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Microsoft says encryption laws make companies wary of storing data in Australia
- throw0101a 8y agoIronically OpenSSL started in AU because the crypto (export) laws of the US were too stringent: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSLeay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSLeay Now it's the opposite?
- stygiansonic 8y agoSame goes for the Bouncy Castle Java APIs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncy_Castle_(cryptography) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncy_Castle_(cryptography)
- ehnto 8y agoEncryption isn't illegal due to the bill. In fact encryption law itself hasn't changed. The bill gives the government the ability to compel someone to circumvent encryption (backdoors, spyware etc.) if technically feasible while acting to service a warrant. It is much worse than banning encryption as it is silent subterfuge and forcing the hand of citizens who would otherwise just be going about their day. Laws should be able to stop people from doing certain things but forcing people to do something they had no business doing in the first place is insane.
- dgzl 8y agoFrom what I understand, Australia (and other nations) don't give their citizens explicit rights, such as to personal and property privacy.
- kdtsh 8y agoPeople have a legal right to both personal and private property under Australian law. I’m not sure where you got that idea.
- ausd123 8y agoI'm interested to know what the farmers whose properties get taken by mining companies have to say about that. Though genuinely unsure and curious as to whether that's a separate legal (or perhaps media reporting) issue.
- spydum 8y agoTo be fair this isn’t solved via constitutional rights in the US either - look up eminent domain law.
- int_19h 8y agoBetter yet, look up "mineral rights". It actually comes up a lot in private house sales.
- kdtsh 8y agoThis happens in a lot of countries and is a problem. That doesn’t mean that rights to private/personal property aren’t guaranteed by law in Australia, just that the law is skirted by monied interests. The farmers you talk about would likely be able to fight this in court if they had means - but such is the nature of late capitalism, money buys you political power and legal clout.
- jacques_chester 8y agoWell two things here. The first is that a lot of agricultural land is leasehold, not freehold. The second is that below a certain depth, the Crown owns what's underground and has the right to go through your property to get to its property, whether directly or by leasing it to a mining company.
- kirrent 8y agoIt's like you haven't even seen The Castle, where this very constitutional issue is discussed. Acquisition of property must be on just terms with suitable compensation. Similar to the US 5th amendment.
- robbiep 8y agoWe don’t have a bill of rights, but we’re hardly a totalitarian state. Nanny state, maybe.
- danieltillett 8y agoAnd getting worse all the time. OH&S has got totally out of control.
- jaza 8y agoAustralians have very few constitutionally guaranteed rights (compared to countries such as the US). The Constitution only gives us the right to vote, the right to a trial by jury, and freedom of religion (and a few others). But many more rights, including extensive privacy rights, exist in statute law and elsewhere. The main argument against adding more rights to the Constitution, is: "we don't want to end up with obsolete rights that do more harm than good, and that are virtually impossible to get rid of, like the US with its right to bear arms".
- zaphirplane 8y agoOf course “they” would say that. Easier to sell than enshrining rights in the constitution makes it impossible for us to encroach on those rights ;) tin foil stay strong
- AndrewGaspar 8y ago> the right to vote Yeah, but they mess even that up by making it obligatory. :)
- tacticus 8y agoYou have to go. you don't have to pick. Makes it difficult for states to disenfranchise people through budget cuts.
- chii 8y agoBy the time and effort spent going to vote, I bet nobody will just cast a null vote. Compulsory voting is more democratic. The USA should make voting compulsory! Ditto with the brexit referendum! If only they made it compulsory, brexit would have probably not passed (presumably many people just didn't expect brexit to win, and so didn't bother going to vote).
- aesthethiccs 8y ago> I bet nobody will just cast a null vote. Have you heard of the term donkey voting? null votes in Australia are about 5% of total votes (federally) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-04/informal-votes-to-have-impact-on-election-result-in-close-seats/7566232 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-04/informal-votes-to-hav... Also it's only sorta compulsory in a sense, you can just never register and never have to vote. but if you do register you will get fined if you don't vote. the amount of unregistered voters is about 4% of the population. so at it's worst it's atleast more representative then some other democracies.
- jjcm 8y agoThat's one of the biggest things that lawmakers here couldn't seem to understand - tech companies have high mobility across borders. Even if a law has no teeth, why would Microsoft store data in Australia when the next country over can still serve data for the region? It just creates too much risk, from a privacy and PR standpoint. Startups will be more adverse to founding in Australia as well. It just creates a black mark on their record from the start. These data laws were very poorly planned by the Australian Government.
- magduf 8y agoAustralia's lawmakers just need to amend the law so that it doesn't matter where the data is stored, as long as the company operates within their nation's borders. I'd like to see how the Australian government handles things when MS cancels all their Windows and Office licenses.
- quickthrower2 8y agoWhat? Microsoft intentionally reducing their licence revenue?
- berbec 8y agoOh, they won't issue refunds. Just canceling licenses.
- mc32 8y agoThey can do what Russia does and some of Europe do and require AU citizen data remain in AU.
- chupasaurus 8y agoHeard of FAANG minus Amazon (they don't work here) datacenters in Russia? There is none, as well as data storages here. Everyone gives 0f about this law, only huge targets have fines of ~$1M yearly.
- dreamcompiler 8y agoI was about ready to move all my email over to Fastmail before this happened. But not now.
- doorbellguy 8y agoThere was a thread I made about ProtonMail v FastMail and this one point came up at the top. However ProtonMail’s inability to support standard clients without an awkward bridge app seems to take edge off it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19372882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19372882
- C14L 8y ago> ProtonMail’s inability to support standard clients without an awkward bridge app Isn't that one of the pros of Protonmail? All the data is encrypted and decrypted on the client. There is no way to have mail apps access the data without a piece of software that handles the encryption.
- kdtsh 8y agoI guess it’s just the way you look at it, and maybe even what your priorities are in choosing an email service. To me at least, I’m thoroughly disinterested in an email service which doesn’t implement IMAPS.
- kevinSuttle 8y agoWhich ones do?
- kdtsh 8y agoMany I’m sure. Mailbox.org does, and that’s the service I use.
- ams6110 8y agoUnless you only send email to yourself, the hole in that idea is that all the recipients have a copy of your email.
- kdtsh 8y agoWho could have guessed that laws which turn encryption into a legal quagmire in Auatralia would make companies that do encryption things less interested in working in Australia ...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mastazi 8y agoI have migrated to Australia many years ago and I have recently become eligible to become a citizen. However I’ve heard stories of tech companies refusing to hire Australians because of the AA Bill, so I’m holding it off for now. The problem seems to be the provision that a tech worker can be coerced by the Australian Government into creating a backdoor, and they are not authorised to disclose it to their employer. I don’t want to hurt my future employability. On the one hand, if I had my citizenship then I could vote at the next elections, but on the other hand the AA Bill has been supported by all major Australian parties so I feel powerless.
- jacques_chester 8y agoLook. It's a stupid bill. So garishly stupid that it can blind a boulder. So vapidly moronic that bits of ooze collected by clams are more intelligent. It's so bad that astronauts on the ISS passing over Canberra need to shield their heads with lead so the radioactive idiocy doesn't fry them. But don't kid yourself: Australian citizenship is profoundly valuable. I would not pass it up lightly. I was born to it and I am enormously grateful to have it.
- microcolonel 8y ago> But don't kid yourself: Australian citizenship is profoundly valuable. Relative to what other citizenship?
- jacques_chester 8y agoIt depends on your criteria. But it's a wealthy country with a high standard of living, relatively safe and stable, with well-established democratic and legal systems, has relatively low corruption, safety nets for health and welfare, subsidised education and if you avoid the crocodiles it can be very pleasant in parts.
- microcolonel 8y ago> well-established democratic and legal systems Given the topic at hand, this doesn't seem like a distinct strength of Australia, unless you're coming from a despotic regime or recently New Zealand.
- xiaodai 8y agoIt's quite sad that Australia has such a stupid law.
- chirau 8y agoare you sad about any of the "stupid" (relative and subjective term) laws in the US? Would be curious to know which, if any.
- why_only_15 8y agoWhat? Of course everybody has some laws they dislike that are stupid. To get a sampler, check out @crimeaday on Twitter (https://twitter.com/CrimeADay https://twitter.com/CrimeADay).
- pgkyc 8y agoHere are my thoughts on jurisdictional sovereignty, in terms of your data, and how an American company calling out Australia is the pot calling the kettle black. https://www.krisconstable.com/its-time-to-think-about-jurisdictional-data-sovereignty/ https://www.krisconstable.com/its-time-to-think-about-jurisd...
- oedmarap 8y agoThe three areas of contention in the bill: > A technical assistance request (TAR): Police ask a company to "voluntarily" help, such as give technical details about the development of a new online service. > A technical assistance notice (TAN): A company is required to give assistance. For example, if they can decrypt a specific communication, they must or face fines. > A technical capability notice (TCN): The company must build a new function to help police get at a suspect's data, or face fines. This approach is ripe for abuse. Even if a company is served with a TAN and "can't technically decrypt" then a TCN can force them to downgrade/backdoor the platform security to comply. The TAR seems token at best.
- mikro2nd 8y agoThought experiment: Company gets served with a TCN. They task Jolene (Snr Programmer) to implement the backdoor. She does so in a way that spews information far and wide in a highly visible manner. What are the consequences for Jolene and/or the company, especially when the spooks cry foul and Jolene's lawyer/Company replies with something along the lines of "I guess she's just incompetent and did a bad job. Sorry. But we did comply with your TCN." Does this law actually address such a scenario?
- brokenmachine 8y agoJolene and some people from the company go to jail for exposing the Gestapo overreach. The govt talks about being tough on baddies, coal keeps being sold, there's no pedophiles in my house and wow, it's Sunday so lets all watch the footy!!
- Dravidian 8y agoBeware that Indian companies can hand over your data to Indian agencies anytime without any court order[0]. [0]:https://m.slashdot.org/story/350062 https://m.slashdot.org/story/350062
- charliebrownau 8y agoAustralia has never been a proper democracy based country its always been an National Socialist Democracy heading more left leaning since 2000 and getting worse by the year
- vmware513 8y agoHey Microsoft, please move your Data Centers to New Zealand. ;)
- chirau 8y agoi'm just sitting here looking from Africa smiling... eventually you'll come to us.
- carmate383 8y agoThe Australian government is increasingly becoming an abuser of human rights. I could not have left fast enough.
- lugg 8y agoIt's ok, a lot of us Australians work for the major USA tech companies anyway. What should be more concerning is that your govt uses our govt to spy on you. You didn't really think it was Australia that wants your secrets did you?
- alfiedotwtf 8y agoIn case anyone has any questions regarding the AABill (now TOLA), please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19508937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19508937
- golemiprague 8y agoAustralia is a nanny state and it manifests itself in many laws and regulation, that's how Australians like it. Everything requires licensing, endless regulations, lockdown, bicycle helmets, draconian alcohol laws, the works. If there is a doubt Australia will always err on the side of more rules and limits. If you value freedom Australia is not the place, the beaches are nice though.
- grizzles 8y agoAussie entrepreneurs aren't too happy about this law or some of the other ones, eg. the immigration laws. One friend (health related ml/ai) is moving from Australia to Thailand next week. He is PISSED the Aussie government wouldn't let him hire one guy who was already in the country but not a citizen. That cost 6 other domestics their job. They were sent packing last week. He's not the first and he certainly won't be the last to move his company overseas because of the govts anti biz policies.
- dalbasal 8y agoIt's incredible to watch the degree to which intelligence wants and needs are dictating the coming regulatory environment of internet & tech generally. Losing access to an information stream due to routing or encryption. Matching allies' and rivals' levels of information access (a la prism). Denying them access... From the perspective of the spooks (asio, in this case) these are equivalents to exposing a microphone in Bin Laden's proverbial cave. Meanwhile, FB & Google's revenue streams are, at this point so big and so tightly coupled with creepy ad-tech/spyware that the economy depends on privacy intiatives failing. Narrowing down a list of FB users who are >n% likely to sign up to a new candy subscription is a lot like producing a list of >n% likely to march in charlottesville or support some specific jihad. Colaboration is inevitable. Lets not underestimate where these roads are leading.
- otabdeveloper1 8y ago"Nice user network you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it, eh?" - Always yours, Microsoft.
- geggam 8y agoGood thing those folks in Australia have retained the ability to fight their govt via the right to bear arms.... right ?
- krapp 8y ago> Good thing those folks in Australia have retained the ability to fight their govt via the right to bear arms.... right ? Why would violence be an appropriate response by Australians to disagreements with their country's laws? For that matter, given how many Americans disagree with their own country's governance, shouldn't the Tree of Liberty be soaked in the blood of tyrants and patriots by now? Or is the 2A crowd just too busy shooting at schools, mosques and watermelons to fit it into their agenda?
- geggam 8y agoQuestion : What do the unarmed people do Answer : Get in the train to the gas chamber
- dang 8y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
- geggam 8y agoNot sure you comprehend the fact your right to free speech and the ability to put whatever content you want online is protected by the laws that bind the govt and protect your right to bear arms. If anything is relative to HN the foundations of free speech and the citizens rights is at the forefront.
- geggam 8y agoPS .. the govts response to your disagreement with the law is violence. Pretending otherwise is silly.
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- coldcode 8y agoMy employer (S&P 100 sized) is rapidly deciding to move away from all Atlassian products including Jira. If enough people stop doing business with Australian tech companies, this law will likely be punted. Money talks, politicians run.
- brokenmachine 8y agoIs your employer a mining company? If not, the Australian government doesn't care. Sell all the things!
- mbrodersen 8y agoYeah as if the NSA/FBI doesn't have the same powers in practice in the US.