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This was something people largely missed at one point around Australia’s Assistance and Access Bill five years ago: the Prime Minister was widely derided for sa

This was something people largely missed at one point around Australia’s Assistance and Access Bill five years ago: the Prime Minister was widely derided for saying (as reported) “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia”. Government is all about forbidding things that are physically possible. Maths says you can do these things. Governments can say you’re not allowed to do these things. (A&A Bill was the rather-dubiously-handled piece of legislation that, in part, makes first-party end-to-end encryption not an acceptable defence for declining to fulfil legal warrants.)

rekoil 3y ago
I understand what you mean, the problem is that when you unpack what the result of the government saying "you're not allowed to do these things" is, you're left with a plan that takes away law-abiding citizens privacy without actually accomplishing anything. (I'm assuming here that the end goal is to circumvent proving criminal actions by giving the government a way to prosecute people for simply hiding communication) I respect the government saying some things are not allowed, but when it comes to E2EE, even if there's a law saying you can't build your own E2EE, there's actually no way for the government to prove that a communications channel was using illegal E2EE. The person accused of using illegal E2EE can just say they were simply typing gibberish into the program and weren't actually trying to communicate. Yeah that's obviously bullshit, but without the key you can't prove it, which is exactly the situation they are in now anyway...