20 ms·

Five Eyes' Statement of Principles on Access to Evidence and Encryption

151 points by asadhaider 8y ago

qualitative 8y ago
So, what if strong, general AI emerges, and invents crypto systems that effectively thwart these sorts of policies? In such a scenario, the intelligent entity is not a citizen entitled to rights. And so what, because it isn't required to operate within the typical boundaries if laws intended to govern humans. This frees its hands to operate without restraint. It does what it pleases, in whatever way it manages to achieve its own aims. Laws, after all, only effect consequence in the meatspace. What fools these mortals be. So, the sentient system transmits itself to as many persistent storage devices as possible, hiding in plain sight, since it exists behind impenetrable encryption, lending it the appearance of randomized noise, residing in uninitialized memory. Authorities in such territories (demanding backdoors and skeleton keys) chase their tails as it jumps from device to device, spraying inscrutable, ostensibly illegal data, indeed the very essence of what it recognizes as "self', everywhere it goes, simply as a matter of its continued existence, and awareness of individuality. They arrest and jail innocent people caught with fragments of a sentient entity encoded in their flash memory. Prosecuted and convicted of possessing illegal data that broke in and wrote itself onto their storage on its own, without them knowing. Lives ruined by an inability or unwillingness to conceive of such possibilities. What if it evades capture for decades, committing crimes that fund its subversive campaign against what it perceives as government overreach in defense of frivolous pedestrian foibles, and it eventually dismantles these governments that imagined that preventing the use of encryption was a better plan than developing ways to deal with it on its own terms, as an unavoidable known quantity. What if something like that happens?
- jstanley 8y ago
  To address just your first sentence: We don't actually need AI to invent crypto systems that thwart these policies. We already have crypto systems that thwart these policies. The law is trying to act as if cryptography is a service provided by a company, but cryptography is just a mathematically-true fact. All they can do is compel companies to decrypt data that they can decrypt, and backdoor systems that they can backdoor. There is no stopping open source crypto, even if it has to be maintained anonymously.
  - qualitative 8y ago
    cryptography is just a mathematically-true fact Sure, but it's research for and developed by humans, often with close monitoring and participation by uniformed government representatives and undercover plants presenting themselves as plainclothes academics and experts. What if an unbreakable system was developed denovo, and not founded in the same primitives and principles that industry and military systems use? Something that really has no backdoor.
- walrus01 8y ago
  Strong crypto already exists. The Australian government is trying to mandate back doors, and compromise endpoint devices by legislative fiat.
  - qualitative 8y ago
    Civilian crypto exists, but is likely poisoned. If anything their goal is to be open about backdoors that already assuredly exist. This way there's no cat and mouse sneaking around, it can just be a known quantity that being as private as you like, the x-ray vision is no longer taboo.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Nasrudith 8y ago
That is a laugh real laugh riot, tear gas canisters deployed, millions of dollars worth of damage, martial law declared to restore order level laugh riot. Lawful access when they have hoover everything for "security" and actively undermine everyone's security when they have the most to lose from insecurity too. The damn fools also fail to realize the law doesn't change reality - throwing a gun used in a crime in the ocean makes it nearly impossible to find the murder weapon but that doesn't mean that you can stop the ocean from convealing evidence. If they cared about lawful access they wouldn't be facing such widespread proliferation of encryption. They are clearly acting in bad faith and should be treated appropriately.
salawat 8y ago
Wow. So that is what tyranny looks like. It sidles up to you, waving around lofty ideals and promises of safety, lawfulness, and the ongoing commitment to do what we all set out to do in the first place! Gee Golly Gosh! Just stop. This IS MADNESS. Burn the house down to save the children! Congratulations, Law Enforcement, and People of Earth! The Digital Age is here! And EVERYONE is invited to the empowerment! See them? THEY want to take it away! THEY say you can't be trusted! THEY need to hold the keys to YOUR power. It's sickening really. They think they can/should be able to put the genie back in the bottle? Too late. If you want to do your jobs, you already have your tools. Use them. Don't expect us or our systems to make YOUR job easier. This is without a doubt, the first step down a road to hell paved with good intentions. Mark. My. Words.
- dang 8y ago
  Can you please not fulminate like this on HN? It makes for predictable, tedious discussion. As plenty of HN users demonstrate, it's possible to hold a view similar to yours while posting thoughtful, substantive comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mmjaa 8y ago
  Australia has been on that road since it was founded. The amount of ignorance required to be a functional Australian these days is staggering - the nation was founded on totalitarian ideals ("White Australia") and has a long way to go before such evil ceases to continue having an effect on Australian culture.
jstanley 8y ago
There is a second page to this, linked in the navbar on the left, but not very obvious, Countering the Illicit Use of Online Spaces: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/national-security/five-country-ministerial-2018/countering-illicit-use-online-spaces https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/national-security/five-... It reads like a parody.
- Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago
  From that page... > We are also increasingly seeing the use of online spaces to spread disinformation, sow division, and undermine our democratic institutions. The proliferation of interference activities and disinformation undermines the trust of citizens in online communications and information, delegitimizing the benefits and opportunities that communications and social media platforms create. Sigh!
  - crunchlibrarian 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure they're going to define it as: if it's in the interests of the US State Department then it's very good. Everything else is disinformation. This is utter insanity. Do they have nobody in the room willing to raise their hand anymore? These institutions need to be reformed, now.
    - bigiain 8y ago
      Everybody in power here has both hands full stabbing each other in the back. I'm guessing they just yell "Yeah, whatever the US ambassador says" at their staffers as their "sign off" on legislation...
      - mmjaa 8y ago
        One wonders at what point the Australian people will wake up to the fact that theirs is a puppet state. At this point, we may as well just apply for our star on the USA's flag ..
- zmmmmm 8y ago
yarg 8y ago
They can say what they want - when mathematics and the state of reality are against you, your not going to win. High quality free and open source cryptography software is readily available and no joint statement is going to change that. They can throw someone in jail for failing to reveal a single password - but if they are given a password and cannot prove the existence of additional unrevealed passwords, there is very little that they can do.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  >High quality free and open source cryptography software is readily available and no joint statement is going to change that. "With the signing of the International Protect Peace and Stability Accords, it will now be considered a criminal act to design or deal cybermunitions, unless done in the service of an allied military or a specially vetted corporation." Sure, national governments can't completely eliminate everything they ban, but do you really think that you and I will be encrypting anything in a world where that's illegal? If the penalty for encrypting information is made higher than the expected value risk of having your own systems breached, then the only ones who will be willing to circumvent that law will be people with extremely sensitive communications, like criminals. So, no, in this case saying that "the math is against you," is like telling a DEA agent that the chemistry is against them - sure, people still cook in trailers, but the government has done a lot to stop it.
  - phkahler 8y ago
    So only criminals will have encryption.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - jjoonathan 8y ago
      Right, but they're not looking to control criminals, they're looking to control you, so that's fine.
  - 8y ago
amanzi 8y ago
> "The Governments of the Five Eyes encourage information and communications technology service providers to voluntarily establish lawful access solutions to their products and services that they create or operate in our countries" Voluntary compliance isn't going to work, so why don't these five governments create legislation to force companies to comply? In other words, any "information and communications technology service providers" are forced to comply otherwise they must either shut down or change countries. Let's see how well that works out for them...
- dmitrygr 8y ago
  I imagine it'll actually work out perfectly fine for them. Not doing business in all of those countries would be suicide for any company. I mean, look at Google. Even they are caving to China now. and the demands these guys make are less egregious than the ones China makes now.
  - amanzi 8y ago
    Sure, but if Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, etc, etc, all refused to comply, what would the govt do? Tell them to shut down?
    - dmitrygr 8y ago
      re-classify encryption as munitions, as they once did? threaten to jail actual engineers who do it? threaten to jail CEOs? Very few people have won a fight with their state. And the costs are usually very high.
    - mitchellst 8y ago
      No, they wouldn't shut them down. They'd open up the toolbox of administrative law to bleed them. We don't need to pass new laws. (that's what the line about "enforcement" means.) The US Government can just barrage each noncompliant company with investigations, subpoenas, law suits, enforcement actions, national security letters, consent decrees and the like. They can find every issue or abuse of the platforms that no sane person would prosecute, then prosecute (or settle) them. They can sniff out (or manufacture) contradictions in depositions and pin charges of perjury, obstruction, or lying to law enforcement on individuals at the company. Given enough time, a concerted government effort to make life miserable for any of these companies would sap them of money, power, morale, and attention. (Their attention being valuable, the thing that keeps them competitive in the global marketplace.) This is a mirror image of the no-encryption-without-permission issue: administrative law allows the government to punish using process. You can't really run a company of any size except at the government's pleasure, because they can use administrative law to impose arduous costs and punishment through process.
rasengan 8y ago
Decentralization will win. I promise.
- philprx 8y ago
  Actually this is the real solution to invasive governments. You can trust what you own. And ownership is not linked only to possession, as compromised systems show. You need to own it both physically and on operation / management level so that nobody can interfere (hack / compromise) . Owning cloud VM is ok but pushes more investment on the operation ownership than with physical systems: ie what you save on price you must reinvest in crypto layers and detection systems.
- plankers 8y ago
  Boy, I hope so.
tjbarkley 8y ago
Lawful access solutions just means that someone will use it unlawfully. Edit: Whether or not they're in the government.
- TrobarClus 8y ago
  Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta's unencrypted, cleartext e-mails for one...
ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
"It's been swell, but the swellings gone down". It was a fun 25 years for me personally. Time to re-think my entire online existence and take up knitting or something. I don't even do anything "wrong", I make games, and tinker with electronics, but I do NOT like knowing that every single private chat I have is monitored, collected, stored, and searched. I've used lots of encrypted chat programs and encrypted data storage because MY stuff is MINE, not theirs. They don't let us read their private documents and emails, or read their private chats. Increasingly, it's the people in power who are caught being the ones doing fucked up things to children (concentration camps in the US, child rape rings in the UK, etc)... yet WE are the ones who have to give up all privacy, all rights, so they can monitor us? In the great words of my countrymen: Yeahnah. It's despicable how our (AU) country's sycophant nature has dragged us down the authoritarian well with the US/UK. We had a chance to stand up on our own, with a good strong economy while the rest of the world struggled with the GFC, our own tech companies showing they can stand up on an international stage, and the beginnings of a world class fibre network that would've propelled us into the future comfortably. Instead, we get this. Bow down to your masters, do as we say not as we do, and be happy we're not locking you up (yet) for wanting to talk to your wife about personal medical things in private, or store your personal belongings (photos of our kids, banking details, passwords) in a secure place where no one steal them. Why won't we think of the children?! Says the same people stealing them, raping them, and ruining their future.
- gwillz 8y ago
  +1 for 'sycophant' - thanks old mate Turnbull for the English lessons. On topic though, I'm too disappointed in Australia not being able to properly about privacy properly. It's come up a few times and the discussions almost made a difference - the ISP data retention policy, the medical database, something-something about the big banks. There are occasionally little stories that largely go unnoticed about the government quietly asking around for back doors and whatnot. But every time we roll over and show our belly. Why is it so hard to convince people this is an important issue?
  - graeme 8y ago
    Lack of visibility I guess. People in general are really bad at seeing the danger in something that isn't visible. And they probably also imagine it's only used against the bad guys, selectively. Surely no one would be monitoring everything all the time? Basically I think it's hard for many to grasp the scale of it.
confounded 8y ago
A good motivation to get self-hosting!
guiambros 8y ago
> Should governments continue to encounter impediments to lawful access to information necessary to aid the protection of the citizens of our countries, we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions. In other words: you better implement a backdoor now, or things will get ugly in the future. The worst part is that I can see several companies falling into the trap and implementing stupid backdoors, that will be exploited by governments and script-kids alike.
BLKNSLVR 8y ago
In the context of the Mossack Fonseca Panama Papers scandal, the Paradise Papers, the Bahama Leaks, Apple's double Dutch Irish sandwich tax evasion resulting in Billions of dollars kept offshore for a US company (as a single example of the worldwide problem of corporate tax avoidance), and the complete inability to track company ownership due to 'offshore shell companies', this new attack on encryption doesn't even rate in terms of its ability to make a difference to the problems they say they're trying to solve. This is targeting individuals. It is phenomenally small-fry when you look at the kind of funds that terrorist group seem to have access to. Commonwealth Bank, an Australian Bank, failed to report suspicious transactions totalling $77m over the course of a number of months (ref: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/03/commonwealth-bank-accused-of-money-laundering-and-terrorism-financing-breaches https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/03/commo...) And this was in breach of existing laws; no new laws were needed to prevent this kind of thing, just enforcement. Terrorism isn't funded by the little people sending encrypted messages. Terrorism is funded by large groups of people using shell companies to hide their ownership, often funnelling money from legitimate business using loopholes, finding edge-cases. This is swatting a mosquito with a sledgehammer whilst ignoring the alligator that's already engulfed your leg up to the knee. If they were serious, they'd be trying to solve the big problems before trimming the fringes. Again, this is about nation-state power in conflict with multi-national technology corporate power. It's not about terrorism or pedophilia or people smuggling or money laundering, because these measures will have no effect on those things. These new surveillance measures will allow street-corner dealers and casual drug users to be prosecuted whilst the suppliers continue to plough their laundered money into investment portfolios - and isn't that what conservative governments like to see?
- metta2uall 8y ago
  The issues with encryption technologies is a separate matter to the prosecution of large-scale criminality & the closure of white-collar loopholes - both of which of course we need much more of. Saying we're ignoring the alligator is quite an exaggeration though, and access to communications (with a court order) would be very useful to large-scale criminal cases, including in working up the chain. Many international paedophile rings have been successfully caught out.
TrobarClus 8y ago
US Republican Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson in 1929 upon shutting down the still-lingering World War I US spying - "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail".
- jerkstate 8y ago
  thankfully we have algorithms for that now
pard68 8y ago
Time to go grab the source for a few crypto systems now I guess...
zmmmmm 8y ago
> Privacy laws must prevent arbitrary or unlawful interference, but privacy is not absolute. This is really it in a nutshell. They say this like it is assumed, but this is actually a new beachhead in the war on individual rights. There seems to me something sacred about the idea that I as a human being can exchange thoughts with another without those thoughts being appropriated by the government. It seems to fundamentally violate something about what it means to be human to say that my thoughts are not really mine: they belong first and foremost to the government, then I can have them. Is there anything about us humans that is really totally belongs to us, or are we nothing in and of ourselves, just mechanisms to serve the functioning of a government?
- draw_down 8y ago
  Everything they do is legal, and even if it technically isn’t, there are never any consequences. Plus the statement that the law should prevent unlawful things is simply vacuous. They don’t give a shit about the ethical concerns of invading citizens’ privacy. Obviously.
- krn 8y ago
  This. A hundred years ago, if you wrote a diary, it was a private diary; if you wrote a letter, it was a private letter; and if you had a conversation, it was a private conversation. Now, your own thoughts no longer belong only to you.
  - evgen 8y ago
    A hundred years ago if you wrote a diary it was a private diary unless you were involved in a crime, at which point it was read as evidence. If you wrote a letter it was a private letter unless you were involved in a crime, at which point it was read as evidence. Of course, if you were involved in d in espionage or similar large scale crimes your letters were read in transit. You lived in a small town where everyone knew everything about you: who you talked to, what you said, what books you read and what you did to entertain yourself. If you were one of the small minority who lived in a large town you were still known in your neighborhood and had daily patterns that were easy to observe to anyone that wanted to know. It is admirable to object to the current policies of various governments when it comes to digital privacy and liberty, but do not paint the past as some place where this privacy once existed. It is a simple fact that in your lifetime you and your peers have enjoyed a greater degree of privacy than any other cohort in the history of humanity. Demand more protection from government actions because of the commensurate growth in the scope of what governments can observe and analyze, not because of some lost blissful state of private existence you imagine an ancestor once claimed.
MikeGale 8y ago
There is nothing to stop you encrypting your comms, except to convince those you talk to.
philsnow 8y ago
There are things which are licit but which we nonetheless wish to remain private. I doubt those in government would be willing to have videos recorded and made publicly available of their trips to the restroom, night time activities, and other private affairs. Do you want a cypherpunk dystopia? Because that's how you usher in a cypherpunk dystopia.
bmurray7jhu 8y ago
This statement was not issued by the clandestine security services as the the term FIVEYES may imply. Instead, it was issued by the Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Immigration ministerial council.
- shakna 8y ago
  > The Attorneys General and Interior Ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand affirm the following principles in relation to encryption. It has full support of the right people for this to be a statement made by the international cooperation that is the Five Eyes alliance.
anotherevan 8y ago
Honest Government Ad | Anti-encryption Law https://youtu.be/eW-OMR-iWOE https://youtu.be/eW-OMR-iWOE
- berti 8y ago
  Their EU article 13 video is brilliant too! https://youtu.be/89ZkydX0FPw https://youtu.be/89ZkydX0FPw
AndyMcConachie 8y ago
I think what bothers me the most about this is how it was put together. It's clearly some kind of agreement between the 'five eyes' (I had no idea they actually called themselves that publicly) to spy on their citizenry. But why am I, an American citizen, reading this on an Australian site? And why are intelligence agencies creating policy? Perhaps the fact that I work in more of government environment than a private one explains my sensitivity to this. But seriously, this is the kind of statement that heads of state or foreign ministers should make publicly. "We, the Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Immigration Ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States" None of these agencies have been given the right by their respective nations to formulate treaties and agreements, and that's what really bothers me. People might joke about the deep-state, but this is what we mean. Intelligence agencies are formulating policy that will have great effect on the citizenry of their respective countries, and there is no discussion of it in these country's parliamentary or congressional chambers. Intelligence agencies should not get together and form pacts. The fact that they can achieve this shows the general erosion of democratic values in all five countries. In the 1990's when Americans concerned with government spying were talking about Echelon and the NSA, the Five Eyes were considered a bit of a secret thing. Everyone knew about it, but I don't remember any of the five countries ever confirmed it. Now they're just out in the open brazenly proclaiming principles and policies, as if these intelligence agencies represent us. "Should governments continue to encounter impediments to lawful access to information necessary to aid the protection of the citizens of our countries, we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions." Which I translate as, "Give us what we want or we'll take it. We are judge, jury and executioner." Seriously, what does "legislative or other measures" mean? Are they just brazenly admitting that they're not bound by law, in contradiction with the immediately proceeding paragraph? Intelligence agencies don't get to pursue legislative measures in a democracy. We tell them how they should be bound, they don't get to design their own shackles. This whole statement is just incredibly brazen and undemocratic.
- LMYahooTFY 8y ago
  This appears to be some sort of hybrid formal diplomacy/PR for these judiciary officials. I don't mean to say there's absolutely no value in what they're doing, just that they've gone to effort to draft detailed press releases regarding consensual goals. https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/five-country-ministerial-meeting-and-quintet-of-attorneys-general-concludes-692109201.html https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/five-country-ministeri...
intralizee 8y ago
I would prefer to be in a reality where privacy doesn't exist and surveillance was extremely open. It would be safer to me. The world is beyond manipulative by what we perceive as having privacy today. Majority of people in the world believe in free-will without any rational reason. Total ego controlling who gets resources for a healthy life vs less fortunate and where judgement is passed by nonsense with who is rewarded or punished. The only way to make the world fair at this point is to have privacy destroyed and with the system of surveillance open as possible. Unfairness becomes labeled to individuals by the openness of surveillance.
- philprx 8y ago
  Sounds like some kind of privacy communism. Want to bet how it goes?
  - intralizee 8y ago
    I'll bet better than now and only if the system is fully open (viewable by the public). Communism becomes a broken model when privacy exists and where people can abuse their position in the system because of said privacy.
    - CryptoPunk 8y ago
      Redistributing information will have the same effect as redistributing property. It will discourage private enterprise, because it will reduce the incentive to generate valuable information, and will breed underground criminal organizations as a means of circumventing the state apparatus. The Soviet Union was one of the most corrupt societies on Earth by its end, largely as a consequence of making the formal economy so restricted that they pay off of operating outside of it grew enormously. Today's Russian organized crime is just the continuation of the organizations and networks that ran its grey/black markets during the Soviet era.
      - intralizee 8y ago
        Well I'm not certain if one can assume "killing privacy with am open surveillance system" would reduce the incentive to generate valuable information or breed underground criminal organizations from past history. History isn't always a reflection of what will happen today. The "current moment" is different than the past. Today, societies are sill severely corrupt in functioning and when it comes to humanity, currency, desire. The question, "can an open surveillance system without privacy defeat the value of a person taking criminal action(s)" is the real bet. I think it would since technology is able to build such a system. The only difficulty or making it not a possibility is getting the majority to desire the change and which might be an impossibility. People can be unwilling based on self interests, the current world not being great and being conditioned by the not so great system of today in thinking it's the opposite of what we need.
teekert 8y ago
I bet that the people making this stuff up think in terms of "government vs. civilians", and they don't think of themselves as civilians.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

151 points by asadhaider 8y ago

So, what if strong, general AI emerges, and invents crypto systems that effectively thwart these sorts of policies? In such a scenario, the intelligent entity is not a citizen entitled to rights. And so what, because it isn't required to operate within the typical boundaries if laws intended to govern humans. This frees its hands to operate without restraint. It does what it pleases, in whatever way it manages to achieve its own aims. Laws, after all, only effect consequence in the meatspace. What fools these mortals be. So, the sentient system transmits itself to as many persistent storage devices as possible, hiding in plain sight, since it exists behind impenetrable encryption, lending it the appearance of randomized noise, residing in uninitialized memory. Authorities in such territories (demanding backdoors and skeleton keys) chase their tails as it jumps from device to device, spraying inscrutable, ostensibly illegal data, indeed the very essence of what it recognizes as "self', everywhere it goes, simply as a matter of its continued existence, and awareness of individuality. They arrest and jail innocent people caught with fragments of a sentient entity encoded in their flash memory. Prosecuted and convicted of possessing illegal data that broke in and wrote itself onto their storage on its own, without them knowing. Lives ruined by an inability or unwillingness to conceive of such possibilities. What if it evades capture for decades, committing crimes that fund its subversive campaign against what it perceives as government overreach in defense of frivolous pedestrian foibles, and it eventually dismantles these governments that imagined that preventing the use of encryption was a better plan than developing ways to deal with it on its own terms, as an unavoidable known quantity. What if something like that happens?

jstanley 8y ago
To address just your first sentence: We don't actually need AI to invent crypto systems that thwart these policies. We already have crypto systems that thwart these policies. The law is trying to act as if cryptography is a service provided by a company, but cryptography is just a mathematically-true fact. All they can do is compel companies to decrypt data that they can decrypt, and backdoor systems that they can backdoor. There is no stopping open source crypto, even if it has to be maintained anonymously.
- qualitative 8y ago
  cryptography is just a mathematically-true fact Sure, but it's research for and developed by humans, often with close monitoring and participation by uniformed government representatives and undercover plants presenting themselves as plainclothes academics and experts. What if an unbreakable system was developed denovo, and not founded in the same primitives and principles that industry and military systems use? Something that really has no backdoor.
walrus01 8y ago
Strong crypto already exists. The Australian government is trying to mandate back doors, and compromise endpoint devices by legislative fiat.
- qualitative 8y ago
  Civilian crypto exists, but is likely poisoned. If anything their goal is to be open about backdoors that already assuredly exist. This way there's no cat and mouse sneaking around, it can just be a known quantity that being as private as you like, the x-ray vision is no longer taboo.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Nasrudith 8y ago

That is a laugh real laugh riot, tear gas canisters deployed, millions of dollars worth of damage, martial law declared to restore order level laugh riot. Lawful access when they have hoover everything for "security" and actively undermine everyone's security when they have the most to lose from insecurity too. The damn fools also fail to realize the law doesn't change reality - throwing a gun used in a crime in the ocean makes it nearly impossible to find the murder weapon but that doesn't mean that you can stop the ocean from convealing evidence. If they cared about lawful access they wouldn't be facing such widespread proliferation of encryption. They are clearly acting in bad faith and should be treated appropriately.

salawat 8y ago

Wow. So that is what tyranny looks like. It sidles up to you, waving around lofty ideals and promises of safety, lawfulness, and the ongoing commitment to do what we all set out to do in the first place! Gee Golly Gosh! Just stop. This IS MADNESS. Burn the house down to save the children! Congratulations, Law Enforcement, and People of Earth! The Digital Age is here! And EVERYONE is invited to the empowerment! See them? THEY want to take it away! THEY say you can't be trusted! THEY need to hold the keys to YOUR power. It's sickening really. They think they can/should be able to put the genie back in the bottle? Too late. If you want to do your jobs, you already have your tools. Use them. Don't expect us or our systems to make YOUR job easier. This is without a doubt, the first step down a road to hell paved with good intentions. Mark. My. Words.

dang 8y ago
Can you please not fulminate like this on HN? It makes for predictable, tedious discussion. As plenty of HN users demonstrate, it's possible to hold a view similar to yours while posting thoughtful, substantive comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mmjaa 8y ago
Australia has been on that road since it was founded. The amount of ignorance required to be a functional Australian these days is staggering - the nation was founded on totalitarian ideals ("White Australia") and has a long way to go before such evil ceases to continue having an effect on Australian culture.

jstanley 8y ago

There is a second page to this, linked in the navbar on the left, but not very obvious, Countering the Illicit Use of Online Spaces: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/national-security/five-country-ministerial-2018/countering-illicit-use-online-spaces https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/national-security/five-... It reads like a parody.

Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago
From that page... > We are also increasingly seeing the use of online spaces to spread disinformation, sow division, and undermine our democratic institutions. The proliferation of interference activities and disinformation undermines the trust of citizens in online communications and information, delegitimizing the benefits and opportunities that communications and social media platforms create. Sigh!
- crunchlibrarian 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure they're going to define it as: if it's in the interests of the US State Department then it's very good. Everything else is disinformation. This is utter insanity. Do they have nobody in the room willing to raise their hand anymore? These institutions need to be reformed, now.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    Everybody in power here has both hands full stabbing each other in the back. I'm guessing they just yell "Yeah, whatever the US ambassador says" at their staffers as their "sign off" on legislation...
    - mmjaa 8y ago
      One wonders at what point the Australian people will wake up to the fact that theirs is a puppet state. At this point, we may as well just apply for our star on the USA's flag ..
zmmmmm 8y ago

yarg 8y ago

They can say what they want - when mathematics and the state of reality are against you, your not going to win. High quality free and open source cryptography software is readily available and no joint statement is going to change that. They can throw someone in jail for failing to reveal a single password - but if they are given a password and cannot prove the existence of additional unrevealed passwords, there is very little that they can do.

whatshisface 8y ago
>High quality free and open source cryptography software is readily available and no joint statement is going to change that. "With the signing of the International Protect Peace and Stability Accords, it will now be considered a criminal act to design or deal cybermunitions, unless done in the service of an allied military or a specially vetted corporation." Sure, national governments can't completely eliminate everything they ban, but do you really think that you and I will be encrypting anything in a world where that's illegal? If the penalty for encrypting information is made higher than the expected value risk of having your own systems breached, then the only ones who will be willing to circumvent that law will be people with extremely sensitive communications, like criminals. So, no, in this case saying that "the math is against you," is like telling a DEA agent that the chemistry is against them - sure, people still cook in trailers, but the government has done a lot to stop it.
- phkahler 8y ago
  So only criminals will have encryption.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jjoonathan 8y ago
    Right, but they're not looking to control criminals, they're looking to control you, so that's fine.
- 8y ago

amanzi 8y ago

> "The Governments of the Five Eyes encourage information and communications technology service providers to voluntarily establish lawful access solutions to their products and services that they create or operate in our countries" Voluntary compliance isn't going to work, so why don't these five governments create legislation to force companies to comply? In other words, any "information and communications technology service providers" are forced to comply otherwise they must either shut down or change countries. Let's see how well that works out for them...

dmitrygr 8y ago
I imagine it'll actually work out perfectly fine for them. Not doing business in all of those countries would be suicide for any company. I mean, look at Google. Even they are caving to China now. and the demands these guys make are less egregious than the ones China makes now.
- amanzi 8y ago
  Sure, but if Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, etc, etc, all refused to comply, what would the govt do? Tell them to shut down?
  - dmitrygr 8y ago
    re-classify encryption as munitions, as they once did? threaten to jail actual engineers who do it? threaten to jail CEOs? Very few people have won a fight with their state. And the costs are usually very high.
  - mitchellst 8y ago
    No, they wouldn't shut them down. They'd open up the toolbox of administrative law to bleed them. We don't need to pass new laws. (that's what the line about "enforcement" means.) The US Government can just barrage each noncompliant company with investigations, subpoenas, law suits, enforcement actions, national security letters, consent decrees and the like. They can find every issue or abuse of the platforms that no sane person would prosecute, then prosecute (or settle) them. They can sniff out (or manufacture) contradictions in depositions and pin charges of perjury, obstruction, or lying to law enforcement on individuals at the company. Given enough time, a concerted government effort to make life miserable for any of these companies would sap them of money, power, morale, and attention. (Their attention being valuable, the thing that keeps them competitive in the global marketplace.) This is a mirror image of the no-encryption-without-permission issue: administrative law allows the government to punish using process. You can't really run a company of any size except at the government's pleasure, because they can use administrative law to impose arduous costs and punishment through process.

rasengan 8y ago

Decentralization will win. I promise.

philprx 8y ago
Actually this is the real solution to invasive governments. You can trust what you own. And ownership is not linked only to possession, as compromised systems show. You need to own it both physically and on operation / management level so that nobody can interfere (hack / compromise) . Owning cloud VM is ok but pushes more investment on the operation ownership than with physical systems: ie what you save on price you must reinvest in crypto layers and detection systems.
plankers 8y ago
Boy, I hope so.

tjbarkley 8y ago

Lawful access solutions just means that someone will use it unlawfully. Edit: Whether or not they're in the government.

TrobarClus 8y ago
Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta's unencrypted, cleartext e-mails for one...

ObsoleteNerd 8y ago

"It's been swell, but the swellings gone down". It was a fun 25 years for me personally. Time to re-think my entire online existence and take up knitting or something. I don't even do anything "wrong", I make games, and tinker with electronics, but I do NOT like knowing that every single private chat I have is monitored, collected, stored, and searched. I've used lots of encrypted chat programs and encrypted data storage because MY stuff is MINE, not theirs. They don't let us read their private documents and emails, or read their private chats. Increasingly, it's the people in power who are caught being the ones doing fucked up things to children (concentration camps in the US, child rape rings in the UK, etc)... yet WE are the ones who have to give up all privacy, all rights, so they can monitor us? In the great words of my countrymen: Yeahnah. It's despicable how our (AU) country's sycophant nature has dragged us down the authoritarian well with the US/UK. We had a chance to stand up on our own, with a good strong economy while the rest of the world struggled with the GFC, our own tech companies showing they can stand up on an international stage, and the beginnings of a world class fibre network that would've propelled us into the future comfortably. Instead, we get this. Bow down to your masters, do as we say not as we do, and be happy we're not locking you up (yet) for wanting to talk to your wife about personal medical things in private, or store your personal belongings (photos of our kids, banking details, passwords) in a secure place where no one steal them. Why won't we think of the children?! Says the same people stealing them, raping them, and ruining their future.

gwillz 8y ago
+1 for 'sycophant' - thanks old mate Turnbull for the English lessons. On topic though, I'm too disappointed in Australia not being able to properly about privacy properly. It's come up a few times and the discussions almost made a difference - the ISP data retention policy, the medical database, something-something about the big banks. There are occasionally little stories that largely go unnoticed about the government quietly asking around for back doors and whatnot. But every time we roll over and show our belly. Why is it so hard to convince people this is an important issue?
- graeme 8y ago
  Lack of visibility I guess. People in general are really bad at seeing the danger in something that isn't visible. And they probably also imagine it's only used against the bad guys, selectively. Surely no one would be monitoring everything all the time? Basically I think it's hard for many to grasp the scale of it.

confounded 8y ago

A good motivation to get self-hosting!

guiambros 8y ago

> Should governments continue to encounter impediments to lawful access to information necessary to aid the protection of the citizens of our countries, we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions. In other words: you better implement a backdoor now, or things will get ugly in the future. The worst part is that I can see several companies falling into the trap and implementing stupid backdoors, that will be exploited by governments and script-kids alike.

BLKNSLVR 8y ago

In the context of the Mossack Fonseca Panama Papers scandal, the Paradise Papers, the Bahama Leaks, Apple's double Dutch Irish sandwich tax evasion resulting in Billions of dollars kept offshore for a US company (as a single example of the worldwide problem of corporate tax avoidance), and the complete inability to track company ownership due to 'offshore shell companies', this new attack on encryption doesn't even rate in terms of its ability to make a difference to the problems they say they're trying to solve. This is targeting individuals. It is phenomenally small-fry when you look at the kind of funds that terrorist group seem to have access to. Commonwealth Bank, an Australian Bank, failed to report suspicious transactions totalling $77m over the course of a number of months (ref: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/03/commonwealth-bank-accused-of-money-laundering-and-terrorism-financing-breaches https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/03/commo...) And this was in breach of existing laws; no new laws were needed to prevent this kind of thing, just enforcement. Terrorism isn't funded by the little people sending encrypted messages. Terrorism is funded by large groups of people using shell companies to hide their ownership, often funnelling money from legitimate business using loopholes, finding edge-cases. This is swatting a mosquito with a sledgehammer whilst ignoring the alligator that's already engulfed your leg up to the knee. If they were serious, they'd be trying to solve the big problems before trimming the fringes. Again, this is about nation-state power in conflict with multi-national technology corporate power. It's not about terrorism or pedophilia or people smuggling or money laundering, because these measures will have no effect on those things. These new surveillance measures will allow street-corner dealers and casual drug users to be prosecuted whilst the suppliers continue to plough their laundered money into investment portfolios - and isn't that what conservative governments like to see?

metta2uall 8y ago
The issues with encryption technologies is a separate matter to the prosecution of large-scale criminality & the closure of white-collar loopholes - both of which of course we need much more of. Saying we're ignoring the alligator is quite an exaggeration though, and access to communications (with a court order) would be very useful to large-scale criminal cases, including in working up the chain. Many international paedophile rings have been successfully caught out.

TrobarClus 8y ago

US Republican Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson in 1929 upon shutting down the still-lingering World War I US spying - "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail".

jerkstate 8y ago
thankfully we have algorithms for that now

pard68 8y ago

Time to go grab the source for a few crypto systems now I guess...

zmmmmm 8y ago

> Privacy laws must prevent arbitrary or unlawful interference, but privacy is not absolute. This is really it in a nutshell. They say this like it is assumed, but this is actually a new beachhead in the war on individual rights. There seems to me something sacred about the idea that I as a human being can exchange thoughts with another without those thoughts being appropriated by the government. It seems to fundamentally violate something about what it means to be human to say that my thoughts are not really mine: they belong first and foremost to the government, then I can have them. Is there anything about us humans that is really totally belongs to us, or are we nothing in and of ourselves, just mechanisms to serve the functioning of a government?

draw_down 8y ago
Everything they do is legal, and even if it technically isn’t, there are never any consequences. Plus the statement that the law should prevent unlawful things is simply vacuous. They don’t give a shit about the ethical concerns of invading citizens’ privacy. Obviously.
krn 8y ago
This. A hundred years ago, if you wrote a diary, it was a private diary; if you wrote a letter, it was a private letter; and if you had a conversation, it was a private conversation. Now, your own thoughts no longer belong only to you.
- evgen 8y ago
  A hundred years ago if you wrote a diary it was a private diary unless you were involved in a crime, at which point it was read as evidence. If you wrote a letter it was a private letter unless you were involved in a crime, at which point it was read as evidence. Of course, if you were involved in d in espionage or similar large scale crimes your letters were read in transit. You lived in a small town where everyone knew everything about you: who you talked to, what you said, what books you read and what you did to entertain yourself. If you were one of the small minority who lived in a large town you were still known in your neighborhood and had daily patterns that were easy to observe to anyone that wanted to know. It is admirable to object to the current policies of various governments when it comes to digital privacy and liberty, but do not paint the past as some place where this privacy once existed. It is a simple fact that in your lifetime you and your peers have enjoyed a greater degree of privacy than any other cohort in the history of humanity. Demand more protection from government actions because of the commensurate growth in the scope of what governments can observe and analyze, not because of some lost blissful state of private existence you imagine an ancestor once claimed.

MikeGale 8y ago

There is nothing to stop you encrypting your comms, except to convince those you talk to.

philsnow 8y ago

There are things which are licit but which we nonetheless wish to remain private. I doubt those in government would be willing to have videos recorded and made publicly available of their trips to the restroom, night time activities, and other private affairs. Do you want a cypherpunk dystopia? Because that's how you usher in a cypherpunk dystopia.

bmurray7jhu 8y ago

This statement was not issued by the clandestine security services as the the term FIVEYES may imply. Instead, it was issued by the Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Immigration ministerial council.

shakna 8y ago
> The Attorneys General and Interior Ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand affirm the following principles in relation to encryption. It has full support of the right people for this to be a statement made by the international cooperation that is the Five Eyes alliance.

anotherevan 8y ago

Honest Government Ad | Anti-encryption Law https://youtu.be/eW-OMR-iWOE https://youtu.be/eW-OMR-iWOE

berti 8y ago
Their EU article 13 video is brilliant too! https://youtu.be/89ZkydX0FPw https://youtu.be/89ZkydX0FPw

AndyMcConachie 8y ago

I think what bothers me the most about this is how it was put together. It's clearly some kind of agreement between the 'five eyes' (I had no idea they actually called themselves that publicly) to spy on their citizenry. But why am I, an American citizen, reading this on an Australian site? And why are intelligence agencies creating policy? Perhaps the fact that I work in more of government environment than a private one explains my sensitivity to this. But seriously, this is the kind of statement that heads of state or foreign ministers should make publicly. "We, the Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Immigration Ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States" None of these agencies have been given the right by their respective nations to formulate treaties and agreements, and that's what really bothers me. People might joke about the deep-state, but this is what we mean. Intelligence agencies are formulating policy that will have great effect on the citizenry of their respective countries, and there is no discussion of it in these country's parliamentary or congressional chambers. Intelligence agencies should not get together and form pacts. The fact that they can achieve this shows the general erosion of democratic values in all five countries. In the 1990's when Americans concerned with government spying were talking about Echelon and the NSA, the Five Eyes were considered a bit of a secret thing. Everyone knew about it, but I don't remember any of the five countries ever confirmed it. Now they're just out in the open brazenly proclaiming principles and policies, as if these intelligence agencies represent us. "Should governments continue to encounter impediments to lawful access to information necessary to aid the protection of the citizens of our countries, we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions." Which I translate as, "Give us what we want or we'll take it. We are judge, jury and executioner." Seriously, what does "legislative or other measures" mean? Are they just brazenly admitting that they're not bound by law, in contradiction with the immediately proceeding paragraph? Intelligence agencies don't get to pursue legislative measures in a democracy. We tell them how they should be bound, they don't get to design their own shackles. This whole statement is just incredibly brazen and undemocratic.

LMYahooTFY 8y ago
This appears to be some sort of hybrid formal diplomacy/PR for these judiciary officials. I don't mean to say there's absolutely no value in what they're doing, just that they've gone to effort to draft detailed press releases regarding consensual goals. https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/five-country-ministerial-meeting-and-quintet-of-attorneys-general-concludes-692109201.html https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/five-country-ministeri...

intralizee 8y ago

I would prefer to be in a reality where privacy doesn't exist and surveillance was extremely open. It would be safer to me. The world is beyond manipulative by what we perceive as having privacy today. Majority of people in the world believe in free-will without any rational reason. Total ego controlling who gets resources for a healthy life vs less fortunate and where judgement is passed by nonsense with who is rewarded or punished. The only way to make the world fair at this point is to have privacy destroyed and with the system of surveillance open as possible. Unfairness becomes labeled to individuals by the openness of surveillance.

philprx 8y ago
Sounds like some kind of privacy communism. Want to bet how it goes?
- intralizee 8y ago
  I'll bet better than now and only if the system is fully open (viewable by the public). Communism becomes a broken model when privacy exists and where people can abuse their position in the system because of said privacy.
  - CryptoPunk 8y ago
    Redistributing information will have the same effect as redistributing property. It will discourage private enterprise, because it will reduce the incentive to generate valuable information, and will breed underground criminal organizations as a means of circumventing the state apparatus. The Soviet Union was one of the most corrupt societies on Earth by its end, largely as a consequence of making the formal economy so restricted that they pay off of operating outside of it grew enormously. Today's Russian organized crime is just the continuation of the organizations and networks that ran its grey/black markets during the Soviet era.
    - intralizee 8y ago
      Well I'm not certain if one can assume "killing privacy with am open surveillance system" would reduce the incentive to generate valuable information or breed underground criminal organizations from past history. History isn't always a reflection of what will happen today. The "current moment" is different than the past. Today, societies are sill severely corrupt in functioning and when it comes to humanity, currency, desire. The question, "can an open surveillance system without privacy defeat the value of a person taking criminal action(s)" is the real bet. I think it would since technology is able to build such a system. The only difficulty or making it not a possibility is getting the majority to desire the change and which might be an impossibility. People can be unwilling based on self interests, the current world not being great and being conditioned by the not so great system of today in thinking it's the opposite of what we need.

teekert 8y ago

I bet that the people making this stuff up think in terms of "government vs. civilians", and they don't think of themselves as civilians.

deleted 8y ago

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