SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
With the Australian Labor Party caving in on the proposed encryption law that will allow Australian police and agencies to access private data directly from vendors, the new proposed laws are now agreed in principle to introduce government level snooping of user messages and encrypted files. Agencies like ASIO or the Australian Federal Police will have the ability to request that telecommunications and tech companies help them with their investigations and compel companies to build ways to allow targeted access to encrypted communications data.
Previously: Australian Government Pursues "Golden Key" for Encryption
Five Eyes Governments Get Even Tougher on Encryption
Apple Speaks Out Against Australian Anti-Encryption Law; Police Advised Not to Trigger Face ID
Australia follows New Zealand to demand passwords
New Australian Push For Encryption Backdoor in Wake of Alleged Terrorist Plot
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday December 06 2018, @06:16AM (6 children)
Thank you. I'm not alone, and I can only lose so many of the "God given" rights that Americans have fought so damn hard for. Try telling a patriot in the 19th century it was forbidden to speak without the government knowing due to fear of the consequences. That explicitly you were not allowed to be private, and only some math you could perform. Americans would've responded, and government would've been afraid.
That's the only way you can frame Australia's bullshit, if that is what in fact they have done.
No true American (and I mean that) would put up with it. The intellectual community would revolt, the vets would revolt, and it would essentially be bipartisan resistance. This isn't going to split down party lines, but certain ideological ones. There are some stupid Americans that don't believe the 1st is all that important, but I do believe by and large that regular Americans would find it a fundamental violation of our freedoms.
The bread and circuses can only mollify the public so much.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Blymie on Thursday December 06 2018, @07:36AM (5 children)
I'm sorry, but you're deluded.
An example. For 10+ years, hell for longer, prior to Wikileaks, Snowden, Manning and others, I told people how much was stored. Saved. Copied. Watched. Listened to.
"No", people told me.. "That's absurd, our government would never do *that*".
Then said info became 100% public knowledge. The NSA lying to congress. The depth and breadth of the domestic spying. Causing Google to go on a campaign of HTTPS (eg, punish search results), and others doing the same sort of stuff -- because of the NSA spying on domestic corps.
I could go on, and on, and on with the hundreds of "finally shown to be true" revelations the public now has access to. And you know what?
They *do not care*.
Not one bit.
Most people still don't even know. Literally, talk to people on the street. Random people. No idea, no clue, and do you know why?
Don't care! They don't! Literally!
99% of the population doesn't even know what 'judicial oversight' is, how it's important, why warrants are important.... and these are non-technical subjects.
Yet you want to discuss encryption?! People have NO IDEA what encryption is. None. Zero. Nada. You may as well say "Bluggerflats" or some nonsense word, they'd understand what you mean just as much.
No my friend, I'm sorry. People don't care, don't understand, don't know.
And even if each of us sat down and explained .. for hours and hours, they *can't* understand. Because much of the population literally does not have the intellect to understand!
For example, literacy. The US has 99% literacy? Yes, because 'literacy' is often defined as either being able to read labels on food packages / "STOP" signs, or alternatively at a 4th grade level!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States#Defining_and_measuring_literacy [wikipedia.org]
People that can actually read anything beyond a few hundred words? It's so few people you'd be astonished, I know I was when I researched it.
The average voter is good at many things, because life does not often require certain skills. But don't expect the average voter to understand encryption. Experts need to tell them whether it is good or bad, whether back doors are good or bad.
They don't understand the *arguments*, even. At all. So they MUST rely upon someone telling them "This is good" or "bad", and that's IT.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday December 06 2018, @01:15PM
Although you're right, I also think it's fundamentally worse than the people just being unable to understand the arguments (and I'm sure many people at least know roughly what a secret code is): it's that even the ones that are intelligent enough to grasp it won't get it because they fall for the instinctive, optimistic "It won't happen to me." fallacy. This thinking gets expanded after the fact into variations of the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" mantra combined with a subconscious level of trust that they have in authority figures in their own tribe. Their own national government falls into that category on some level, even if they might criticize them on a conscious level. I think it's similar instinctive behavior to why most of us start out with a certain level of respect for our parents. This gives rise to the fallacy you highlighted, of "That's absurd, our government would never do *that*".
So, us ape-men seem to have inbuilt irrational levels of optimism and trust. They need to be there to stop us giving up altogether, so that we succeed at survival, but sometimes they work against our best longer term interests. I've also noticed it's quite common for some people's brains to just shut down when they come across any ideas that make them feel uncomfortable. These people believe only the things that make them feel good; a sort of intellectual hedonism, I suppose.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday December 06 2018, @08:26PM (3 children)
I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck.
Whether my fellow Americans can figure it out or not. At that point the U.S government takes away my fundamental human right to privacy, and states explicitly that it is illegal for me to speak privately (keeping info from them) with another citizen, or use certain types of math, I will engage in outright civil war. I will destroy infrastructure and do everything I can to fight it.
I'm a real American, and we don't give up our rights. We shed blood to keep them.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Blymie on Thursday December 06 2018, @10:44PM (2 children)
You may not care, and you may fight to keep your rights -- but my contention is that sorry, your fellow Americans won't.
Don't get me wrong, I'm scratching my head as well. Let me ask you this -- the NSA was spying on Americans illegally. The NSA was spying on US companies illegally. It still is.
What infrastructure have you destroyed? How have you fought this?
Realistically, I'm sure you've done what I've done. You've made sure people are aware. You've fought via contacting elected representatives (something I've done).
But have you seen the average person down the street care? At all? Even remotely?
Let me ask you something else...
Where were you after 9/11, and even today -- right now, when laws were passed to spy on all credit card transactions? When libraries were forced to spy for the government?
Have you fought that?
I'm with why you're angry, 100%. And I very much wish I was wrong, and that people cared.
But they don't.
And when no one cares? Well, you'll continue to do what you've been doing -- nothing.
Because a war of 1 makes zero sense.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday December 06 2018, @11:03PM (1 child)
Destruction not yet justified. They are doing something wrong under the guise of terrorism. Yet, at that same time there is spirited debate, great pushback at the intellectual level at least, and we still are allowed to legally use strong encryption. They're going after the companies, performing PR campaigns, vaccuming up all plain text data that you can imagine, but they are not yet outlawing the use of the Signal protocol, or mandating that all computer users register their encryption keys.
I have fought this. I've supported the EFF, have been supportive of, and use, encryption. I'm working on secure platforms myself, and contribute to the open source movements that have the goals of providing privacy and data security.
I stopped using credit cards for any kind of personal transactions. Only the most boring shit, like gasoline and some bare necessities. I paid utility bills with them. Otherwise, any sensitive was paid with cash or pre-paid cards. Don't recall how libraries were forced to spy. I've got the Internet :)
Again, various acts of civil disobedience.
Wrong. Standing up for your principles and fighting for your basic human rights, always makes sense. Even if the other people around you are scared, apathetic, or ignorant. I would rather not be living in the world where such fundamental and basic human rights have been stripped from me. I would rather die as an example to the rest.
Sorry, but my name is, and always will be forever, Kunta Kinte. You're going to have do a lot fucking more than chop off one of my feet before I cooperate and call you master.
You seem reasonable, and disillusioned, and doubtful of Americans. I respect your decision to just slowly have your rights stripped away, like a frog in boiling water. Whether you can understand mine or not, is immaterial and irrelevant to whatever forms of civil disobedience I will perform in an increasing tyrannical government.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Blymie on Friday December 07 2018, @12:31AM
Thing is, at each slow step of encroachment -- this is what happens. Each "little thing" is never quite enough to make a sane man pick up a gun, and just shoot and kill every authority figure around him.
Amusing. I'm Canadian, and took very much the same tact. Here though, debit cards have 'been a thing' for 30 years. Everyone uses them instead of cash, and while the government doesn't have transactional history, well... let's say I know ways that the data gets out, regardless of the fact.
But I use it for grocery shopping, gas. I use cash for almost everything else. I leave a 'trail', when I legitimately don't care.
But my phone? Not linked to me name, never on at home (wifi or 4G), only paid for it by cash, pay for top-up minutes by cash, only paid for google play by cash cards + adding, don't use google for addresses/etc, fake name, etc.
So the phone doesn't link to me in any way. I don't even give out the phone number, because once someone has your number? You can easily be tracked by a variety of means.
(I have VOIP forward to my cell phone, and give out the VOIP number)
I find this fascinating. You've not fought anyone with a gun, not used physical force to change things, yet you act/talk as if you have.
Frankly, I doubt you've done as much as I have. Note.. I certainly admit that you do more than 99.9999% of people out there.
But I'm not doubtful of Americans. I just know history, and what I've seen. Most Americans don't care. They just don't. That's not doubt, that's fact.
Prove to me that Americans care. No one cares, dude. Just you and me, and a few others.
I mean -- you also have to know history, to know *why* you should care. You need to be well read, to know why you should care.
Most people aren't that.
It's like any other problem today. People will only care, when it directly, immediately, effects them. I mean *care*, not hit the like button on a Facebook post, or complain on Reddit. But *care*.