in the 5 eyes allows us to be used as a test bed. If this thing goes smoothly, expect the same to be attempted in UK, US, NZ and CA.
I am particularly concerned how this will affect Fastmail, an Australian company. I've hosted my mail there since 2002 and they've always been quite pro-privacy. But I fear that such a stance is now literally impossible for any Australian company.
Aww man. I've been a super happy user as well for quite some time. What should a privacy concerned customer do?
For secure communications, you shouldn't be using email in the first place, so these new laws don't change much in that regard (in my understanding, I'm still catching up on the new laws because I have limited internet access right now, I'm happy to be corrected).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, just remember not to go to Australia on holiday. It's more of an issue for companies that have a business presence in Australia, the usual suspects that sell proprietary software or advertising there. It also makes it hard to trust software developed in Australia. Perhaps people outside Australia should also be wary of software from companies that do business in Australia, if there's any reason to think that th…
That's a good point. There's no guarantee that compromised devices will stay within Australian jurisdiction. How are diplomats affected by this law?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shorten’s strategy to lose the battle/win the war has soured my view of him forever. He’s revealed himself to be a man of no principles.
> soured my view of him forever. He’s revealed himself to be a man of no principles. I don't have a strong opinion of Shorten one way or the other, but I've read a lot of people express a similar POV and it strikes me as extremely naive. If you went into politics with a view to die on your sword rather than compromise any of your values you'd have a very short career. Losing the battle to win the war is the only way…
They opposed the bill over the weekend and then backflipped because if there's an attack over Christmas they'll look like fools. I don't think that risk was worth selling out 25 million people, but maybe that's just me. They get attacked constantly in the media anyway, it's not going to make much difference.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aww man. I've been a super happy user as well for quite some time. What should a privacy concerned customer do?
I'm an Australian privacy-obsessed Fastmail user, and use them for my family domains and all our primary email. I'll keep using them, because email isn't private in the first place. Any more than snail mail is. Both can be intercepted and read by authorities without you knowing. For secure communications, you shouldn't be using email in the first place, so these new laws don't change much in that regard (in my unders…
Australia has an unstable federal political system, with elections every three years or less (this is baked into the constitution, so it will be hard to amend). Imagine the US House of Representatives with the equivalent of Speaker of the US House of Representatives as the Prime Minister of Australia as you won't be far off. Unlike the UK, there isn't a strong civil service, and unlike the US, the Senate, states and…
Do you live here? I do, and while tiny nuggets of truth are in individual sentence clauses, this is a very paranoid and over stated argument. We have a high court. They reverse bad federal and state laws. Lots of bad immigration decisions by ministers are being overturned. Mabo happened.
We Aussies are pretty proud of the various improvements we have over the UK and US systems. Our independent electoral commissions minimise gerrymandering. Our preferential voting system ensures more accurate representation. Mandatory voter turnout has a moderating influence on political campaigning and avoids voter disenfranchisement issues.
But you can't look at the last decade of federal politics in the country and say it has been much other than a joke. We've just per chance had Brexit and Trump happening lately which has made it seem less ridiculous in comparison.
Leadership issues aside, we need a federal anti-corruption body and a well-worded bill of rights. As it stands, the government has far more room to move than they should, and on many issues the opposition has been either useless or complicit.
* Honest Government Ad | Anti Encryption Law - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW-OMR-iWOE
* Encryption: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsjZ2r9Ygzw