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Advocating for privacy in Australia

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Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#31

Post by xyzzy123 »

brongondwana wrote: post #19
mtgx wrote: post #13

So the article's tl;dr is basically: "We're advocating for privacy, but we aren't going to try to offer you any. We never did, and we certainly won't now that this law passed. You're on your own." Is this supposed to be a PR-positive announcement from FastMail, because I can't quite tell?!

We never offered, and never claimed to offer, a safe haven for people who have broken the law in both Australia and their own country to hide from the police. We don't place ourselves above law enforcement. We don't have data trading agreements with anybody, and we don't sell or provide backdoor channels - we only provide data in response to lawful warrants. That's the right amount of privacy and the right tradeoff w…

Funny how wanting to keep your personal correspondence private is now being conflated with “above the law”.

The concrete bunker thing is a ridiculous diversion. Why are you even bringing that up?

I understand that privacy is a difficult problem especially when subject to legislation but bunkers have nothing to do with it. You will obviously provide user information to government on request, you and your staff maintain the ability to access user information at all times, and you have some procedures in place to try and make sure none of this is misused.

That’s ok.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#32

Post by brongondwana »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #31
brongondwana wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We never offered, and never claimed to offer, a safe haven for people who have broken the law in both Australia and their own country to hide from the police. We don't place ourselves above law enforcement. We don't have data trading agreements with anybody, and we don't sell or provide backdoor channels - we only provide data in response to lawful warrants. That's the right amount of privacy and the right tradeoff w…

Funny how wanting to keep your personal correspondence private is now being conflated with “above the law”. The concrete bunker thing is a ridiculous diversion. Why are you even bringing that up? I understand that privacy is a difficult problem especially when subject to legislation but bunkers have nothing to do with it. You will obviously provide user information to government on request, you and your staff maintai…

"We don't place ourselves above the law" - AKA we don't believe we are better placed than a judge to know whether sufficient evidence has been presented to allow law enforcement access to data about a user of our platform.

Unless you're starting from a premise that bad actors don't exist, and the police never do anything of value, there needs to be a facility by which police perform the role we expect of them in a civilised society, which includes following chains of evidence and requesting assistance of third parties they find along the way. The warrant system is a check against abuse of that process, not a repudiation of the idea that police also have a job to do.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#33

Post by xyzzy123 »

brongondwana wrote: post #32
xyzzy123 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how wanting to keep your personal correspondence private is now being conflated with “above the law”. The concrete bunker thing is a ridiculous diversion. Why are you even bringing that up? I understand that privacy is a difficult problem especially when subject to legislation but bunkers have nothing to do with it. You will obviously provide user information to government on request, you and your staff maintai…

"We don't place ourselves above the law" - AKA we don't believe we are better placed than a judge to know whether sufficient evidence has been presented to allow law enforcement access to data about a user of our platform. Unless you're starting from a premise that bad actors don't exist, and the police never do anything of value, there needs to be a facility by which police perform the role we expect of them in a ci…

Sorry, I edited my comment a lot.

I guess if a judge wants they should be able to watch you poo, pity we don’t have mandatory poo cams yet.

The judge should according to the laws be able to hear what you say to your wife at night.

Just that technology hasn’t caught up with what the law dictates yet.

After all, who are we to say what’s right? That’s for the professionals like the people who passed the AAA bill.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#34

Post by brongondwana »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #31
brongondwana wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We never offered, and never claimed to offer, a safe haven for people who have broken the law in both Australia and their own country to hide from the police. We don't place ourselves above law enforcement. We don't have data trading agreements with anybody, and we don't sell or provide backdoor channels - we only provide data in response to lawful warrants. That's the right amount of privacy and the right tradeoff w…

Funny how wanting to keep your personal correspondence private is now being conflated with “above the law”. The concrete bunker thing is a ridiculous diversion. Why are you even bringing that up? I understand that privacy is a difficult problem especially when subject to legislation but bunkers have nothing to do with it. You will obviously provide user information to government on request, you and your staff maintai…

On the bunker issue, many people seem to expect us to be like some Sealand with armed forces fighting off hostile government ships. No service actually works like that, and the aren't really jurisdictions where you can just tell the police to go jump. You'll get your uplinks disconnected and your payment systems frozen if there's a high enough value target in there. A Sealand-like service makes no sense as a product for regular people because the cost/benefit doesn't match their needs.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#35

Post by brongondwana »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #33
brongondwana wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We don't place ourselves above the law" - AKA we don't believe we are better placed than a judge to know whether sufficient evidence has been presented to allow law enforcement access to data about a user of our platform. Unless you're starting from a premise that bad actors don't exist, and the police never do anything of value, there needs to be a facility by which police perform the role we expect of them in a ci…

Sorry, I edited my comment a lot. I guess if a judge wants they should be able to watch you poo, pity we don’t have mandatory poo cams yet. The judge should according to the laws be able to hear what you say to your wife at night. Just that technology hasn’t caught up with what the law dictates yet. After all, who are we to say what’s right? That’s for the professionals like the people who passed the AAA bill.

It's easy to create hypotheticals.

Who would you suggest should decide, when shown evidence that a spear phishing that stole thousands of dollars came from an email account, whether the provider should be requested to hand over data.

Policing isn't all poo cams.

I'd prefer that a judge tell me whether the police have sufficient evidence for a data request than have to make that call myself.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#36

Post by rjvs »

Jerry2 wrote: post #15

Their "Actions we are taking" section is almost entirely composed of a political lobbying strategy. Given the outcome of the vote, 44 votes for and only 12 against, their plan doesn't exude much confidence. I would have expected plans to move data and key technologists out of Australia at the very least. The company I work for uses Fastmail but our CEO has already decided to switch mail providers sometime in 2019. I…

The opposition had a list of changes that they were requiring for passage of the bill but caved at the last minute to pass the bill before the end of the year and announce that they would be changing it in the first sitting session next year.

Passage of this bill seems to have been all about the government attempting to create short-term political opportunities and the opposition attempting to minimise their short-term political risk. With effective lobbying, it seems reasonable to assume that the ongoing legal part of this mess can be fixed. Hopefully the reputational damage won't be too severe.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#37

Post by brongondwana »

kortilla wrote: post #29
brongondwana wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, I just lost $100. Thanks. We had a bet on how long it would take for somebody to say "just relocate your entire company and all your staff's lives to another jurisdiction".

Maybe jammygit is on the other side of that bet... :)

Hey, good point. That would be a neat scam...

(Not the only one who suggested the same thing though)

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#38

Post by mtgx »

brongondwana wrote: post #19
mtgx wrote: post #13

So the article's tl;dr is basically: "We're advocating for privacy, but we aren't going to try to offer you any. We never did, and we certainly won't now that this law passed. You're on your own." Is this supposed to be a PR-positive announcement from FastMail, because I can't quite tell?!

We never offered, and never claimed to offer, a safe haven for people who have broken the law in both Australia and their own country to hide from the police. We don't place ourselves above law enforcement. We don't have data trading agreements with anybody, and we don't sell or provide backdoor channels - we only provide data in response to lawful warrants. That's the right amount of privacy and the right tradeoff w…

> We never offered, and never claimed to offer, a safe haven for people who have broken the law in both Australia

So are you saying that just by offering end-to-end encryption yourselves would be "helping people who have broken the law"?

Well, at least it's good to know where you stand and to have this in the public record, in case someone mistakenly thinks that Fastmail is a good alternative to other end-to-end encrypted email service providers.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#39

Post by xyzzy123 »

brongondwana wrote: post #35
xyzzy123 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I edited my comment a lot. I guess if a judge wants they should be able to watch you poo, pity we don’t have mandatory poo cams yet. The judge should according to the laws be able to hear what you say to your wife at night. Just that technology hasn’t caught up with what the law dictates yet. After all, who are we to say what’s right? That’s for the professionals like the people who passed the AAA bill.

It's easy to create hypotheticals. Who would you suggest should decide, when shown evidence that a spear phishing that stole thousands of dollars came from an email account, whether the provider should be requested to hand over data. Policing isn't all poo cams. I'd prefer that a judge tell me whether the police have sufficient evidence for a data request than have to make that call myself.

I am also glad the experts will decide how to keep us safe. Thanks for helping.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#40

Post by emptybits »

brongondwana wrote: post #19
mtgx wrote: post #13

So the article's tl;dr is basically: "We're advocating for privacy, but we aren't going to try to offer you any. We never did, and we certainly won't now that this law passed. You're on your own." Is this supposed to be a PR-positive announcement from FastMail, because I can't quite tell?!

We never offered, and never claimed to offer, a safe haven for people who have broken the law in both Australia and their own country to hide from the police. We don't place ourselves above law enforcement. We don't have data trading agreements with anybody, and we don't sell or provide backdoor channels - we only provide data in response to lawful warrants. That's the right amount of privacy and the right tradeoff w…

> We don't place ourselves above law enforcement.

Of course this is reasonable, but I'm curious what you think of companies who do put themselves above law enforcement when it's the right thing to do.

i.e. lawmakers do not always make laws that are right and law enforcement does not always do the right thing when interpreting and enforcing laws. A case to cite might be Apple vs. FBI in 2016. The company placed itself above law enforcement. They disagreed with law enforcement and would not cooperate when I am certain many companies would have cooperated. It was a gamble. As a user, I am glad they stood their ground and I was/am glad to give Apple my money. I've also set my businesses up on FastMail at least twice, which is why I ask.

Maybe only a company with Apple's resources can take a risk like this? Thoughts?

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