> But Nigel Phair, from the Centre for Internet Safety at the University of Canberra, said if the legislation avoided having to use a backdoor entry to encrypted data then it was likely that it would use a “frontdoor”, a means of accessing the information before it was encrypted.<p>...you mean a backdoor to the device, instead of a backdoor to the encryption?
This could be a silly question but how does this:<p>>> In the second half of 2017 alone Apple received 2,601 requests for access to devices from Australian law enforcement agencies and granted them in 87% of cases.<p>…align with the famed Apple refusal to comply with the request to unlock an iPhone in the US a while back. Is the jurisdictional context different (re: the 4th amendment) or is this something different to unlocking a device?
Truly, Australia is governed by morons. Would it be asking too much for a highly paid minister of the crown, who supposedly is supposed to lead government policy in an area, to have substantial knowledge of it?<p>Instead, we have these lawyers who treat maths, science and technology with contempt, who legislate for us, and don't understand what the fuck they're even talking about.
“The key point here is that we need to modernise our laws and get access to information for holding criminals and terrorists to account for investigations and gathering evidence,” he said.<p>great, now you might catch the dumb ones, but is there a shortage of secure communication channels? :)
I'll say it no one else will...<p>Yeah and all is well and good until some faceless stalker tracks down, stalks, molests, brutalizes and finally murders some 'important/high muckety mucks' 11yr old daughter and posts it all over the net. Then the the gov have no choice but to enforce 'real' protection of your security.<p>A house has two doors, frontdoor and backdoor. Either one gives you access to the contents you're trying to protect.<p>It's time public/gov wises up and demands REAl security.
Unfortunately tech policy in Australia seems to have a history of being poorly thought out and this doesn't appear to be an exception to the trend. The thing I find so disconcerting is just how little expertise seems to be present in the legislative space around tech in Australia compared with other countries, how did this come to be? It's not as though there's a complete lack of legislative skill either, in other areas things seem to be a whole lot better.
The source of this story is a 10-minute interview on ABC Radio this morning [1]. Unfortunately, there’s no transcript, but it’s a more reliable source than the second-hand summary in the article.<p>Despite the headline, it’s not clear that any bill has actually been drafted and certainly nothing has been introduced to Parliament. According to the minister, what will be proposed is a law that is ‘completely consistent in principle with the existing laws for telephone intercepts.’ While he ‘dodged multiple questions’ about whether the laws would authorise the use of ‘surveillance codes’ (whatever that means), he denied that there was any proposal to introduce laws requiring the use of backdoored encryption algorithms.<p>It would be consistent with the existing telephone intercept laws in Australia [2] (and most other developed countries) to require service providers to surveil users upon production of a warrant. In Australia, judges must consider the seriousness of the offence being investigated, and the impact on privacy, before issuing a warrant [3]. Warrants can also be obtained to install covert surveillance devices (ie. bugs) [4] if a telephone intercept or search warrant is unlikely to produce evidence.<p>Contrary to the comments suggesting that the legislators are completely uninformed, an Australian parliamentary committee has been conducting a public inquiry into the ‘impact of new and emerging information and communications technology’ since October 2017 [5]. Any member of the public may make a submission [6] to the inquiry and advocacy groups such as Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Law Council of Australia have done so. Relevant experts have also appeared before the committee in public hearings. It is likely that any draft legislation would be informed by the committee’s findings.<p>Given that the government recognises the efficacy and importance of strong encryption, the proposed new laws may look more like the US All Writs Act at the centre of the FBI–Apple encryption dispute [7]. It might not be practical to backdoor the ciphers used to encrypt data at rest on an iOS device, or in flight in a WhatsApp message. But it would be consistent with the principles of the existing telephone intercept powers (which are targeted and subject to judicial, parliamentary and ombudsman scrutiny) to require publishers like Apple to push out backdoored OS updates or apps to targeted users (or physically seized devices, as in the San Bernardino case). Perhaps the ability to obtain such targeted warrants would be less socially harmful than increased use of the existing, but more intrusive, surveillance powers.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/new-encrypted-data-laws-compromise-user-security/9839610" rel="nofollow">http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/new-e...</a><p>[2]: <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/taaa1979410/" rel="nofollow">http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/taaa197941...</a><p>[3]: <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/taaa1979410/s46.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/taaa197941...</a><p>[4]: <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/national-security/telecommunications-interception-surveillance" rel="nofollow">https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/national-security/telec...</a><p>[5]: <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Law_Enforcement/NewandemergingICT" rel="nofollow">https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joi...</a><p>[6]: <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Law_Enforcement/NewandemergingICT/Submissions" rel="nofollow">https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joi...</a><p>[7]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute</a>
I always wondered if we could steal every piece of private/personal data the politician demanding these laws has and expose it for all the whole world to see, what that might do to their attitude. We might even find some real criminals this way.