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posted by janrinok on Friday April 13 2018, @04:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the governments-are-above-mathematics dept.

The Guardian reports that an "Australian bill to create back door into encrypted apps [is] in 'advanced stages.'" The Australian government is pushing ahead with controversial legislation it says will create "back doors" into encrypted communication services – but still can't say when it will introduce the bill.

After originally aiming to have the legislation before parliament in the first quarter of this year, the government has delayed its introduction. A spokesman for the acting attorney general, Marise Payne, would only say it was in "the advanced stages of development".

[...] "If it is to proceed, Labor calls on the government to release an exposure draft of this legislation, to allow for proper consultation. This is important given the complexities around this novel area of lawmaking."

Greens senator Jordon Steele-John said the whole concept was laughable. "Once the government has a back door into encrypted devices and platforms, everybody has a back door into encrypted devices and platforms," he said.

"That has been proven over and over again. Once it is created, somebody gets in. I wouldn't trust a government that can't keep Medicare information protected to be inserting a back door into a tin shed.

"So I certainly wouldn't be trusting them to do something as serious as this."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/13/australian-bill-to-create-back-door-into-encrypted-apps-in-advanced-stages


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  • (Score: 2) by Snospar on Friday April 13 2018, @07:46PM (1 child)

    by Snospar (5366) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 13 2018, @07:46PM (#666605)

    What's that phrase? "Money talks and shit walks", is that it?

    The Australian Government is going to tell ALL it's banks and businesses that they MUST use a crypto system with known weaknesses and "legitimate" backdoors... yeah right. The Australian banks and businesses are going to tell them to fuck right off (or whatever the antipodean equivalent is) and withdraw all funding from whichever clueless moron has suggested this.

    Wait, I know this will only be for encrypting stuff that doesn't involve financial transactions... one exception to rule them all. Except TerroristA now needs to send his "bank details" securely to TerroristB and he needs that same exemption.

    I'm sure that here in the UK things will be much more straight forward, Amber Rudd really seems to have a grip on all the technical details... oh wait, shit.

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  • (Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Friday April 13 2018, @09:08PM

    by Dr Spin (5239) on Friday April 13 2018, @09:08PM (#666625)

    Surely, if there is a back door, it is a matter of days at most before the keys to the door are on sale at markets in Lagos, Calcutta, Istanbul and various major cities in Russia, to name but a few.

    Then, a few days later, money will be leaking from (or possibly to) politicians and political parties all over the place. Banking, not just online banking, will be impossible within a month!

    However, crims with average intelligence (which has to be at least 10% of them) will figure out how to use One Time Pads (Grandad will know - they used to be regularly featured in important national newspapers like Beano and Dandy). And as for catching them, I believe Steganography was known to the ancient Greeks, and has nothing whatever to do with Stegasauruses (or should that be Stegasaurii? my spell check doesn't know). Even the elderly Greek woman giving out free samples in Costco seemed to know what it was.

    In my experience, renaming binary files to pdf, and then claiming they are corrupt and wont display properly works pretty well. There are other ways, but as I am in the UK, I won't let the cat out of the bag until the horse has bolted.

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