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This is another thing that adds to my deep sense of shame to live in this country (sadly, that list is long and growing). This bill does nothing to prevent the

This is another thing that adds to my deep sense of shame to live in this country (sadly, that list is long and growing). This bill does nothing to prevent the kinds of things it is intended to prevent. The apps this law targets were engineered specifically to prevent this kind of interference. The idea that passing legislation will suddenly change that, magically allowing decryption of messages is beyond idiotic. The legal and technical barriers to getting anything useful from this legislation are huge. Not to mention the ease with which this can be bypassed (run OpenVPN and IRC on an overseas server, done). The justification for rushing this was so that Australia could be kept 'safe' over Christmas. It's beyond difficult to describe how ridiculous that is. Edit: Sorry, I also have to add that in the same sitting of Parliament the government also filibustered legislation that would have enabled medical evacuation of refugee children from child detention on Nauru. It's been a bad day for Human rights in Australia.

cyphar 8y ago
> It's beyond difficult to describe how ridiculous that is. Especially since ASIO (who really wanted this bill to pass) has stated that even if the bill passed today, they wouldn't have the necessary powers before Christmas.
- daemin 8y ago
  So now any of the Five Eyes intelligence agencies can have a chat with ASIO and get them to coerce companies and individuals within companies to put these back doors in. Then they can all use the same back doors, so everyone living in the USA, UK, Canada, and New Zealand can have their encryption compromised and communications intercepted. There's no way that companies will create back doors specifically just for Australia, so everyone will have access. In terms of Australia I'm not sure what we could actually do about this. Given that it's ASIO and other government departments that want these powers and that they have tried to introduce this sort of law over the course of the last decade. Both major parties have introduced legislation such as this and both voted for it. Maybe it is time for civil disobedience, and have everyone create and distribute encryption applications for all devices, because they couldn't possibly jail everyone right? I just wonder who will be the first person jailed or the first company fined for refusing these orders. In terms of the world at large, which country should we trust now? A lot of the Western Democracies are becoming rapidly "security" focused authoritarian, and the other countries powerful enough to stand up to them are not much better. Should we trust applications with code written in Russia? What about hardware products manufactured in China? Should we trust services running in the USA? Now we also have to be wary of any company that runs a service in the Five Eyes countries. Sometimes I wonder if we really have it better than people in the middle ages or other earlier periods, in some ways it clearly is, but in others it's just the same smell coming from different shit.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    And then somebody from inside will get a guilty conscience, but remember what happened to Snowden, and just sell the backdoor straight to Huawei or NSO or Mohamad bin Salem (salving themselves by pretending they're going to donate hundreds of millions to "improving the world", but instead will by private islands and matching citizenships to Peter Thiel's...) :sigh:
    - daemin 8y ago
      Realistically, if you were a developer not in the chain of command and asked to do this: Would you? Could you? You would be knowingly putting your name to a vulnerability, and if someone asks then you have to keep it a secret and feign incompetence. Then if they revert your change you'll have to re-implement it. If you do tell your superiors (which would be most likely what would happen, even before writing the code) then you would be in violation and could be put in jail. If you refuse you would be put in jail, or they would go to the next person in their list.
      - brokenmachine 8y ago
        If you think about logistics they'd have to make contact with people in the company to even find out who the devs are who are capable of making a backdoor. That would probably tip off others in the company as to what was happening anyway. You'd think they'd essentially have to serve the whole dev team with the secret order. I think you could immediately resign. It's not a slavery bill... is it?
        daemin 8y ago
        There's LinkedIn, there's social media, there's actually keeping a record of who enters and leaves a company's premises. There's heading down to the bar after work on Friday. There's community events and meetups.
        bigiain 8y ago
- joshschreuder 8y ago
  It's 100% posturing and optics. There was nothing achieved by passing this law at the last day of sitting.
apatters 8y ago
> This is another thing that adds to my deep sense of shame to live in this country (sadly, that list is long and growing). I don't support this legislation, but I have to ask, which country is doing a better job on human rights issues than Australia in your opinion? Surely not China or nearly any country in Asia, Africa, or South America? Surely not the US? Probably not much of Europe?
- toyg 8y ago
  Iceland. But yeah, “cryptonomicon” utopias are hard to get by, these days.
- neotek 8y ago
  Why does it matter? It's not a zero sum game, what others are doing is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not what we're doing is disgustingly immoral (and it is, as far as I'm concerned.)
- shakna 8y ago
  To paraphrase our PM, speaking on medical evacuation of children, "I will do whatever is possible to prevent it." Australia's government blocked legislation that would help kids not die. Because they came on a boat. Which has never been the primary way illegal immigrants get into this country. Nauru was declared a human rights travesty by the UN. The medical board that decides whether or not it is a medical emergency that needs to be treated in Australia is staffed by lawyers and only occasionally features a doctor. We're killing people from neglect, because they dared to take any avenue available to them to escape their homes. If we put half the effort into assessing their case as we do into making sure they stay in a place reminiscent of WWII slave encampments, there would be no issues.
  - nickcox 8y ago
    It is an absolute national shame. MSF recently likened the mental health of the people on Nauru to victims of torture.[1] The most disturbing aspect is the strong bipartisan and public support for the ongoing abuse. Every Australian should wake up in the morning, take a long hard look in the mirror and ask themselves if they're proud of what they've become. [1] https://www.msf.org.au/article/statements-opinion/indefinite-despair-mental-health-consequences-nauru https://www.msf.org.au/article/statements-opinion/indefinite...
mcv 8y ago
> OpenVPN They'll probably want a backdoor in that too.
- robryan 8y ago
  Careful criminals will surely be able to find a set of software that isn't affected. Australia isn't the US, only a small portion of software companies would have a large local presence here.
  - sebazzz 8y ago
    The problem is that a backdoor might not be so obvious. It can be simply a wrong chosen algorithm key size, and you need to be a cryptographic expert to know that.
    - brokenmachine 8y ago
      That would have to be a systematic weakness... except systematic weakness is probably doublespeak for "whatever the fuck we want to do" anyway.
  - ashildr 8y ago
    I’m sure that will change now. From small portion to none. And basically Australian software developers are unemployable now.
- yreg 8y ago
  No reason for them to be getting it.
CalRobert 8y ago
When I was a kid I really wanted to see Australia. Kangaroos! Coral! Toilets that go backwards! Crocodile Dundee! (I was a kid, alright?) It just seems like a hotter, drier America at this point. New Zealand still looks lovely though. Maybe they could invade you?
- guitarbill 8y ago
  Bit harsh, compared to America it's still saner day-to-day with healthcare, gun control, and very liveable cities with public transport. And it isn't like other western countries aren't thinking of doing something similar. While this is a bad law, being smug about it is the wrong reaction.
  - magduf 8y ago
    Which other western and non-English-speaking countries are doing similar things? This democratic-authoritarianism seems to be unique to the Five Eyes nations.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - CalRobert 8y ago
    I don't mean to be smug. It's just kind of sad to see what's happened to a country with enormous soft power. Same goes for the US. I wish I knew more western countries who were defending privacy, and the environment for that matter. For a period it kind of looked like Germany _might_ but that hasn't stood up (Who knows, maybe the Pirate Party will get a chancellor someday). The Nordics don't seem amazing either. What does that leave us with? Some rocky archipelago in the middle of the Pacific? Developing nations that simply don't care or lack the ability to have meaningful enforcement? I'm really struggling to think of something.
  - dimensi0nal 8y ago
    >gun control The Australian government definitely seems like the type of government that can be trusted with a monopoly on violence!
tossaccount123 8y ago
The government's primary goal is to protect itself and continue growing like cancer. In many ways the citizens are it's greatest threat because they can vote to cut budget and the power of the political elites. These laws are a way to increase monitoring of citizens so problems can be squashed before they grow too big and threaten the government. Make no mistake, with the rise of ML governments will be able to crush social movements in the nascent stage before they become too big to stop. People will be arrested for thought crimes because they posted the wrong thing on the wrong website. And currently a large number of people would cheer because the people getting arrested are on the "other" side of the political spectrum. Be careful what you wish for
- magduf 8y ago
  Except that there's other countries where their governments don't seem to have these problems.
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    coughs in American
  - tossaccount123 8y ago
    where? From what I've seen Europe, UK, USA, Canada, and especially China are all moving in this direction of more privacy intrusions. Considering the West has traditionally offered the most freedom for its citizens I'd say things are trending towards authoritarian governments
    - magduf 8y ago
      EU seems to be pretty concerned with data privacy, and they even have laws protecting it.
      - cyphar 8y ago
        They have laws protecting individuals from companies, not the government. The GDPR has special exceptions for government investigations, and many EU countries have strong domestic spy agencies that spy on their citizens.
BLKNSLVR 8y ago
One of the best criticisms for the rushing through of this POS legislation was "if it's such a rush to get this done, why hasn't Australia's threat level been increased?" The answer from the intelligence agencies is that there must be a known specific threat in order for the threat level to be increased (from "Probable" to "Expected")[0] So, they're saying that it's important for this legislation to be passed for the sake of the safety of Australian citizens despite the fact there's no specific threat that's worth raising Australia's threat level for. Add this to the huge list of WTF's surrounding this situation. [0] https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/securityandyourcommunity/pages/national-terrorism-threat-advisory-system.aspx https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/securityandyourcommunity...

cyphar 8y ago

> It's beyond difficult to describe how ridiculous that is. Especially since ASIO (who really wanted this bill to pass) has stated that even if the bill passed today, they wouldn't have the necessary powers before Christmas.

daemin 8y ago
So now any of the Five Eyes intelligence agencies can have a chat with ASIO and get them to coerce companies and individuals within companies to put these back doors in. Then they can all use the same back doors, so everyone living in the USA, UK, Canada, and New Zealand can have their encryption compromised and communications intercepted. There's no way that companies will create back doors specifically just for Australia, so everyone will have access. In terms of Australia I'm not sure what we could actually do about this. Given that it's ASIO and other government departments that want these powers and that they have tried to introduce this sort of law over the course of the last decade. Both major parties have introduced legislation such as this and both voted for it. Maybe it is time for civil disobedience, and have everyone create and distribute encryption applications for all devices, because they couldn't possibly jail everyone right? I just wonder who will be the first person jailed or the first company fined for refusing these orders. In terms of the world at large, which country should we trust now? A lot of the Western Democracies are becoming rapidly "security" focused authoritarian, and the other countries powerful enough to stand up to them are not much better. Should we trust applications with code written in Russia? What about hardware products manufactured in China? Should we trust services running in the USA? Now we also have to be wary of any company that runs a service in the Five Eyes countries. Sometimes I wonder if we really have it better than people in the middle ages or other earlier periods, in some ways it clearly is, but in others it's just the same smell coming from different shit.
- bigiain 8y ago
  And then somebody from inside will get a guilty conscience, but remember what happened to Snowden, and just sell the backdoor straight to Huawei or NSO or Mohamad bin Salem (salving themselves by pretending they're going to donate hundreds of millions to "improving the world", but instead will by private islands and matching citizenships to Peter Thiel's...) :sigh:
  - daemin 8y ago
    Realistically, if you were a developer not in the chain of command and asked to do this: Would you? Could you? You would be knowingly putting your name to a vulnerability, and if someone asks then you have to keep it a secret and feign incompetence. Then if they revert your change you'll have to re-implement it. If you do tell your superiors (which would be most likely what would happen, even before writing the code) then you would be in violation and could be put in jail. If you refuse you would be put in jail, or they would go to the next person in their list.
    - brokenmachine 8y ago
      If you think about logistics they'd have to make contact with people in the company to even find out who the devs are who are capable of making a backdoor. That would probably tip off others in the company as to what was happening anyway. You'd think they'd essentially have to serve the whole dev team with the secret order. I think you could immediately resign. It's not a slavery bill... is it?
      - daemin 8y ago
        There's LinkedIn, there's social media, there's actually keeping a record of who enters and leaves a company's premises. There's heading down to the bar after work on Friday. There's community events and meetups.
        bigiain 8y ago
joshschreuder 8y ago
It's 100% posturing and optics. There was nothing achieved by passing this law at the last day of sitting.

apatters 8y ago

> This is another thing that adds to my deep sense of shame to live in this country (sadly, that list is long and growing). I don't support this legislation, but I have to ask, which country is doing a better job on human rights issues than Australia in your opinion? Surely not China or nearly any country in Asia, Africa, or South America? Surely not the US? Probably not much of Europe?

toyg 8y ago
Iceland. But yeah, “cryptonomicon” utopias are hard to get by, these days.
neotek 8y ago
Why does it matter? It's not a zero sum game, what others are doing is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not what we're doing is disgustingly immoral (and it is, as far as I'm concerned.)
shakna 8y ago
To paraphrase our PM, speaking on medical evacuation of children, "I will do whatever is possible to prevent it." Australia's government blocked legislation that would help kids not die. Because they came on a boat. Which has never been the primary way illegal immigrants get into this country. Nauru was declared a human rights travesty by the UN. The medical board that decides whether or not it is a medical emergency that needs to be treated in Australia is staffed by lawyers and only occasionally features a doctor. We're killing people from neglect, because they dared to take any avenue available to them to escape their homes. If we put half the effort into assessing their case as we do into making sure they stay in a place reminiscent of WWII slave encampments, there would be no issues.
- nickcox 8y ago
  It is an absolute national shame. MSF recently likened the mental health of the people on Nauru to victims of torture.[1] The most disturbing aspect is the strong bipartisan and public support for the ongoing abuse. Every Australian should wake up in the morning, take a long hard look in the mirror and ask themselves if they're proud of what they've become. [1] https://www.msf.org.au/article/statements-opinion/indefinite-despair-mental-health-consequences-nauru https://www.msf.org.au/article/statements-opinion/indefinite...

mcv 8y ago

> OpenVPN They'll probably want a backdoor in that too.

robryan 8y ago
Careful criminals will surely be able to find a set of software that isn't affected. Australia isn't the US, only a small portion of software companies would have a large local presence here.
- sebazzz 8y ago
  The problem is that a backdoor might not be so obvious. It can be simply a wrong chosen algorithm key size, and you need to be a cryptographic expert to know that.
  - brokenmachine 8y ago
    That would have to be a systematic weakness... except systematic weakness is probably doublespeak for "whatever the fuck we want to do" anyway.
- ashildr 8y ago
  I’m sure that will change now. From small portion to none. And basically Australian software developers are unemployable now.
yreg 8y ago
No reason for them to be getting it.

CalRobert 8y ago

When I was a kid I really wanted to see Australia. Kangaroos! Coral! Toilets that go backwards! Crocodile Dundee! (I was a kid, alright?) It just seems like a hotter, drier America at this point. New Zealand still looks lovely though. Maybe they could invade you?

guitarbill 8y ago
Bit harsh, compared to America it's still saner day-to-day with healthcare, gun control, and very liveable cities with public transport. And it isn't like other western countries aren't thinking of doing something similar. While this is a bad law, being smug about it is the wrong reaction.
- magduf 8y ago
  Which other western and non-English-speaking countries are doing similar things? This democratic-authoritarianism seems to be unique to the Five Eyes nations.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- CalRobert 8y ago
  I don't mean to be smug. It's just kind of sad to see what's happened to a country with enormous soft power. Same goes for the US. I wish I knew more western countries who were defending privacy, and the environment for that matter. For a period it kind of looked like Germany _might_ but that hasn't stood up (Who knows, maybe the Pirate Party will get a chancellor someday). The Nordics don't seem amazing either. What does that leave us with? Some rocky archipelago in the middle of the Pacific? Developing nations that simply don't care or lack the ability to have meaningful enforcement? I'm really struggling to think of something.
- dimensi0nal 8y ago
  >gun control The Australian government definitely seems like the type of government that can be trusted with a monopoly on violence!

tossaccount123 8y ago

The government's primary goal is to protect itself and continue growing like cancer. In many ways the citizens are it's greatest threat because they can vote to cut budget and the power of the political elites. These laws are a way to increase monitoring of citizens so problems can be squashed before they grow too big and threaten the government. Make no mistake, with the rise of ML governments will be able to crush social movements in the nascent stage before they become too big to stop. People will be arrested for thought crimes because they posted the wrong thing on the wrong website. And currently a large number of people would cheer because the people getting arrested are on the "other" side of the political spectrum. Be careful what you wish for

magduf 8y ago
Except that there's other countries where their governments don't seem to have these problems.
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  coughs in American
- tossaccount123 8y ago
  where? From what I've seen Europe, UK, USA, Canada, and especially China are all moving in this direction of more privacy intrusions. Considering the West has traditionally offered the most freedom for its citizens I'd say things are trending towards authoritarian governments
  - magduf 8y ago
    EU seems to be pretty concerned with data privacy, and they even have laws protecting it.
    - cyphar 8y ago
      They have laws protecting individuals from companies, not the government. The GDPR has special exceptions for government investigations, and many EU countries have strong domestic spy agencies that spy on their citizens.

BLKNSLVR 8y ago

One of the best criticisms for the rushing through of this POS legislation was "if it's such a rush to get this done, why hasn't Australia's threat level been increased?" The answer from the intelligence agencies is that there must be a known specific threat in order for the threat level to be increased (from "Probable" to "Expected")[0] So, they're saying that it's important for this legislation to be passed for the sake of the safety of Australian citizens despite the fact there's no specific threat that's worth raising Australia's threat level for. Add this to the huge list of WTF's surrounding this situation. [0] https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/securityandyourcommunity/pages/national-terrorism-threat-advisory-system.aspx https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/securityandyourcommunity...