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Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
- mikysco 5y agoServer looks overloaded. Cached version from Sept 2: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tPS9McUkXLcJ:https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/2021/09/02/australias-new-mass-surveillance-mandate/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tPS9Mc...
- chrisco255 5y agoAren't we Five Eyes nation members all affected by this? The U.S. should pull out of this. We need to re-assert privacy rights and avoid trade as much as possible with any countries that enact these kind of laws.
- burlesona 5y agoSuch as the US largest trade partner, China?
- chrisco255 5y agoChina is number 3 behind Mexico and Canada. We do import more crap from there than anywhere else though: https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/toppartners.html https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/t... But yes, we can't cut the cord fast enough. Still, trade is another matter than shared mass surveillance. If the USG is sharing our data with the CCP, I'd very much want some people fired and perhaps jailed over it.
- bogota 5y agoIm getting the feeling our government’s have switched to economy over everything mode with a dash of pretend to care about the environment
- HenryKissinger 5y agoIf by "our" you mean Western governments, Western countries are all democracies. If Western governments have switched to economy over everything mode, that's because that's what the electorate wants.
- AlexCoventry 5y agoBest read in a smug Bavarian accent.
- bogota 5y agoMy family is pretty politically diverse and I would say none of them are ever happy with that is going on over the last 10+ years outside of a few things. Its just people making a choice about what they hate less.
- denkmoon 5y agoIf only. Lining their pockets and the pockets of their kingmakers is the only objective, the rest is theater. Economic improvement for the masses is merely a byproduct.
- _kbh_ 5y agoUS will never pull out of FVEY the reach they get is the main reason they started the alliance. The US doesn’t need massive overseas bases in places where it may not be possible or feasible when it has partners like Australia and New Zealand.
- d_t_w 5y agoFour eyes spying on your citizens and sending reports back to your intelligence agency is sort of the point of Five Eyes (well, one of the points). It ain't cheating if you're not spying on your own people.
- chrisco255 5y agoWe can redefine it that way. Time to re-assert our sovereignty.
- xvector 5y agoThe US will not pull out of Five Eyes because it enables the US to circumvent the constitutional rights of its own citizens via proxy. This has been used in multiple high-profile cases to catch cybercriminals. The government does not give back power it manages to hoard for itself. This is the fundamental problem with modern progressive liberalism and anti-choice conservatism. When you give the government power, it WILL use said power against you. Not a single government in human history has not turned on its citizens.
- FpUser 5y agoI wonder if at some point there would not be much difference comparatively to China.
- neither_color 5y agoWe can refer to both now as acts because — in what is an increasing trend in the Australian Parliament — the bills flew through both houses in a single day. Why is this an increasing trend? Voting is mandatory…so are voters more trusting of their institutions or just apathetic? Voting is compulsory at federal elections, by-elections and referendums for those on the electoral roll, as well as for State and Territory elections. Australia enforces compulsory voting.[24] People in this situation are asked to explain their failure to vote. If no satisfactory reason is provided (for example, illness or religious prohibition), a fine of up to $170 is imposed,[25] and failure to pay the fine may result in a court hearing and additional costs. About 5% of enrolled voters fail to vote at most elections
- mrslave 5y agoCompulsory voting does not imply a politically engaged populace. I believe the majority of voters do not enjoy the requirement to attend on polling day, and treat the whole affair like supporting a football team. Except they care a lot less about the election results than their football team. Mandatory voting probably has the effect of protecting the two major parties more than anything else. There was a surge in minor parties in the Senate about a decade ago. In the (very large) Senate ballot you were able to vote for a single party, and their official preferences registered with the Electoral Commission were automatically applied to the entire form. Minor parties with similar policies were obviously preferencing each other, and preferencing major parties very low. (The whole point of a minor party, sometimes a single issue party, is a significant deviation from the uncontested policy agreed upon by both major parties). So the process was changed and now the voter has to manually nominate at least 6 parties on the Senate ballot form. The effect of this is even the motivated voter with interest in the policies of a minor party cannot usually name 6 that they prefer over the 2 major parties, and so one (if not both) will end up getting a reasonably high vote preference when the previous scheme would have seen them near the bottom. This further secured the position of the two major parties.
- user123456780 5y agoEven though people may not be engaged in politics mandatory voting is important. It reduces extremist politics and the constant need to be increasingly divisive. It forces regression to the mean. In non mandatory voting systems the politicians need to motivate people to the polls. The default of the population is apathy so to generate action you appeal to the extremes who are the most likely to act. The more people you can make act the more you can get to vote for you. But with mandatory voting the apathetic mass (who are most likely to be moderates as they don't really care but generally are reasonable educated people and don't agree with the extremist views) cast almost random votes which smoothes out the skew to the extremes non mandatory voting causes.
- systemvoltage 5y agoDemocrats and republicans alike, let's make sure we don't do this in USA. Please donate to EFF, FIRE, ACLU, etc. I feel like both parties are becoming more authoritarian. COVID-19 is here to stay for many years if not decades. We're not going to be able to wipe off the virus from the planet. Governments will continue to use this as an excuse to erode privacy. This whole clampdown feels completely anti-Australian to me. Australians I've met are all very open minded, free spirited folks and they are always flipping a birdie to the government.
- blitz_skull 5y agoI whole heartedly agree. I made a top-level comment, but I think it bears repeating: this is human nature at play. Governmental parties are making plays for more power under the guise of working “for the people”, but sadly they are deluded. Not sure what the answer is here, but just voicing that you’re 100% correct in my estimation. This pandemic and the tragedies yet to come will always be leveraged by those in power to gain more power.
- burlesona 5y agoBoth parties _are_ becoming more authoritarian. The Economist just wrote a great summary of what's going on: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/09/04/the-threat-from-the-illiberal-left https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/09/04/the-threat-from...
- ogwh 5y agoACLU has already been taken by the new American leftist orthodoxy. Turning the tide will require new thinking.
- blitz_skull 5y agoThe problem here is a human one, not a governmental one. The government is just doing what humans tend to do: consolidate and protect power. The fact that this doesn’t serve anyone (other than their) interest is really just a side effect of the underlying cause. We should champion this issue and we should fight to keep this kind of thing from happening. But the deeper issue here is one of human nature. How do we build a system that guards against ourselves? 50 years ago I would’ve pointed to our own government as an example, but I’m becoming less and less sure.
- refurb 5y agoNot sure why this is downvoted but it’s factually correct. Organizations consolidate power and try and hold onto it. You can even see it in a big corporation where groups will get territorial and actively try and sabotage other groups even though they work for the same company. That’s why functional democracies are a patchwork of rules that try and prevent such consolidation.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoYou’re probably romanticising a past that never existed. What was happening 50 years ago? The Vietnam War springs to mind. Australians were being conscripted in to that war by our government. So I wouldn’t hold that time up as a paragon of responsibilities government.
- kyleblarson 5y agoGetting back to their prison state roots.
- collsni 5y agoImo - Best defense is to get off of mainstream software. Bet they'll have a packaged zero click exploit for iOS but not Caylx :) But that's not for everyone
- joshbert 5y agoAustralia's always been a bit icky when it comes to digital rights and censorship, but this just takes it over the top.
- kodah 5y agoI don't have any mainstream social media presence. I deleted those accounts years ago. Could the AFP create profiles in my name with my likeness?
- fieryskiff11 5y agoyes >AN ACCOUNT TAKEOVER WARRANT enables the law enforcement agencies to take control of an account, and even lock the account holder out of it. This can be done covertly and without consent, so the individual wouldn’t necessarily know what is going on until or if they are ever charged. It includes removing two-factor authentication and using one account to gain access to others (directly contradicting cyber security best practices for staying safe and secure online).
- jakequade 5y agoYou misread his question. He asked if the AFP could create a new account and masquerade as him (seeing as he doesn't have profiles now).
- throaway46546 5y agoI'm pretty sure anyone could do that.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- okareaman 5y agoIt's ironic that a country founded by England with prison convicts who pushed out the indigenous people would eventually choose to create a police state. Edit: Fixed for people who knew what I meant but want to bust my...
- discordance 5y agoAustralia was initially populated with Aboriginals, from who the land was stolen by convict settlers.
- fieryskiff11 5y agoYou say stolen, I say conquered.
- grecy 5y agoIf I came into your house at gunpoint and literally took everything you own, would you say I stole your stuff, or that I conquered you?
- x3n0ph3n3 5y agoThe difference is that there is currently a government to mediate disagreements between you and I, as well as a shared set of laws.
- grecy 5y agoAre you saying the original inhabitants of Australia didn't have their own form of Government and laws about what people could and could not do? Or are you just saying ours are better, therefore it's fine to walk all over theirs?
- eplanit 5y agoThere's a difference between "country founded by", and "land occupied by". Yes, the aboriginals, like native tribes all over the world, were displaced by modernity. One can debate the good vs. bad of it all, but the country of Australia was founded as a penal colony (after displacing the aboriginals).
- siquick 5y agoI've lived in Australia for 10 years and really considering my familys future in this country. We are sleep-walking towards a very average future. An undiversified export economy, out of control house prices, a job-market primarily focused on two cities, a government intent on selling all public assets, very limited political interest in positive climate policies. The latter is simply addressed with "technology will help us out when we need it to". It really feels sometimes that the only thing the average Australian cares about is the price of their property portfolio. Or maybe 3 months into the Sydney lockdown is finally getting to me.
- King-Aaron 5y agoAfter 34 years of being an Australian, the feeling is mutual.
- 6nf 5y ago20 years in Sydney. I do not feel Australian any more.
- desertraven 5y agoI’m also here, and quite concerned. I’ve seen how quickly a country can erode (Syria, Ukraine, Hong Kong) and am questioning the future of this country.
- gotts 5y agoWhat do you mean by "country erode"?
- kodyo 5y agoFrom the context I think he meant “turn into a shithole.”
- stjohnswarts 5y agoProbably general stability and rise of authoritarianism.
- bingohbangoh 5y agoIt’s cool though, this time they’ll finally get rid of COVID. All snark aside, I ask what I’ve asked everybody: at what point is the cure not worth it anymore?
- jakequade 5y agoPlease fuck off with anti-covid-vax rhetoric (even if tongue-in-cheek). There's enough bullshit being spun as it is.
- cheesetable 5y agoPlease keep discussion polite. GP did not mention vaccines. Different people are impacted by lockdown in different ways. Consider those that might have different experiences to yours.
- nbduckman 5y agoThey didn't even mention vaccines? Honestly, this attitude of "Don't you dare even question or even joke about measures to stop COVID, it's for the greater good" is exactly what enables laws such as these.
- dtn 5y agoThe problem is that this legislation wasn't introduced to deal with COVID. The intense international focus on our public health restrictions is a huge distraction, and undermines the message we want to send regarding authoritarianism.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- daenz 5y agoIt's snark but it's relevant. All of this shit has been pushed through during a climate where people are willing to let the government get away with a little more to help fight covid. And look what they're ramming through.
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- xvector 5y agoWhat a shitshow of a country. Hope people resist and break this dumb law. E2EE all the things.
- bean5 5y agoI don't see what that really achieves when all the chips and OSes are backdoored. Not to mention the fact that the entire backbone is meticulously tracked.
- xvector 5y agoBy this logic we should just give up on security entirely.
- californical 5y agoOr, realize that security is not only a tech problem. It’s also a people and societal problem. If we don’t live in societies that are conducive to personal liberty, it becomes extraordinarily hard to have any privacy. If all encryption became illegal, for example, with a death penalty & minimal trial for those who are discovered to be using it — nobody is going to be using encryption. It doesn’t matter how technically savvy you are, very few people will risk death just on principle of “privacy”. That’s an extreme example, but makes the point that you need both the tech and the society to support liberty and freedom. And it’s a similar dilemma that people are feeling today — what can you do if the government has compromised nearly everything? Those few uncompromised pieces probably don’t stand much of a chance. So instead, it really is a problem of people and society.
- eunos 5y agoLaws of mathematics don’t apply here, says Australian PM https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140747-laws-of-mathematics-dont-apply-here-says-australian-pm/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140747-laws-of-mathema...
- astrange 5y agoThey could just ban that. Nobody's going to write a law requiring data collection unless the app happens to be E2EE.
- teleforce 5y agoJust wondering will this new acts have negative consequences for global and independent internet agencies as Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) is well within Australian borders [1]? If it's function going to be severely affected by these new Australian acts APNIC should it be moved somewhere else without these dubious acts. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNIC
- bobbytit 5y agoDemocracy is an illusion in Australia, just like the rest of the globalised West. Politicians are chosen to stand for election by a small number of corrupt branch stackers, not by the people. The people are given a choice between party a or b, which are two cheeks of the same arse.
- gillytech 5y agoI can't read the article, resource limit has been reached. Anyone have a mirror?
- rwbt 5y agoI'm curious if this affects FastMail users in US since they're based out of Australia.
- privacyking 5y agoHopefully brongondwana reads this (CEO of fastmail)
- greyface- 5y ago"Fastmail responds to well formed warrants [and] will continue to do so, for any legislation that applies to us both now and in the future." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178
- sitzkrieg 5y agocame to post this as a long time fastmail user. i like it a lot and got 10s of domains there but ughhh
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- raven108 5y agoLong time FastMail user. Never got a straight answer on privacy so moved to Tutanota for now. Much better, end to end encryption- nice clients too. FastMail seems to have automated default address collection, backup of drafts & deleted email, ability to archive email. With no at rest encryption this could be possibly used for data mining too. This new law is the last straw. So far they have not bothered to address the issue. Till few years back FM used to be awesome but feel they have not moved with time.
- stackedinserter 5y agoAre there any Australians here on HN? Who in your country is pushing this BS? What's the selling point? What do media say?
- grecy 5y agoIt's "for our safety". For context, I'm Australian and have just come back after almost 20 years away, living around the world. Safety is now the absolute most important thing in Australia above everything else. Sadly, it's now more important than enjoying life. I'll be leaving, only come back to visit family from time to time. I have zero interest in living here.
- rainonmoon 5y agoBoth major parties have promoted these policies. The party in charge has been very effective over the past decade creating an immense atmosphere of fear and envy; the Opposition party believe there are too many votes to lose by not addressing this and have sacrificed a lot of their previously progressive stances to match the tempo of the right-wing. Besides both sides of government, the people pushing it are morning TV show hosts and, naturally, the Murdoch media. There are PLENTY of dissenting voices, typically on the grassroots level or among arts/media industries, but few of them are empowered to match the ferocity with which these other entities will go after them. Police raid journalists' offices and homes at worst, relentlessly harass them in the news or cover them in defamation lawsuits at best. There are a lot of Australians who do not want this current situation, a lot more who are afraid and misguided, and a small but influential fraction protecting their self-interests at the expense of the rest of us. If that summarises things.
- nickysielicki 5y agoThese "data disruption warrants" are the most interesting to me: > Data disruption means adding, copying, deleting or altering data held in a computer. This can only be done in order to frustrate the commission of offences or determine relevance of data. To assist disruption, a warrant can also authorise other facilitative activities, such as entering specified premises, using electronic equipment to obtain access to data, removing a computer from premises, copying data that has been obtained, and intercepting if necessary to carry out the things authorised in the warrant. A data disruption warrant also allows the officer to take actions to conceal the access and the activities, allowing the warrant to be conducted covertly. > Data disruption warrants can be used to affect data offshore with the consent of an appropriate consenting foreign official (if the location of data is known or can be reasonably determined). They can also be issued internally in an emergency situation, and subsequently authorised by a Judge or AAT member. They can also permit the officer to seek assistance from a person with knowledge of a computer or a computer system to help in carrying out the warrant. - https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/national-security/lawful-access-telecommunications/surveillance-legislation-amendment-identify-and-disrupt-bill-2020/data-disruption-warrants https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/natio... So they can get a warrant to come into your house while you're not home and put a keylogger in your keyboard USB cable, or put a bug on the UART of your router, etc. Or just hacking your cheap Netgear router with one of the hundreds of vulnerabilities that exist. Scary shit. Sounds like they're pretty drunk with power. Does Australia really have a capable offensive security group like the NSA to pull these sorts of things off, though?
- user3939382 5y agoHere’s the update from Fastmail on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178
- carrolldunham 5y agoEvery time Australia is mentioned on hn the same two whiners appear to spray about how it's so horrible here because "nobody has any problems" and everything is "too easy and good", which makes them feel some kind of doomsday prepper type indignation. It seems pathological: "These FOOLS are happy as long as they have extreme happiness, wealth, health, peace and general ease. Little do they know their sacred right to convenient encrypted communication is under grave threat".
- lgats 5y agocache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fdigitalrightswatch.org.au%2F2021%2F09%2F02%2Faustralias-new-mass-surveillance-mandate%2F&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS938US938&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fdigitalrightswatch.org.au%2F2021%2F09%2F02%2Faustralias-new-mass-surveillance-mandate%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.1658j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...
- chadcmulligan 5y agoThere is a lot of trust in Australia that their elected officials and the public service / police will do the right thing. These new laws being introduced if used in the spirit they are intended could be good. The continual refusal of the current federal government to introduce a federal crime and misconduct commission as most of the states now have is a disturbing trend. For instance three local councils were placed under administration in my state after the elected leaders were found to be doing illegal things - the classic is the Lord Mayor of Ipswich being found with a suitcase containing $50,000 at an airport, he is now serving a jail term. So these laws, a refusal to have a watchdog, scaling back of FOI request responses, searching journalists homes by the AFP, are a disturbing trend in the federal arena. Looked at dispassionately you can only assume they're trying to hide something.
- rpmisms 5y ago> These new laws being introduced if used in the spirit they are intended could be good. That "if" is doing a lot of work. Gov't power will be abused. That's like, rule one of government.
- grecy 5y ago> These new laws being introduced if used in the spirit they are intended could be good We already know they won't. Here's [1] the Australian anti-terrorism Police arresting a young online journalist at his house, because he was asking probing questions to a politician that said politician did not like. Video of the incident clearly shows the Politician lied multiple times in his police statement (which is a crime). Yet the anti-terrorism taskforce was used to arrest this person at his house. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXtq4a8829g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXtq4a8829g
- quickthrower2 5y agoThe task force set up because of the Lindt Cafe siege.
- xvector 5y ago> These new laws being introduced if used in the spirit they are intended could be good. Please find me an example of a government throughout any point in human history that has not turned on its citizens.
- kernoble 5y agoOne thing no one is mentioning is how China is the no.1 beneficiary of a pacified and monitored Australian populace. They are already completely dependent on the Aussie natural resource exports, and are deeply interested in Australia continuing to be friendly towards them, and could easily overwhelm them in a fight.
- lurquer 5y agoShh... You’re not supposed to say that. It would be as uncouth as reminding people that China borders Afghanistan and is [censored].
- eunos 5y agoChina has nothing to do with the surveillance mandate, unless you believe that Xi got ScoMo's ear.
- astrange 5y agoChina has switched to near-open hostility recently. https://www.hudson.org/research/17228-how-china-overreached-in-australia https://www.hudson.org/research/17228-how-china-overreached-...
- aurizon 5y agoWhat happens in Australia in housing also is happening more or less globally when unlimited "rent seeking" is allowed. People and companies can buy residential properties and then rent them out. With current low interest rates they can run amok and make a lot more than the interest. The Netherlands has a way to deal with this. A landlord tax on rented houses. https://borgenproject.org/dutch-housing-crisis/ https://borgenproject.org/dutch-housing-crisis/ If you buy a house = no tax, rent it out = tax. This acts to add costs to rent seekers, but real owners do not pay it. They can adjust the tax to the right level to make landlords sell their places.
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoMany parts of the US have something effectively the same called a Homestead Exemption. You get a discount on your property tax for the house you live in. Any other houses you own pay the full rate. It varies greatly by location and not everywhere has it but it's pretty common.
- aurizon 5y agoThat would work if the tax was high enough to offset rent seekers
- Swalden123 5y agoI don't know how we can stop this. Majority of Australians don't understand the implications of our constantly eroding rights because they are spoon fed bullshit by our media. When 95% of what you hear is cheering on the liberal party here, nothing can change.
- rpmisms 5y agoThe US has been well-served by our constitution. Sure, we still have issues, but it's a massive barrier to power-hungry bureaucrats.
- christophilus 5y agoI re-read a bunch of Ben Franklin this past year. It’s hard to overstate just how fortunate the US was to have foundation-builders who could think so clearly. After reading the founders, watching anything on CSPAN is just depressing. Warren Buffett famously quipped that he looks for companies with a system that could be successfully helmed by a monkey, because eventually, a monkey will be at the helm. I think the founding fathers thought the same way, and attempted to set up such a system. We’ll see how long it can last with monkeys at the helm.
- numair 5y agoI’ve spent a bit of time in Australia. When I compared the caliber of people who worked in tech and venture to those in mining and law enforcement, it was night and day. There’s a TON of smart people at companies like Woodside, and lots of smart people at the Australian Federal Police (to the extent where the US and other countries rely on them for help in tricky technical situations). The tech and VC crowd seemed to get off on the size of a funding round, or how tight they were with the founders of Atlassian, or if they knew some guy from America with a “successful exit,” or other complete nonsense. With a dynamic like that, the law enforcement people are always going to point to the tech and venture people and say to politicians, “are you going to take orders from these clowns, or are you going to listen to us?” And now that you’ve got the climate activists antagonizing the mining companies, who are responsible for a very significant percentage of the economy, you’ve got two extremely savvy and powerful groups working together. If Australian tech people want their government to take them seriously, they’re going to have to act in a manner that is as professional as those at the AFP, and they’re going to have to hit people with an economic hammer that can match the force of mining. Yes, it’s not fair that things are this difficult, but that’s life.
- sreeramb93 5y agoAtlassian founders are the wrong place to look for tech and VC mentorship. Every company here has a values round copying them and doing things that atlassian does. I believe tech and VC ecosystem will improve once they become bigger. There are companies like okzellar, shippit which do not have that atlassian bias.
- melbourne_mat 5y agoI'm Australian. Your argument seems to be "If only the tech sector in Australia had some smart people". That's nice but I don't think that's what is going on. Most of the general public is apathetic to this kind of thing. They just don't get worked up like Americans do about freedom. Especially in the middle of an epidemic (covid19 is now out of control in the two biggest cities). We have a conservative government at the moment. They're interested in power for the sake of it and very much against transparency. They're certainly not going to listen to anyone's opinions about it - they'll just do it and wear what they know will be a negligible hit they take in the polls.
- pcdoodle 5y agoThis is so bad. I have no other words.
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoNever let a crisis go to waste.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y agoRahm really nailed it with that one. I mean, I’m almost certain he had it tattooed somewhere, it was his modus operandi. But, really nailed as a succinct collection of words.
- nedwin 5y ago“The problem with Australians is not that so many of them are descended from convicts, but that so many of them are descended from prison officers.” - Clive James
- alliao 5y agoCCP is literally cancer on all citizens living in currently free democracy. They show that it's possible to keep a huge population under control with current tools and technology. Our politicians show public disdain, but fuck are they being seduced. And Australia is just stepping into it step by step while asking it's citizens to trust the government because they seem to be at odds with CCP publicly. As someone who lives in New Zealand, this isn't the democracy we want our closest neighbour turn into. Please wake up and do something Aussies, take no bullshit, you can do it. Can laugh about it later, but this shit is serious.
- eunos 5y agoIn short tech surveillance are both working and attractive. Regardless of CCP, Australia, US, FB, GOOGL, etc.
- alliao 5y agoI don't know if you're being intentional, but one of these isn't like the rest. The reach and ambition of CCP though without much elegance is overwhelmingly overshadowing any efforts shown by others.
- systemvoltage 5y agoThe machinery is already put in place in the US. All it takes is a switch to flip.
- malwarebytess 5y agoThe name that fits best imo is digital panopticon. It is a virtual prison for entire societies.
- 0xdeadb00f 5y agoHey mate. Aussie here. I'm sorry to say that it seems to me no one around here gives a flying fuck about politics let alone anyrhing to do with digital rights. This is a war we've already lost. I blame Murdoch but quite frankly most of the people I talk to are too wrapped up in working to pay their bills and care for their families to care about anything else.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 5y agoIn the years before covid, as the sole American in a few 'strayan social circles, I'd receive sh*t for Americans protesting about their "rights" and how entitled they are. Now with Covid, Australian citizens can't leave or can't come in (without significant effort). I've seen a shift in thinking amongst my Australian friends and family. The Australians I know now see value in something like a bill of rights. Like in business, no one pulls out the contract unless things are going to crap.
- markdown 5y agoThere isn't a bill of rights without exceptions, and a pandemic (public health) is always going to be one of those exceptions. It doesn't help at all during a pandemic.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoI don't know dude I just partied all weekend without any issues, no mask, no constraints on where I could go. No mandates. Seems like some places have their ducks in a row. Get vaccinated and live a little bit...
- alfiedotwtf 5y ago> I don't know dude I just partied all weekend without any issues, no mask, no constraints on where I could go. No mandates. During a pandemic, this is something to cringe at, not celebrate
- vorpalhex 5y agoThis is, in some form, the new normal. I'd suggest finding a way to make it work for you.
- StanislavPetrov 5y agoA pandemic where healthy, vaccinated people have a far, far lower chance to die or be seriously injured than driving to wherever they are going. You can hide in your home for the rest of your life in order to minimize any potential change of future risks, but good luck forcing everyone else to do so at the point of a gun. This virus is never going away, and people are getting sick of the authoritarianism being carried out in the name of "safety". Life is inherently risky, and this is just another one of life's risks. Myself and my friends have been vaccinated since spring, and we have been living life exactly the same as we did before the pandemic started here in New York - and we will continue to do so.
- Aerroon 5y agoI'm always kind of surprised by people who move to Australia. It's a country that has had an active policy of censorship on entertainment for a very long time - books, video games, movies. The fact that the populace is okay with such a policy would make me reconsider moving there. I've also read some really questionable things about policies regarding aboriginals in the northern territories. In 2007 the government 'temporarily' banned alcohol and porn for aboriginals as an 'emergency' measure.[0] And apparently it, or some replacement, is still in effect.[1] Edit: also, turns out that banning alcohol doesn't get rid of alcohol consumption.[2] Who knew? [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/21/australia.jamessturcke https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/21/australia.jame... [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-17/nt-police-commissioner-calls-for-rethink-of-alcohol-ban/12565756 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-17/nt-police-commissione... [2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-07/qld-mornington-island-indigenous-community-wants-alcohol-back/100237374 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-07/qld-mornington-island...
- bin_bash 5y agoWell to be fair the US bans alcohol for native eskimos in the Alaskan bush. EDIT: I guess in the 1980s the government allowed the villages to make their own decisions to be dry or not: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/is-prohibition-a-good-idea-after-all/405028/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/is-proh...
- animal_spirits 5y agoInteresting. I found this: > ABSTRACT: When Alaska became a state in 1959, state laws removed control of alcohol regulation from the federal government and Native communities. In 1981, however, the state legislature changed alcohol laws to give residents broad powers to regulate how alcohol comes into their communities via a local option referendum. By mid-1999, 112 small communities had held 197 alcohol control elections under the state law. Sixty-nine percent of these elections added new restrictions on alcohol, while 13% removed restrictions previously imposed. The remaining 18% of elections did not receive a majority vote needed to change the existing status. Most communities passing local option restrictions chose to ban sale and importation. Although most of these elections occurred during the first eight years after the law was passed, elections continue to occur as the law evolves and as communities debate the merits of alcohol control. Although growing evidence suggests that the local option law may reduce adverse effects of alcohol abuse in Alaska Native communities, its most important contribution may be to restore to these communities a limited form of self-government. [0] https://iseralaska.org/static/legacy_publication_links/Alcohol_Arctic.pdf https://iseralaska.org/static/legacy_publication_links/Alcoh...
- chris_wot 5y agoThe hot takes from Americans on Australian society have lately been amazing.
- nomilk 5y agoTheir server seems to be receiving too many requests. Here's the article on wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20210903054127/http://digitalrightswatch.org.au/2021/09/02/australias-new-mass-surveillance-mandate/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210903054127/http://digitalrig...
- roody15 5y agoI simply cannot wrap my mind around what is happening in Australia. Continuing a lockwdown while the number of positive covid cases remains in the low hundreds and the daily death rate in the lower tens to single digits. Nothing makes sense here. Draconian laws, complete shutdown over something that is and has been statistically under control and managed from months. Am I alone here or do people really think what is going on in Australia makes sense and that attempting to completely eradicate a virus that may be as easily spread as the common cold makes sense. Serious cannot leave your house outside and go outside for a jog … because there are 50 positive cases in a nation of millions ? My mind is blown.
- bradrn 5y agoAs an Australian, I should note that the reason positive cases were in the low hundreds — actually, low tens most of the time — was precisely because of the lockdowns. Once people stopped obeying the lockdowns, positive cases started rising, and we ended up with the current situation here in Sydney with ~1500 cases per day. The only reason it’s not any higher is because (a) we still have lockdown in place, and most people comply, and (b) we’re rapidly getting vaccinated as I type. (And also, the lockdowns weren’t continuous by any measure. Lockdown restrictions were consistently relaxed as soon as cases dropped to single digits.)
- fcklckdwns 5y agoYeah it's great. Lockdowns also reduce car accidents, plane accidents, boat accidents, bicycle accidents, gym accidents, etc. Incredible. I suggest we keep going forever because it saves so many lives.
- prohobo 5y agoRight, there's something disconcerting about the way people are behaving in this situation, and it's hard to process this as something that could reasonably happen. "I thought we were rational people in a free society?" The terrible thing is that this is exactly how people behaved in "historical" times - a foreshadowing to what lies ahead. The vast majority of people believe we are post-history, and that we're somehow more rational and good than previous generations. This isn't true, and people are just as susceptible to insane fantasies as they've always been. We're in danger now because of these people. What we're seeing is exactly what it looks like: mass psychosis on the level of witch-hunts, with incompetent and superstitious leaders trying to rule with underhanded measures. There's nothing to try to understand here, it's just time to wake up from the delusion that everything is stable and properly managed.
- whoknowswhat11 5y agoHere's the reality - I'd take google and apple's privacy protections related to my data over many govts out there? Is that a bad thing to say? Back to the regular anti google / google news / apple programming.
- joebob42 5y agoOh yeah of course in a heartbeat. I think the main objection I have to apple / google hoarding my data isn't actually apple / google having them, it's that the government can make them fork it over and so them having it means the government does by proxy.
- tacocataco 5y agoFalse choice fallacy. Google and apple can be regulated or even trust busted. The government can be forced to serve the people instead of the other way around. Humanity as a whole may have lost many battles, but we have won some. Plus the war isn't over. Thing can get better, even if they've consistently gotten worse since before I was born. I'm prone to despair myself, I always have to give myself self affirmations like this throughout my day. Helps me, hope this comment helped someone else out there. Perhaps this is why people pray to their god/gods if they have them, to give infinite morale in a seemingly hopeless situation. The majority of casualties occur during a route in war.
- TimJRobinson 5y agoI'm struggling to find a list of who voted for/against this bill. Does anyone know where to look?
- __jerbl 5y agoAustralian here, have left the country along with a friend because of the bad vibes such as: - not being allowed to leave, aggressive cops arresting pregnant women, raids on journalists, culture of fear growing, increasing surveillance and police powers and intimidation tactics, defunding the arts and humanities, rising costs of living, house crisis and stressed out friends, tall-poppy crushing boring uninspired alcoholic culture.
- fallous 5y agoI've lived to see this kind of thing enacted in a good portion of the Anglosphere and my visceral reaction is to engage in a combination of civil disobedience and a determination to undermine every overstep made. With regards to things like the Aussie requirement for phone check-ins every 15 minutes or they will deploy police to follow up and confirm your location, turn off the phone and make them eat the cost of having to deploy all available police resources just to see if people are submitting to the whim of the government every 15 minutes. Bonus if you opt to answer the door naked and claim you were busy showering/having sex/aligning your chakras/whatever. Any bureaucracy will naturally follow the path of least resistance. It is your job to make it more painful for them to pursue their goals than it is to leave you alone.
- adamjb 5y agoThe phone check in thing is for enforcing the two weeks home quarantine for returned travelers and close contacts of confirmed cases. While there are certainly slippery slope arguments to be made, let's not act like we've already slid down it.
- slowmotiony 5y ago> The phone check in thing is for enforcing the two weeks home quarantine for returned travelers and close contacts of confirmed cases. So the government can effectively just inprison you in your own house, with no proof, no recourse and no due process, because they suspect you were near some guy at some particular time some days ago. They don't even ask to get tested first! How can people on hacker news of all places not see this as a massive threat to civil liberty is beyond me.
- jezzzabell 5y agoWhen the alternative is thousands and thousands of deaths, most of us are willing to temporarily give up a bit of civil liberty.
- digitalbase 5y ago
- marsven_422 5y agoThis is what giving up your guns does to a society.
- shell0x 5y agoAustralia is China lite. In China people don't really have a choice, but in Australia people actually voted for this government, which makes it even worse.
- prawn 5y agoWe don't have anywhere near the individual rights focus of somewhere like the USA, so anything around security is a wedge issue for the other side of politics. Means that things like this are too easily introduced and passed.
- malwarebytess 5y agoAuthoritarians wreck nations. It and paternalism is incompatible with functioning democracy.
- kongin 5y agoWhat did you think would happen when you banned everyone pro-free speech from the internet for being a Nazi? For those of us who aren't technologically retarded having a simple gpg signature means this law is completely toothless.
- dang 5y agoCould you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? You don't have to change your views but we want thoughtful, substantive comments here, not battlefield stuff. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- kongin 5y agoHow are you dealing with weaponised flags? I'd put more effort into posts if they weren't just removed by someone who didn't like what they said. Give than you've unflagged a half dozen of them 12 hours later.
- dang 5y agoThose are two separate questions. If you want to comment here you need to follow the rules regardless of what other people are doing.
- kongin 5y agoOk, so would you say that this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28461965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28461965 should be flagged? And if it shouldn't be how are you dealing with the abuse of the function?
- dang 5y agoI'd say it's at least borderline. If you start off with a quasi-insult like "Do you know what AIDS is?", you're already posting in the flamewar style. Please don't do that on HN. It's enough to provide correct information respectfully.
- sneedo 5y agogood, fuck off. maybe it will free up some housing for people born here.
- pxi 5y agoAs an Australian, I feel like we're all just squatters on the mining companies land. They are tolerating us for now. If you are Adrian Burragubba from the Wangan & Jagalingou people their patience has run out.
- alfiedotwtf 5y agoHave we already forgotten that this was part of GCHQ's JTRIG mandate, revealed back in 2014? https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
- atok1 5y agoAU needs to be stopped. Resources should be put to this.
- Ms-J 5y agoHow did Australia get this far gone? There are agents in this thread with very vested interests it seems...
- javier123454321 5y agoAustralia seems on a steep decline and a testing ground for western authoritarianism. Look at the requirements to leave the country, you need to jump through hoops and prove that your presence is required outside to be granted permission to leave. This should be unacceptable for anyone, whether you are Australian or not.
- collegeburner 5y agoAbsolutely, requiring that to leave is all sorts of fucked up. That's some combloc country-type bs. Reentry requirements are different but leaving doesnt put aussie citizens at risk so there's basically 0 justification beyond control.
- flyinghamster 5y agoI just did a quick look, searching (without quotes) "Australia permission to leave" on DDG. It looks to me like you're conflating emergency restrictions for COVID [0] with something like the exit visas that the former USSR used and Russia still uses. There are a great many people dying in the US at this very moment who were making this same sort of argument, right up until they caught COVID and ended up on ventilators. [1] [0] https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/leaving-australia https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/leaving-australia [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward
- grishka 5y ago> Russia still uses No it does not. I'm Russian, and the only thing you need to leave the country is an international passport. You can apply for one online, then come to the immigration service to have your picture taken, then a month later you come again and collect it. The passport is valid for 10 years. I believe it's fairly similar to the process most other countries use. Many other countries require Russian citizens to have visas, and some visas are hard to obtain (like Australian one, lol) but that's another story entirely.
- flyinghamster 5y ago
- xkbarkar 5y agoThe accounts that hotly defend the australian government interventions seem to be created specifically for this purpose. They only comment on australia covid response posts. Food for thought.
- melbourne_mat 5y agoThe top thread which I think you're referring to mixes up the new digital surveillance laws and one state's digital quarantine phone app. I don't think anyone from Australia is going to defend the new digital surveillance laws.
- CrazyPyroLinux 5y agoThe fact that they haven't strung up the puppy killers in Bourke Shire says a lot about Australia's COVID mania.
- logicchains 5y agoI remember one time as a child attending school in Australia, overhearing a discussion between a woman who lived near the school and a local council officer. The council officer had discovered the woman had a dog of a certain breed that wasn't permitted in that region, and was telling the distraught woman that the dog would need to be taken away and killed. The dog hadn't caused any trouble or bitten anyone, mind you. Although at the time I didn't have any notion of "freedom", it shocked me nonetheless. As someone put it, "The problem with Aussies is not that so many are descended from convicts – it's that so many are descended from prison officers".
- major505 5y agoYou know, of all places where Big Brother would be a real thing, Australia was not in my list. I always think a country that use the C word as a term of endearment would know how to take things slow.
- timbit42 5y agoSlow like a boiling frog?
- dd444fgdfg 5y agoyou think this is bad, in South Australia they're making people download a government app, and they'll randomly message you and you need to take a picture of your face and it'll submit your face and location. If you don't respond the police with turn up to enforce it. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-23/how-will-south-australias-home-quarantine-trial-work/100398878 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-23/how-will-south-austra...