Australian bill to create back door into encrypted apps in 'advanced stages'
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
How would this be technically feasible? - have a backdoored version on Google Play / App Store? - MITM the SMS registration? - Force WhisperSystems to run a different binary? - Jam communications if they can't intercept?
Edit: As an Australian myself, this does worry me. But I plan to keep using strong encryption as a protest.
What's to stop them?
> I plan to keep using strong encryption as a protest
And when the people with guns come?
They obviously can't touch foreign organizations and services directly, so they have to influence what happens in Australia. They could force ISPs to block the IP addresses of the services. They could also make it illegal for people in Australia to have a device that can't be unlocked by the authorities, and make it illegal to install encrypted communication apps. That way, if they get a wiretap and discover that they can't decrypt the communications, they can simply arrest and charge the person for that.
Edit: I doubt the Australian government could actually get away with this approach. Encrypted apps have gone mainstream and too many people would be upset if they were banned. Hopefully the Labor Party would oppose such a bill and it wouldn't make it through the Senate (no guarantees).
Oh, please. They don't understand technology or its impacts, just like the current government. All they hear is that encryption prevents law enforcement from doing what they want. It'll go through the Senate.
If the punishments for using illegal encrypted services are less than the punishments for whatever crime is being committed, this won't work. BUT, if the punishments for simply using encrypted services, that we've already been using "safely" for years, are in the same ballpark as serious crime / terrorism / paedophilia then there's the potential for a lot of collateral damage that will make the passage of such laws difficult. If such laws do get passed, there could be a lot of stand-by-their-principles IT types (like me) serving long sentences for texting their partners asking whether milk should be purchased on the way home.
The technical details of the "encryption with backdoors" would be left to the companies that have enough presence in Australia that they need to conform to it.
The enforcement against criminals using encryption would be as simple as the police finding that they can't decrypt the contents of a wire tap because the app isn't backdoored.