8 ms·

Australia’s Proposed Surveillance Laws Will Break the Trust Tech Depends On

177 points by DiabloD3 8y ago

elitistphoenix 8y ago
Typical government. Scream terrorists and paedophiles and try and erode people's freedom even more because no one can disagree /s
- Guthur 8y ago
  Why the sarcasm? I suppose it's not that you can't disagree it's just that apathy means many won't and walk heard first into a Soviet/east german stasi society. This is even the stuff of fiction we have recent history to look upon. But it's all for the greater good, right? Born of compassion and a desire to protect surely?
  - consp 8y ago
    At least the stasi took the effort to do it themselves (as it was a police state anyway). The Australian order would force you to comply. Though as a company, for this law, I would be sure to take the possibility for bad press and loss of customers into the billing calculations. And those are huge.
  - Ntrails 8y ago
    > apathy means many won't and walk heard first into a Soviet/east german stasi society. It could be apathy, or it could be that they genuinely believe the government is doing the right thing. Don't discount the latter because the former is easier for your worldview
dbg31415 8y ago
In related news... * 1,464 Western Australian government officials used ‘Password123’ as their password. Cool, cool. - The Washington Post || https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/22/western-australian-government-officials-used-password-their-password-cool-cool/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/22/western...
- adiusmus 8y ago
  The P is capitalised. What more security do you need? These are the same people that want all Australians to move their health records online and made it manual opt-out. Amongst every other system uses old methods. The tax system doesn’t use 2FA. At least the credit cards use a chip and PIN... oh wait, now on contactless payment.
marcus_holmes 8y ago
Always find it amazing how strong the urge to authoritarianism is in Australia. You'd think we'd all be larrikins and chilled out on the beach inviting newcomers to the barbie. But no, we're apparently terrified of immigrants and love nothing more than the smack of firm leadership.
- taneq 8y ago
  All of the larrikins are now in their 60s and 70s and are terrified that anyone else might have the same fun that they had.
  - marcus_holmes 8y ago
    I think you might be right. It certainly feels that way.
- Osmanthus 8y ago
  I think Australia received too many nationalistic Chinese, "They are not sending their best!" in Trump's voice, the best and brightest Chinese usually go to NA or EU, Australia is really the last resort as a Western country. These Chinese generally are rich kids who only want the foreign diploma, and stash family wealth away from China. So, good luck with that Chinese influence.
  - dang 8y ago
    We've banned this account for using HN for nationalistic flamewar. That is not allowed here, regardless of which nation you're attacking or defending. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules. That will eventually get your main account banned as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dfsegoat 8y ago
  Just to support your point: The govt. also decided to seize everyone's firearms in 1996.
dane-pgp 8y ago
All the more reason to speed up the deployment and implementation of Binary Transparency: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Binary_Transparency https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Binary_Transparency Even if this is only used to detect after-the-fact that an attack has happened, that will still help us to assess the scale of the risks that software users face, and maybe allow citizens to hold governments accountable for how they use the dangerous powers they are seeking.
cascom 8y ago
I was planning on moving over to fast mail over Labor Day, not so sure now.
- Arubis 8y ago
  That’s an excellent point. I may not renew with them, and it has nothing to do with FastMail themselves. Australia seems like precisely the right-sized society to be affected by pushback against this sort of behavior without being large enough to overwhelm outside opposition.
  - Semaphor 8y ago
    So, what FastMail alternatives are there to be recommended?
    - philipov 8y ago
      Maybe ProtonMail?
      - Semaphor 8y ago
        It's a decent alternative, but the lack of FIDO 2FA is somewhat disappointing.
    - xamlhacker 8y ago
      I use Runbox. Interface is not as slick but service is excellent.
      - Semaphor 8y ago
        I mainly use the webclient, the interface for runbox is sadly atrocious (composing a mail even gave me a horizontal scrollbar)
    - BLKNSLVR 8y ago
      Disroot.org, https://disroot.org/en https://disroot.org/en ProtonMail, https://www.protonmail.com https://www.protonmail.com Tutanota, https://tutanota.com https://tutanota.com Zohomail, https://zoho.com https://zoho.com The first three are just copied and pasted from this article: https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/foss-software-alternatives-popular-proprietary-software https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/foss-software-alternati... I've used (am using) Zoho for a domain of mine. It doesn't see a lot of use - but it's worked whenever I've needed it.
Intermernet 8y ago
Apparently, this was overseen by the Department of Home Affairs. The recently appointed PM of Australia (Scott Morrison) used to be the Minister for Home Affairs. His new appointment to the role (Peter Dutton) was one of the primary instigators in the recent power exchange (he actually wanted the top job for himself, but lost the party vote). Considering the history of both of these men, I predict a grim history for Australia's privacy related laws. They're both staunchly pro-surveillance, anti-immigration (to the point of racism) and, I suspect, highly corrupt. I know that last statement is accusative, but Peter Dutton is currently embroiled in a situation where he released a French au pair and her partner from immigration detention because (allegedly) her prospective employer's second cousin lobbied the government to do so, and that family has donated large amounts of funds to the party. Meanwhile, others are held in sub-human conditions purely for trying to arrive in Australia as refugees, by boat. This situation is unfolding right now, but I doubt there will be any fallout. Australia's current leadership was not voted in by the population of the country (as seems to be the trend for the last few years, no matter who you voted for), and seems to be set on an anti-privacy, liberty-destroying, nationalist agenda. As an Australian, I'm incredibly embarrassed by all involved.
- ajdlinux 8y ago
  Small correction: Morrison was not Minister for Home Affairs, he was Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Dutton was appointed Minister for Home Affairs upon establishment of DHA at the end of 2017. Before the establishment of DHA, which merged Immigration with other "national security" matters, responsibility for general law enforcement matters, including the telecommunications interception laws, the metadata retention scheme, and so on, lay with the Attorney-General's Department, not the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. DHA is a portfolio that's more or less specifically designed to deliver policy like this and frame everything in terms of "national security". Even the DHA staff I personally know aren't fans of how the structure of the national security bureaucracy has changed over the last year. My bigger problem here is lack of pushback from the Opposition. The "bipartisan consensus" on national security matters need not mean uncritical acceptance of badly-designed laws and inhumane policies.
- stephen_g 8y ago
aldoushuxley001 8y ago
Well that's dark. Unfortunately, I suspect Canada is not far from proposing a similar bill. Currently the federal liberals are working on an Anti-Foreign Interference bill that plans on clamping down on free speech in social media in a very serious way. Scary times, authoritarianism sneaks in.
- adiusmus 8y ago
  Free speech in Australia is weak. The constitution is excited about voting as protected speech. But not for private individuals. It takes acts of state governments to provide the necessary framework. For those playing along for the thrill of reading long text: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/freedom-information-opinion-and-expression https://www.humanrights.gov.au/freedom-information-opinion-a...
- emptybits 8y ago
  Concerned Canadian here. You're referring to Bill C-76 (the "Anti-Foreign Interference" and/or "Election Modernization Act")? Is there a good critical analysis (WRT free speech) of this bill you can recommend? Text of bill is here: http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-76/first-reading http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-76/first-re...
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
trust? what is that?
tobyhinloopen 8y ago
I Also Like Capital Letters For Every Word
linuxftw 8y ago
If only there was some theory of government that limited the government's power. Something that specifically granted powers to the government, and no other powers, so we wouldn't have to worry about this kind of stuff in the future when an ill-informed majority wants to make decisions for the rest of us.
- lozenge 8y ago
  I'm not aware of one? Bureaucracies have their ways of squirming past any goal you set. (See: patriot act, NSLs, FISA court, Anwar Al-Awlaki)
  - linuxftw 8y ago
    Indeed. This requires a lot of buy-in and a lot of voter accountability.
BLKNSLVR 8y ago
1. This feels like the beginnings of the inevitable and on-going battles for power between technology-based multinationals and governments as foretold in various dystopian sci-fi novels. 2. Whilst all the issues in the article are cause for concern, what are the practical, technical and legal limitations to these requests? As I stated in a comment to a previous article, warrants are required for pursuing end-users (don't know about companies), so that means it's not a willy-nilly application of new powers. It wouldn't be practical to pursue trivial crimes through forcing a company to release an intentionally insecure app update that targets one person. Having said that, however, the Australian Government has authorised warrants to raid the homes of whistleblowers and their lawyers (see below), so I'm probably underestimating the pettiness of the powerful. 3. Further articles illustrating Australia's recent and worrying lurch towards authoritarianism and nationalism: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-28/witness-k-and-bernard-collaery-charged-intelligence-act-breach/9919268 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-28/witness-k-and-bernard-... http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-29/chelsea-manning-australian-government-may-ban-entry/10180236 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-29/chelsea-manning-austra... http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-23/huawei-banned-from-providing-5g-mobile-technology-australia/10155438 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-23/huawei-banned-from-pro... First they helped to liberate East Timor and I said "good onya, mate", then they tried to screw billions of dollars from East Timor by illegally planting listening devices in the offices of the East Timorese government and I said "whoa, hang on a sec, that's Unaustralian! That's not why we helped them achieve independence in the first place is it? You sly c*nts!", then they came for my private messages...

177 points by DiabloD3 8y ago

Typical government. Scream terrorists and paedophiles and try and erode people's freedom even more because no one can disagree /s

Guthur 8y ago
Why the sarcasm? I suppose it's not that you can't disagree it's just that apathy means many won't and walk heard first into a Soviet/east german stasi society. This is even the stuff of fiction we have recent history to look upon. But it's all for the greater good, right? Born of compassion and a desire to protect surely?
- consp 8y ago
  At least the stasi took the effort to do it themselves (as it was a police state anyway). The Australian order would force you to comply. Though as a company, for this law, I would be sure to take the possibility for bad press and loss of customers into the billing calculations. And those are huge.
- Ntrails 8y ago
  > apathy means many won't and walk heard first into a Soviet/east german stasi society. It could be apathy, or it could be that they genuinely believe the government is doing the right thing. Don't discount the latter because the former is easier for your worldview

dbg31415 8y ago

In related news... * 1,464 Western Australian government officials used ‘Password123’ as their password. Cool, cool. - The Washington Post || https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/22/western-australian-government-officials-used-password-their-password-cool-cool/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/22/western...

adiusmus 8y ago
The P is capitalised. What more security do you need? These are the same people that want all Australians to move their health records online and made it manual opt-out. Amongst every other system uses old methods. The tax system doesn’t use 2FA. At least the credit cards use a chip and PIN... oh wait, now on contactless payment.

marcus_holmes 8y ago

Always find it amazing how strong the urge to authoritarianism is in Australia. You'd think we'd all be larrikins and chilled out on the beach inviting newcomers to the barbie. But no, we're apparently terrified of immigrants and love nothing more than the smack of firm leadership.

taneq 8y ago
All of the larrikins are now in their 60s and 70s and are terrified that anyone else might have the same fun that they had.
- marcus_holmes 8y ago
  I think you might be right. It certainly feels that way.
Osmanthus 8y ago
I think Australia received too many nationalistic Chinese, "They are not sending their best!" in Trump's voice, the best and brightest Chinese usually go to NA or EU, Australia is really the last resort as a Western country. These Chinese generally are rich kids who only want the foreign diploma, and stash family wealth away from China. So, good luck with that Chinese influence.
- dang 8y ago
  We've banned this account for using HN for nationalistic flamewar. That is not allowed here, regardless of which nation you're attacking or defending. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules. That will eventually get your main account banned as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dfsegoat 8y ago
Just to support your point: The govt. also decided to seize everyone's firearms in 1996.

dane-pgp 8y ago

All the more reason to speed up the deployment and implementation of Binary Transparency: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Binary_Transparency https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Binary_Transparency Even if this is only used to detect after-the-fact that an attack has happened, that will still help us to assess the scale of the risks that software users face, and maybe allow citizens to hold governments accountable for how they use the dangerous powers they are seeking.

cascom 8y ago

I was planning on moving over to fast mail over Labor Day, not so sure now.

Arubis 8y ago
That’s an excellent point. I may not renew with them, and it has nothing to do with FastMail themselves. Australia seems like precisely the right-sized society to be affected by pushback against this sort of behavior without being large enough to overwhelm outside opposition.
- Semaphor 8y ago
  So, what FastMail alternatives are there to be recommended?
  - philipov 8y ago
    Maybe ProtonMail?
    - Semaphor 8y ago
      It's a decent alternative, but the lack of FIDO 2FA is somewhat disappointing.
  - xamlhacker 8y ago
    I use Runbox. Interface is not as slick but service is excellent.
    - Semaphor 8y ago
      I mainly use the webclient, the interface for runbox is sadly atrocious (composing a mail even gave me a horizontal scrollbar)
  - BLKNSLVR 8y ago
    Disroot.org, https://disroot.org/en https://disroot.org/en ProtonMail, https://www.protonmail.com https://www.protonmail.com Tutanota, https://tutanota.com https://tutanota.com Zohomail, https://zoho.com https://zoho.com The first three are just copied and pasted from this article: https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/foss-software-alternatives-popular-proprietary-software https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/foss-software-alternati... I've used (am using) Zoho for a domain of mine. It doesn't see a lot of use - but it's worked whenever I've needed it.

Intermernet 8y ago

Apparently, this was overseen by the Department of Home Affairs. The recently appointed PM of Australia (Scott Morrison) used to be the Minister for Home Affairs. His new appointment to the role (Peter Dutton) was one of the primary instigators in the recent power exchange (he actually wanted the top job for himself, but lost the party vote). Considering the history of both of these men, I predict a grim history for Australia's privacy related laws. They're both staunchly pro-surveillance, anti-immigration (to the point of racism) and, I suspect, highly corrupt. I know that last statement is accusative, but Peter Dutton is currently embroiled in a situation where he released a French au pair and her partner from immigration detention because (allegedly) her prospective employer's second cousin lobbied the government to do so, and that family has donated large amounts of funds to the party. Meanwhile, others are held in sub-human conditions purely for trying to arrive in Australia as refugees, by boat. This situation is unfolding right now, but I doubt there will be any fallout. Australia's current leadership was not voted in by the population of the country (as seems to be the trend for the last few years, no matter who you voted for), and seems to be set on an anti-privacy, liberty-destroying, nationalist agenda. As an Australian, I'm incredibly embarrassed by all involved.

ajdlinux 8y ago
Small correction: Morrison was not Minister for Home Affairs, he was Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Dutton was appointed Minister for Home Affairs upon establishment of DHA at the end of 2017. Before the establishment of DHA, which merged Immigration with other "national security" matters, responsibility for general law enforcement matters, including the telecommunications interception laws, the metadata retention scheme, and so on, lay with the Attorney-General's Department, not the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. DHA is a portfolio that's more or less specifically designed to deliver policy like this and frame everything in terms of "national security". Even the DHA staff I personally know aren't fans of how the structure of the national security bureaucracy has changed over the last year. My bigger problem here is lack of pushback from the Opposition. The "bipartisan consensus" on national security matters need not mean uncritical acceptance of badly-designed laws and inhumane policies.
stephen_g 8y ago

aldoushuxley001 8y ago

Well that's dark. Unfortunately, I suspect Canada is not far from proposing a similar bill. Currently the federal liberals are working on an Anti-Foreign Interference bill that plans on clamping down on free speech in social media in a very serious way. Scary times, authoritarianism sneaks in.

adiusmus 8y ago
Free speech in Australia is weak. The constitution is excited about voting as protected speech. But not for private individuals. It takes acts of state governments to provide the necessary framework. For those playing along for the thrill of reading long text: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/freedom-information-opinion-and-expression https://www.humanrights.gov.au/freedom-information-opinion-a...
emptybits 8y ago
Concerned Canadian here. You're referring to Bill C-76 (the "Anti-Foreign Interference" and/or "Election Modernization Act")? Is there a good critical analysis (WRT free speech) of this bill you can recommend? Text of bill is here: http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-76/first-reading http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-76/first-re...

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

trust? what is that?

tobyhinloopen 8y ago

I Also Like Capital Letters For Every Word

linuxftw 8y ago

If only there was some theory of government that limited the government's power. Something that specifically granted powers to the government, and no other powers, so we wouldn't have to worry about this kind of stuff in the future when an ill-informed majority wants to make decisions for the rest of us.

lozenge 8y ago
I'm not aware of one? Bureaucracies have their ways of squirming past any goal you set. (See: patriot act, NSLs, FISA court, Anwar Al-Awlaki)
- linuxftw 8y ago
  Indeed. This requires a lot of buy-in and a lot of voter accountability.

BLKNSLVR 8y ago

1. This feels like the beginnings of the inevitable and on-going battles for power between technology-based multinationals and governments as foretold in various dystopian sci-fi novels. 2. Whilst all the issues in the article are cause for concern, what are the practical, technical and legal limitations to these requests? As I stated in a comment to a previous article, warrants are required for pursuing end-users (don't know about companies), so that means it's not a willy-nilly application of new powers. It wouldn't be practical to pursue trivial crimes through forcing a company to release an intentionally insecure app update that targets one person. Having said that, however, the Australian Government has authorised warrants to raid the homes of whistleblowers and their lawyers (see below), so I'm probably underestimating the pettiness of the powerful. 3. Further articles illustrating Australia's recent and worrying lurch towards authoritarianism and nationalism: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-28/witness-k-and-bernard-collaery-charged-intelligence-act-breach/9919268 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-28/witness-k-and-bernard-... http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-29/chelsea-manning-australian-government-may-ban-entry/10180236 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-29/chelsea-manning-austra... http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-23/huawei-banned-from-providing-5g-mobile-technology-australia/10155438 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-23/huawei-banned-from-pro... First they helped to liberate East Timor and I said "good onya, mate", then they tried to screw billions of dollars from East Timor by illegally planting listening devices in the offices of the East Timorese government and I said "whoa, hang on a sec, that's Unaustralian! That's not why we helped them achieve independence in the first place is it? You sly c*nts!", then they came for my private messages...