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“The key point here is that we need to modernise our laws and get access to information for holding criminals and terrorists to account for investigations and g

“The key point here is that we need to modernise our laws and get access to information for holding criminals and terrorists to account for investigations and gathering evidence,” he said. great, now you might catch the dumb ones, but is there a shortage of secure communication channels? :)

shakna 8y ago
> "The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that," he said on Friday. "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia." - Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull I'm not certain that they understand what they're asking for, can't be done. That is, there are politicians who believe math can be bent to fit the law.
- SyneRyder 8y ago
  It was a throwaway joke comment - Turnbull is much smarter than that. Worth noting that Malcolm Turnbull made part of his money from investing in the internet sector in the early 90s. He invested $500,000 in OzEMail (one of Australia's first internet service providers) back in 1994, and sold his stake for $57 Million to Worldcom in 1999. He's not an engineer, but he's not entirely ignorant on these matters.
  - shakna 8y ago
    However, it is representative of his backers. And the comment wasn't given in jest, but to reopen the backdoor debate. I'm not worried he doesn't understand, but the rest of the party?
  - dbuder 8y ago
    Yet he butchered the NBN and keeps passing laws to hurt internet commerce.
  - rando444 8y ago
    He might not be ignorant, but this whole request couldn't be more vague, and to an outsider makes no sense. I mean asking Facebook to reveal encrypted data? What even is that? The data is stored readable on both the device and presumably facebook's servers, and is only encrypted in-transit if a user enables that. Are they asking that the data not be secure in-transit? It's a nonsense request, until they clarify what exactly it is they want.
- doctorstupid 8y ago
  People always seem to miss the point of that joke, which is that the physical enforcement of the law can be readily used to persuade people into surrendering encryption keys.
- kevin_b_er 8y ago
  They can mandate to make working encryption illegal if they want. It might mean its impossible to conduct any form of secure technological communication in or with Australia, but they can legislate electricity to be illegal too. If this ruins them economically, maybe the world needs a proper example of what happens when politicians don't understand science.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    You’re more optimistic than me if you think a proper example will stop this sort of thing. How much hyperinflation happened since the Weimar Republic? (On the other hand, didn’t the first crypto wars end around the time someone put the RSA equations onto a T-shirt to circumvent export rules?)
    - mmt 8y ago
      I think I still have at least one "This shirt is a munition" T-shirt with machine readable (barcode) RSA code (in C?) on it. That might be what you're thinking of. The point wasn't to circumvent anything but to draw attention to the absurdity of the rules, which persisted for quite some time after the shirt. The equations themselves were never export restricted, nor was computer code printed in text in a book (since OCR wasn't considered good enough at the time yet). It doesn't stand out as a great example of "on the other hand".
      - ben_w 8y ago
        Huh, OK. I was a kid when it happened, so I guess it was misreported to me. Thanks for letting me know.

shakna 8y ago

> "The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that," he said on Friday. "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia." - Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull I'm not certain that they understand what they're asking for, can't be done. That is, there are politicians who believe math can be bent to fit the law.

SyneRyder 8y ago
It was a throwaway joke comment - Turnbull is much smarter than that. Worth noting that Malcolm Turnbull made part of his money from investing in the internet sector in the early 90s. He invested $500,000 in OzEMail (one of Australia's first internet service providers) back in 1994, and sold his stake for $57 Million to Worldcom in 1999. He's not an engineer, but he's not entirely ignorant on these matters.
- shakna 8y ago
  However, it is representative of his backers. And the comment wasn't given in jest, but to reopen the backdoor debate. I'm not worried he doesn't understand, but the rest of the party?
- dbuder 8y ago
  Yet he butchered the NBN and keeps passing laws to hurt internet commerce.
- rando444 8y ago
  He might not be ignorant, but this whole request couldn't be more vague, and to an outsider makes no sense. I mean asking Facebook to reveal encrypted data? What even is that? The data is stored readable on both the device and presumably facebook's servers, and is only encrypted in-transit if a user enables that. Are they asking that the data not be secure in-transit? It's a nonsense request, until they clarify what exactly it is they want.
doctorstupid 8y ago
People always seem to miss the point of that joke, which is that the physical enforcement of the law can be readily used to persuade people into surrendering encryption keys.
kevin_b_er 8y ago
They can mandate to make working encryption illegal if they want. It might mean its impossible to conduct any form of secure technological communication in or with Australia, but they can legislate electricity to be illegal too. If this ruins them economically, maybe the world needs a proper example of what happens when politicians don't understand science.
- ben_w 8y ago
  You’re more optimistic than me if you think a proper example will stop this sort of thing. How much hyperinflation happened since the Weimar Republic? (On the other hand, didn’t the first crypto wars end around the time someone put the RSA equations onto a T-shirt to circumvent export rules?)
  - mmt 8y ago
    I think I still have at least one "This shirt is a munition" T-shirt with machine readable (barcode) RSA code (in C?) on it. That might be what you're thinking of. The point wasn't to circumvent anything but to draw attention to the absurdity of the rules, which persisted for quite some time after the shirt. The equations themselves were never export restricted, nor was computer code printed in text in a book (since OCR wasn't considered good enough at the time yet). It doesn't stand out as a great example of "on the other hand".
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Huh, OK. I was a kid when it happened, so I guess it was misreported to me. Thanks for letting me know.