In the aftermath of the Australian government passing laws that allows the government to force companies and individuals to work with officials to bypass encryption, scary implications of the new laws are being discovered. One very concerning effect is that officials can now force Australians to unlock their phone — granting the government full access to anyone's email history, personal files, pictures and other files on their phone. Senator Steele-John was quoted as saying "Far from being a 'national security measure' this bill will have the unintended consequence of diminishing the online safety, security and privacy of every single Australian,". With fines of up to $50,000 for individuals who refuse to hand over an unlocked device or cooperate with authorities, new devices and software are expected to enter the market including dual OS devices, hidden partitions, encrypted files and partitions similar to TrueCrypt, cloud only applications, device wipe pins, secondary hidden OS functions and other security measures which so far have largely only been implemented on desktop computers. This latest bungle by the Australian government may very well propel mobile device security forward decades in the same way RIAA and MPAA advanced P2P.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 07 2018, @09:57PM (2 children)
Not saying just roll over as it should be fought, but in the meantime, can you have 2 codes, one to unlock, and one to nuke?
(Score: 1) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday December 08 2018, @04:18AM (1 child)
Pretty sure standard practice is to image the storage device before attempting to decrypt. Nuke would just result in restore from backup and try again, or do you want to go to jail for 5 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @11:48AM
In the street? When will they ask for a password? Or is this 'arrest first, ask questions later'?