Breaking US Encryption: The Australian Test Case | Hacker News Reader

Breaking US Encryption: The Australian Test Case

blog.dogooder.co

19 pointsjustsee14 comments

I believe the answer to the question is that the Government wants to be able to compel anyone providing a service to be able to ship malware to anybody they choose, with huge fines for refusing or informing anybody about it.

So, say if Snapchat was end-to-end encrypted - they would then tell Snapchat to create a special version with a backdoor that streams any messages to the Government, and then compel, say, Apple to provide it to a certain Apple ID as an update. The user would happily go on using it not realising he was compromised.

I think the idea is that a 'systemic weakness' would be getting a backdoor that is distributed to all Snapchat users, whereas they feel that delivering malware with backdoors to specific people is fine.

At the end of the day, it's pretty ridiculous, and it should just be scrapped. We unfortunately have massive overreach in intelligence though unfortunately - it's literally legal for intelligence services to break into anybody's property and copy documents, implant listening devices, etc... We don't have a bill of rights or anything to prevent such overreach.

But this would come to light quickly and mean that nobody installs updates any longer. I wouldn't. It would erode trust in software companies very quickly making everybody less safe.

Furthermore, for the case cited, this wouldn't help. For that you'd need a backdoor for at least installing software without being the device owner. With that, you'll be mugged for your iPhone again.

I know Australians like to joke about how they have an Old Man Government that likes to pass legislation about things it doesn't really understand, but even by the lofty standards it's set this is ridiculous. And I shouldn't act too smug, either, given some of the chatter that's come from a number of different Home Secretaries here in the UK.

At what point are these people going to wrap their heads around the concept that there's no way to implement these sorts of policies without compromising security?

I wish it was just a joke... over here, the same politicians will tell you that "clean coal" is the future and the solution to "clean" the planet (no, it's not another dirty joke).

Actually, our current Prime Minister brought a "nice big hunk of black coal" to the House of Representatives one day (before he became the Prime Minister).

Back to technology, the company responsible for our national broadband (NBN Co), has bought 21 million metres of copper cable (enough to wrap around Australia one and a half times). That's our "high-speed" broadband network.

But hey, one of our previous prime ministers still thinks that high-speed Internet is to watch porn only, so there was no need to replace the old and inefficient copper with fibre.

At this point, I don't know if this is an Old Man Government or an Old Man Country, because enough people vote for these politicians, so they stay in power.

>At what point are these people going to wrap their heads around the concept that there's no way to implement these sorts of policies without compromising security?

You make the mistake in thinking they're ignorant of how much security they are compromising. The language of these bills is not designed to cover up incompetence - its designed to cover up competence.

You see, the Australian government knows full well what it's doing. What it is depending on, is that the Australian people don't have a clue - and really, they don't. Sure, a few sectors are well enough educated on the subjects to raise objections - but Australian politics has never allowed minority voices to be heard, and people raising objections to heinous Australian policies are easily silenced - Australian politics is designed to disallow such from happening.

The way to view this whole episode, is with much cynicism and disgust at the way the Australian people are manipulated. It is one of the most captive western audiences, most easily influenced by a powerful media industry, and everything that is being done in Australia to make forced decryption possible is just a test for the broader market - the USA and Europe - that will be attacked next.

Yeah, I'm probably giving them the benefit of the doubt in assuming that they're being stupid rather than outright malicious. The same is likely true here in the UK, given that they've had tech experts yelling at them for years about how you can't add some sort of exclusive backdoor access to software. Still hasn't stopped the last two Home Secretaries (one of whom is now the Prime Minister, at least for now) trying to force companies to create them.

> These are high victim impact crimes that are being hindered by the inability of law enforcement to access encrypted communications.

Consider that, on some time scale, we (or at least, some actor) will eventually possess the technology required in order to read minds.

At that point it will be possible to determine passcodes from suspects; to determine the content of previous conversations (subject to the limitations of human memory); essentially, to extract testimony from an unwilling participant.

Will we allow that? Because, by this token; one could just as easily state that law enforcement are being hindered by their inability to access ....

I have no idea how the Australian government expects to enable to compel US companies to do anything at all, aside from threatening their access to the (tiny) Australian market. I'm hopeful that this bill will result in the withdrawal of said companies from the Australian market, and maybe then the government will realize this bill was a bad idea.

The government won't care if those companies withdraw. Our citizens will absolutely care they can no longer Gmail and Whatsapp and will vote them out at the next election. But that happens every 3 years anyway, so it won't make a difference to the politicians.

i really dont see this getting any purchase.

Its utterly ridiculous.

What is actually preventing it from happening? Serious question.

In their teen rapist scenario, why is the parolee permitted to even have a smartphone? Should be limited to a flip phone with easily-tapped SMS and no apps.

Also, if they are sure he sent messages, then why can't they obtain those messages from the recipients?

And what actually happened to the presumption of innocence? Sounds suspiciously like they have decided someone is guilty without actual evidence.

It's just a stupid story that makes no sense. They want the ability to spy on any citizen with no judicial oversight, and this is the best argument they can come up with for such a massive overreach? I'm honestly insulted. These are the people who are meant to be looking after our interests?

That’s my point. The child rapist on parole scenario is a straw man. They don’t need breakable encryption to address that problem. Parole requires the parolee to sign a contract. Put a no smartphones clause in there and they’re done. Then they can rearrest on that basis alone if he has a smartphone, and let him serve the rest of his original sentence.

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