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Canada: 24 device requests Canada Population: 37M Australia: 1694 device requests (~70x) Australia Population: 25M Why such a big difference between both of

Canada: 24 device requests Canada Population: 37M Australia: 1694 device requests (~70x) Australia Population: 25M Why such a big difference between both of these safe countries? The crime rates are pretty similar, Australia definitely doesn't have 70x more crime than Canada, and there aren't simply way more iPhones in Australia. Very different police/prosecuting strategies I guess.

oneplane 6y ago
The varying strategies (and their varying results -- even when applying the same strategy but in a different location) is rather surprising to me, especially when you dig around a little and find that plenty of places don't re-think their strategy for decades while the results remain 'meh' at best. Maybe this works well for Australia, or they are stuck in 1990 and simply haven't looked back and wondered if anything could be done differently. Example would be: instead of catching everything you see, you can also collect information until you find a pattern, central driver or societal problem and solve that to solve the underlying problem. The counter-example would then be: instead of always trying to catch the biggest fish you can also make a few examples and disturb something like a criminal network by messing up the actions of their foot soldiers. I suspect the way you go about it increases or decreases the amount of individual requests you need in order to execute your mandate.
- sbeller 6y ago
  > places don't re-think their strategy for decades because it is hard to measure the effectiveness. How many terrorist attacks and domestic incidents are there (assuming in good faith those are the only things to be prevented) ? I would assume in the absence of any of these national security agencies that there were only very few per year if not decade. That makes it hard to adjust the strategy even if you assume that they are totally focused on security only, and not e.g. on the continued presence of their paycheck of suppression of opposition parties. To give you an example: the (American) security measures at the airport that were introduced in 2001 can be considered a total success, as there has been no incidence since then (success = good, people can get promoted for that[0]), although these measures have been called security theater at times[1]. And with these measures called successful by those promoted people, why change them? Of course some other people opine that they may not be as successful as they claim they are [2], but it is still hard to quantify. > instead of catching everything you see, you can also collect information until you find a pattern yeah that seems likely. Though this scares me personally as I may demonstrate a pattern now that will make me a suspect in the future, despite doing nothing wrong. [0] I worked at big tech once upon a time [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/tsa-business-security-theater-not-security/357599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/tsa-bus... [2] https://www.thelocal.de/20091231/24279 https://www.thelocal.de/20091231/24279
  - oneplane 6y ago
    Yes, the way we 'measure' or call something a 'success' can be amusing at best (sometimes). Reminds me of a joke where someone is throwing paper out of a train, someone asks: why are you doing that. Person says: to keep the flying elephants away from the train. And since there are no flying elephants storming the train it must be working!
jchook 6y ago
AFAIK Australia has far weaker personal privacy protections and powerful remedies for government agencies. They even passed a law in 2018 allowing them to force companies to build-in backdoors.
- Scaless 6y ago
  I am not Australian and have not seen any updates since it was passed, but "forcing companies to build backdoors" is a massive understatement. The government could effectively compel any employee to act as a spy, without their consent. Don't want to play along? Go directly to jail. > The new law also allows officials to approach specific individuals—such as key employees within a company—with these demands, rather than the institution itself. In practice, they can force the engineer or IT administrator in charge of vetting and pushing out a product's updates to undermine its security. In some situations, the government could even compel the individual or a small group of people to carry this out in secret. Under the Australian law, companies that fail or refuse to comply with these orders will face fines up to about $7.3 million. Individuals who resist could face prison time. https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-impact/ https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-...
  - suifbwish 6y ago
    So what you are saying is there is absolutely no reason to use any data service hosted in Australia or to trust any tech hardware they produce
    - roganartu 6y ago
      Well, if you want to go to that extreme, probably also ditch any data service hosted by any company that hires an Australian. The law passed was not restricted to Australian corporations, but Australian citizens regardless of where in the world they reside. Since E3 visas (basically an Australian-only H1b) are so easy to get, that's probably just about any US-based company with more than a few hundred employees. In practice though I don't think anyone actually cares. I certainly haven't been asked about it by any prospective employers and I work in areas of finance where companies are famously protective of their IP.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cheeze 6y ago
Australia has always seemed like the ultimate nanny state. Seems like they are one of the frontrunners in the anti-encryption debate. Mail is heavily scrutinized, etc. But for some measurement, it seems to work. Drugs are insanely expensive in aus.
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  > Drugs are insanely expensive in aus Isn't everything? Also consider that Australia's borders are much easier to patrol due to its "island" nation status.
- judge2020 6y ago
  Seems like that might just be due to the logistics of getting them across the ocean and through a port.
  - vmception 6y ago
    then don't let the free market just sit there
- fphhotchips 6y ago
  Australian here: I think we have a cultural high degree of trust in our institutions. That trust is frequently unearned or betrayed in the modern era, but it remains nonetheless. I don't have a great definitive answer on why that's the case, but I do have suspicions. One is around the (perceived?) strength of our democracy, driven by mandatory voting and a well designed parliamentary system. Also, we don't have the American history of revolution - distrust for government just is not part of the thinking. The other is that, for the most part of the last 50 years, our more public institutions have done a good job. The ABC (think the BBC, but Australian) is a trusted news source, Medicare largely "just works" for most people, our public/private education system mostly works, etc. When it comes to law enforcement, I think the general perception is that while they're far from perfect, they tend to be well governed and as a result given a generous amount of power. Again, whether this perception is justified or not is a different thing, especially if you're not of Anglo descent.
palijer 6y ago
How accurately can you compare these numbers against country populations? Do iProducts have an equal distribution around the world in various countries?
nstj 6y ago
As an Australian this nugget resonated with me recently: “The ancestors of Australians aren’t prisoners, but rather prison _guards_”
tiew9Vii 6y ago
Australia is a huge nanny state. It’s traditional stereotypical “she’ll be right mate” image is far from reality. Hugely litigious, lots of red tape, if there is a fine for something you will be fined. The ex prime minister stood in parliament and said “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,” in regards to wanting to back door encryption. That’s what you are dealing with.
sandworm101 6y ago
More important: canada has 68500 police. Austrailia has 63000 (google). So australia has a much higher police:people ratio. Once all the traffic tickets are issued there is probably a tipping point where there are suddenly more officers for technology-related investigations. Canada is also netorious for not investigating tech crimes. It is not a focus for the RCMP.

oneplane 6y ago

The varying strategies (and their varying results -- even when applying the same strategy but in a different location) is rather surprising to me, especially when you dig around a little and find that plenty of places don't re-think their strategy for decades while the results remain 'meh' at best. Maybe this works well for Australia, or they are stuck in 1990 and simply haven't looked back and wondered if anything could be done differently. Example would be: instead of catching everything you see, you can also collect information until you find a pattern, central driver or societal problem and solve that to solve the underlying problem. The counter-example would then be: instead of always trying to catch the biggest fish you can also make a few examples and disturb something like a criminal network by messing up the actions of their foot soldiers. I suspect the way you go about it increases or decreases the amount of individual requests you need in order to execute your mandate.

sbeller 6y ago
> places don't re-think their strategy for decades because it is hard to measure the effectiveness. How many terrorist attacks and domestic incidents are there (assuming in good faith those are the only things to be prevented) ? I would assume in the absence of any of these national security agencies that there were only very few per year if not decade. That makes it hard to adjust the strategy even if you assume that they are totally focused on security only, and not e.g. on the continued presence of their paycheck of suppression of opposition parties. To give you an example: the (American) security measures at the airport that were introduced in 2001 can be considered a total success, as there has been no incidence since then (success = good, people can get promoted for that[0]), although these measures have been called security theater at times[1]. And with these measures called successful by those promoted people, why change them? Of course some other people opine that they may not be as successful as they claim they are [2], but it is still hard to quantify. > instead of catching everything you see, you can also collect information until you find a pattern yeah that seems likely. Though this scares me personally as I may demonstrate a pattern now that will make me a suspect in the future, despite doing nothing wrong. [0] I worked at big tech once upon a time [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/tsa-business-security-theater-not-security/357599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/tsa-bus... [2] https://www.thelocal.de/20091231/24279 https://www.thelocal.de/20091231/24279
- oneplane 6y ago
  Yes, the way we 'measure' or call something a 'success' can be amusing at best (sometimes). Reminds me of a joke where someone is throwing paper out of a train, someone asks: why are you doing that. Person says: to keep the flying elephants away from the train. And since there are no flying elephants storming the train it must be working!

jchook 6y ago

AFAIK Australia has far weaker personal privacy protections and powerful remedies for government agencies. They even passed a law in 2018 allowing them to force companies to build-in backdoors.

Scaless 6y ago
I am not Australian and have not seen any updates since it was passed, but "forcing companies to build backdoors" is a massive understatement. The government could effectively compel any employee to act as a spy, without their consent. Don't want to play along? Go directly to jail. > The new law also allows officials to approach specific individuals—such as key employees within a company—with these demands, rather than the institution itself. In practice, they can force the engineer or IT administrator in charge of vetting and pushing out a product's updates to undermine its security. In some situations, the government could even compel the individual or a small group of people to carry this out in secret. Under the Australian law, companies that fail or refuse to comply with these orders will face fines up to about $7.3 million. Individuals who resist could face prison time. https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-impact/ https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-...
- suifbwish 6y ago
  So what you are saying is there is absolutely no reason to use any data service hosted in Australia or to trust any tech hardware they produce
  - roganartu 6y ago
    Well, if you want to go to that extreme, probably also ditch any data service hosted by any company that hires an Australian. The law passed was not restricted to Australian corporations, but Australian citizens regardless of where in the world they reside. Since E3 visas (basically an Australian-only H1b) are so easy to get, that's probably just about any US-based company with more than a few hundred employees. In practice though I don't think anyone actually cares. I certainly haven't been asked about it by any prospective employers and I work in areas of finance where companies are famously protective of their IP.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cheeze 6y ago

Australia has always seemed like the ultimate nanny state. Seems like they are one of the frontrunners in the anti-encryption debate. Mail is heavily scrutinized, etc. But for some measurement, it seems to work. Drugs are insanely expensive in aus.

jonny_eh 6y ago
> Drugs are insanely expensive in aus Isn't everything? Also consider that Australia's borders are much easier to patrol due to its "island" nation status.
judge2020 6y ago
Seems like that might just be due to the logistics of getting them across the ocean and through a port.
- vmception 6y ago
  then don't let the free market just sit there
fphhotchips 6y ago
Australian here: I think we have a cultural high degree of trust in our institutions. That trust is frequently unearned or betrayed in the modern era, but it remains nonetheless. I don't have a great definitive answer on why that's the case, but I do have suspicions. One is around the (perceived?) strength of our democracy, driven by mandatory voting and a well designed parliamentary system. Also, we don't have the American history of revolution - distrust for government just is not part of the thinking. The other is that, for the most part of the last 50 years, our more public institutions have done a good job. The ABC (think the BBC, but Australian) is a trusted news source, Medicare largely "just works" for most people, our public/private education system mostly works, etc. When it comes to law enforcement, I think the general perception is that while they're far from perfect, they tend to be well governed and as a result given a generous amount of power. Again, whether this perception is justified or not is a different thing, especially if you're not of Anglo descent.

palijer 6y ago

How accurately can you compare these numbers against country populations? Do iProducts have an equal distribution around the world in various countries?

nstj 6y ago

As an Australian this nugget resonated with me recently: “The ancestors of Australians aren’t prisoners, but rather prison _guards_”

tiew9Vii 6y ago

Australia is a huge nanny state. It’s traditional stereotypical “she’ll be right mate” image is far from reality. Hugely litigious, lots of red tape, if there is a fine for something you will be fined. The ex prime minister stood in parliament and said “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,” in regards to wanting to back door encryption. That’s what you are dealing with.

sandworm101 6y ago

More important: canada has 68500 police. Austrailia has 63000 (google). So australia has a much higher police:people ratio. Once all the traffic tickets are issued there is probably a tipping point where there are suddenly more officers for technology-related investigations. Canada is also netorious for not investigating tech crimes. It is not a focus for the RCMP.