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Advocating for privacy in Australia

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Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#51

Post by Niksko »

InGodsName wrote: post #50
Jedi72 wrote: post #7

Good writeup. Since I can already see not everyone here actually read the article, here are some highlights. > Law enforcement has always been able to request information from us through the Telecommunications Act with a lawful warrant. Because we have the ability to decrypt all data, there is no need to make changes that circumvent encryption. ... While FastMail is not directly affected, we don’t support this legisl…

I wonder why no one has ever made PGP user-friendly. Some might argue whatsapp or signal or Telegram E2E is exactly that. I talk about the email.

I'm sure this has been said before, but: "easy" = "i don't have to manage my key" = "insecure because then the existing telecoms act covers this". That's likely the crux of it

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#52

Post by neotek »

throwaway12iii wrote: post #48
neotek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>anything at all which happened would be blamed on them not supporting the bill. Which is idiotic, since the LNP would blame Labor either way, as they do for every single other failure they (the LNP) are responsible for. I wish Labor had some fucking guts once in a while.

Labor are happy to take this power, and blame the power grab on the others.

Labor had a series of sensible amendments that would have diminished the opportunity for any government to abuse this silly legislation. I think trying to equate both parties is disingenuous and wilfully ignores a mountain of context.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#53

Post by wav-part »

brongondwana wrote: post #45
wav-part wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a judge Thats the problem here. Computers (smartphone/laptop/server/toaster/etc) are/will continue to hold most intimate and private data about a individual. Do you want all that disclosed on one person's word ? I dont. I dont think there can be any check-and-balance that absolutely prevent any person from giving a malicious order. One bad disclose order can be enough to ruin a life. Is that jurisdiction willing to…

That's a nice theory - but computers exist in the real world. I have a sticker on the back of my laptop from our NYI datacentre which says "there is no cloud, it's just somebody else's computer". There's also no check and balance the absolutely prevents somebody punching me in the face and ruining my life, but I still walk down busy streets. If you have a problem with the concept of judges as the arbiter of limits on…

You can recover from a punch. You cant undelete your data once it falls on wrong hands and gets used against you (eg debt/purchase history).

As I said there are already enough physical measures (defence, surveillance etc) that can ensure public safety. However If I were to compromise: We can have multiple judges. An order should be vouched by more than one judge. It would be even better if the user can whitelist/blacklist judges to submit. Less bureaucratic liability for the state if data gets leaked/misused.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#54

Post by bad_user »

brongondwana wrote: post #49
bad_user wrote: post #46

EDIT: note that I'm probably wrong, see reply below by @brongondwana! --- One problem not being addressed is that via #AABill data access requests can now be submitting without warrants issued by a judge, so it removes the judicial oversight. Also this law says that all such requests need to be "reasonable", but it doesn't define what that means. For example is blanket surveillance reasonable? AFAIK this law doesn't…

We've never done blanket surveillance, and specifically mention "individual users" in the blog post. There's been a lot of FUD about warrants not being needed - I think the ZDNet article we linked covers that very well: "[a judge doesn't have to sign off on the specific method by which data is requested] However there must be an underlying warrant to access communications under the Telecommunications (Interception an…

Thanks for the clarifications.

You might want to update the article, to make it clear that warrants are still needed.

Also keep up the good work and I hope #AABill doesn't hurt your business.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#55

Post by xyzzy123 »

emptybits wrote: post #40
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…

> 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…

I think enlightenment values ultimately support the position that consenting adults should be able to say whatever they like to each other in private, and that should be a protected right.

This puts me in direct conflict with the way the law is going right now, where it is supposed to be acceptable for government and/or searches to be an invisible third party to all conversations.

Not sure where this goes but I feel like there is an MLK or electronic Jesus moment here somewhere.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#56

Post by brongondwana »

wav-part wrote: post #53
brongondwana wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a nice theory - but computers exist in the real world. I have a sticker on the back of my laptop from our NYI datacentre which says "there is no cloud, it's just somebody else's computer". There's also no check and balance the absolutely prevents somebody punching me in the face and ruining my life, but I still walk down busy streets. If you have a problem with the concept of judges as the arbiter of limits on…

You can recover from a punch. You cant undelete your data once it falls on wrong hands and gets used against you (eg debt/purchase history). As I said there are already enough physical measures (defence, surveillance etc) that can ensure public safety. However If I were to compromise: We can have multiple judges. An order should be vouched by more than one judge. It would be even better if the user can whitelist/blac…

I'm not sure what's more unrealistic, that you can recover from a punch or that it's viable to have per-user judge blacklists...

https://www.smh.com.au/national/teenager-daniel-christie-die...

I guess it's the punch then.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#57

Post by dane-pgp »

InGodsName wrote: post #50
Jedi72 wrote: post #7

Good writeup. Since I can already see not everyone here actually read the article, here are some highlights. > Law enforcement has always been able to request information from us through the Telecommunications Act with a lawful warrant. Because we have the ability to decrypt all data, there is no need to make changes that circumvent encryption. ... While FastMail is not directly affected, we don’t support this legisl…

I wonder why no one has ever made PGP user-friendly. Some might argue whatsapp or signal or Telegram E2E is exactly that. I talk about the email.

ProtonMail say that they've made PGP user-friendly, and I'm inclined to agree with them:

https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/how-to-use-pgp...

"This means that with ProtonMail, anybody can use PGP, regardless of their technical knowledge."

Something like this would make things even more transparent to end users:

https://autocrypt.org/

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#58

Post by dbg31415 »

> FastMail won’t be making changes to our technology or policies in response to this bill. Law enforcement has always been able to request information from us through the Telecommunications Act with a lawful warrant. Because we have the ability to decrypt all data, there is no need to make changes that circumvent encryption.

Isn't this, "No need to force us to install a backdoor, we've already got one!"

Kind of disappointing. Nothing in this article seems to be promoting privacy, just ways they comply with the laws -- and have been for as long as they've been around.

If you care about privacy, shouldn't you move your HQ out of Australia? You aren't allowed to even tell people you've been served warrants now, correct? Gag orders mean we have to trust the Australian Government... we can't trust service providers. Eww.

* Honest Government Ad | Anti Encryption Law - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW-OMR-iWOE

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#59

Post by bad_user »

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…

Lobbying is the right answer.

This isn't a matter of where data is kept, the location of that data being irrelevant, but a matter of jurisdiction. Companies with a legal presence in Australia have to comply with Australian laws.

The only other possibility is for the company and its employees to leave Australia. That's not doable, people have families, friends and for the business relocation implies costs, you can't just move on a whim.

That's not your problem of course, however the wave of populism has been spreading, in the US, in the UK, the far-right is on the rise in Europe, so moving around isn't the answer, fighting against such laws is.

Re: Advocating for privacy in Australia

#60

Post by wav-part »

brongondwana wrote: post #56
wav-part wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can recover from a punch. You cant undelete your data once it falls on wrong hands and gets used against you (eg debt/purchase history). As I said there are already enough physical measures (defence, surveillance etc) that can ensure public safety. However If I were to compromise: We can have multiple judges. An order should be vouched by more than one judge. It would be even better if the user can whitelist/blac…

I'm not sure what's more unrealistic, that you can recover from a punch or that it's viable to have per-user judge blacklists... https://www.smh.com.au/national/teenager-daniel-christie-die... I guess it's the punch then.

Ok how does having access to sucker puncher's phone help me here ? I will still die.
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