4 ms·

Australia rushes its ‘dangerous’ anti-encryption bill into parliament

39 points by qzervaas 8y ago

brokenmachine 8y ago
This bill is terrifyingly ham-fisted, contradictory and dangerous. Also techcrunch's page is ridiculous. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, it goes to the next story and you literally can't scroll back up. I've never seen a page ruin scrolling so badly.
fit2rule 8y ago
This is bad for Australians and bad for anyone doing business in Australia. I already know of a case where an Australian subsidiary is being shut down and all operations being moved to Europe in response to this draconian measure on the part of the Australian government. The company just doesn't want the liability of operating in such an environment, and has now classified Australia as equivalent to China in terms of risk factor. So, a multi-million dollar budget goes to Europe instead, and Australia loses a tech leader. This is only going to hurt the Australian people.
- sdwisely 8y ago
  As an Australian - good. Move away from us, we should be considered toxic. It's the best thing that can happen for the rest of the world and it's the best thing that can happen for Australians.
  - SturgeonsLaw 8y ago
    Also an Aussie, and I completely agree. Can you imagine the shitstorm if, say, Apple refused to release any more devices here due to this legislation? It would cause an uproar - every politician that voted for this bill would know that their head is on the chopping block when the next election rolls around.
    - sdwisely 8y ago
      and it looks like it just passed the senate unammended. We are officially bad citizens of the internet and our contributions should be scrutinized as such. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-06/labor-backdown-federal-government-to-pass-greater-surveillance/10591944 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-06/labor-backdown-federa...
      - fit2rule 8y ago
        Its not just the Internet. This is just a side-effect of a worse infliction. Australias human rights record needs serious inspection. Also, its militarism is scary.
  - fit2rule 8y ago
    The best thing that could happen for Australia and Australians is that the Australian public stop being so feckless and get their political classes under control. I have little hope of that happening, however. Australians would rather smash avocados than exercise their sovereign rights to demand better politicians.
    - brokenmachine 8y ago
      What can I do? Both sides passed this abomination. I'll vote for privacy. Please give me an option.
      - fit2rule 8y ago
        Support the EFF, go to their events, get informed and inform your family and peers. Support the effort to ensure that Australians get a Bill of Rights. https://www.efa.org.au https://www.efa.org.au
- brokenmachine 8y ago
  We are infected and contagious. We can't be trusted and don't deserve technology. Take your business elsewhere. Please quarantine us so our sickness can't spread.
auslander 8y ago
I checked digitalrightswatch.com.au, there is a video of a hearings they did with parliament people. They did not even bothered to be present, the girl was on skype and a guy on the phone. Room was empty.
7568fgvcert364 8y ago
The only way to punish Australia will be to completely distrust every bit of code from that police state island. Move all your code off Atlassian bitbucket and close your Jira tickets. Shut down your AWS Sydney EC2 instances. Fire all the Google Australia employees. It is all now tainted, and you can't trust a thing.
lathiat 8y ago
Thankfully because the government didn't want to get steamrolled on an asylum seeker bill, this bill didn't get rushed through today (which is the last sitting day of the year). So we get more time for it to simmer until next year... Which is great, because trying to rush it through was a farce. My favorite part is where there were 170 amendments made and published only at 9:30AM today with the debate/vote on the issue only 3 hours later. And it wasn't the only topic of discussion. Meaning basically no one would have read let alone understood or considered all of the amendments. I know the USA had a similar situation recently, passing some new controversial bill with several hundred pages of unread amendments (I can't remember which it was, but it wasn't long ago) I really wish that kind of process was outlawed (har har). These processes should generally ensure people have had adequate time to read an consider all changes, amendments, etc. Of course the Australian government continually tried to side step normal due process this month, specifically calling to skip over normal process. The whole thing disgusts me, regardless of how good an idea you think the general scheme is or not (spoiler alert I don't think it's a good idea, but even if you did, the details can really matter and shouldn't be rushed). Some more details from the sizzle: https://share.thesizzle.com.au/antiaa.html https://share.thesizzle.com.au/antiaa.html - An Australian
- lathiat 8y ago
  Seems like it did in fact pass in the end, doh.
ggm 8y ago
As an Australian and residents can tell you we all think the stupid is great here. It's like a clue free zone around law enforcement claims

39 points by qzervaas 8y ago

This bill is terrifyingly ham-fisted, contradictory and dangerous. Also techcrunch's page is ridiculous. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, it goes to the next story and you literally can't scroll back up. I've never seen a page ruin scrolling so badly.

fit2rule 8y ago

This is bad for Australians and bad for anyone doing business in Australia. I already know of a case where an Australian subsidiary is being shut down and all operations being moved to Europe in response to this draconian measure on the part of the Australian government. The company just doesn't want the liability of operating in such an environment, and has now classified Australia as equivalent to China in terms of risk factor. So, a multi-million dollar budget goes to Europe instead, and Australia loses a tech leader. This is only going to hurt the Australian people.

sdwisely 8y ago
As an Australian - good. Move away from us, we should be considered toxic. It's the best thing that can happen for the rest of the world and it's the best thing that can happen for Australians.
- SturgeonsLaw 8y ago
  Also an Aussie, and I completely agree. Can you imagine the shitstorm if, say, Apple refused to release any more devices here due to this legislation? It would cause an uproar - every politician that voted for this bill would know that their head is on the chopping block when the next election rolls around.
  - sdwisely 8y ago
    and it looks like it just passed the senate unammended. We are officially bad citizens of the internet and our contributions should be scrutinized as such. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-06/labor-backdown-federal-government-to-pass-greater-surveillance/10591944 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-06/labor-backdown-federa...
    - fit2rule 8y ago
      Its not just the Internet. This is just a side-effect of a worse infliction. Australias human rights record needs serious inspection. Also, its militarism is scary.
- fit2rule 8y ago
  The best thing that could happen for Australia and Australians is that the Australian public stop being so feckless and get their political classes under control. I have little hope of that happening, however. Australians would rather smash avocados than exercise their sovereign rights to demand better politicians.
  - brokenmachine 8y ago
    What can I do? Both sides passed this abomination. I'll vote for privacy. Please give me an option.
    - fit2rule 8y ago
      Support the EFF, go to their events, get informed and inform your family and peers. Support the effort to ensure that Australians get a Bill of Rights. https://www.efa.org.au https://www.efa.org.au
brokenmachine 8y ago
We are infected and contagious. We can't be trusted and don't deserve technology. Take your business elsewhere. Please quarantine us so our sickness can't spread.

auslander 8y ago

I checked digitalrightswatch.com.au, there is a video of a hearings they did with parliament people. They did not even bothered to be present, the girl was on skype and a guy on the phone. Room was empty.

7568fgvcert364 8y ago

The only way to punish Australia will be to completely distrust every bit of code from that police state island. Move all your code off Atlassian bitbucket and close your Jira tickets. Shut down your AWS Sydney EC2 instances. Fire all the Google Australia employees. It is all now tainted, and you can't trust a thing.

lathiat 8y ago

Thankfully because the government didn't want to get steamrolled on an asylum seeker bill, this bill didn't get rushed through today (which is the last sitting day of the year). So we get more time for it to simmer until next year... Which is great, because trying to rush it through was a farce. My favorite part is where there were 170 amendments made and published only at 9:30AM today with the debate/vote on the issue only 3 hours later. And it wasn't the only topic of discussion. Meaning basically no one would have read let alone understood or considered all of the amendments. I know the USA had a similar situation recently, passing some new controversial bill with several hundred pages of unread amendments (I can't remember which it was, but it wasn't long ago) I really wish that kind of process was outlawed (har har). These processes should generally ensure people have had adequate time to read an consider all changes, amendments, etc. Of course the Australian government continually tried to side step normal due process this month, specifically calling to skip over normal process. The whole thing disgusts me, regardless of how good an idea you think the general scheme is or not (spoiler alert I don't think it's a good idea, but even if you did, the details can really matter and shouldn't be rushed). Some more details from the sizzle: https://share.thesizzle.com.au/antiaa.html https://share.thesizzle.com.au/antiaa.html - An Australian

lathiat 8y ago
Seems like it did in fact pass in the end, doh.

ggm 8y ago

As an Australian and residents can tell you we all think the stupid is great here. It's like a clue free zone around law enforcement claims