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: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday December 08 2018, @04:16AM (5 children)
That's one of the reasons I _support_ patents, including software patents: they motivate others to improve on the patented inventions.
With no patents we would have settled on MP3. Ogg Vorbis would have never been invented.
I have other reasons.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sabriel on Saturday December 08 2018, @07:19AM (1 child)
How do you know?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday December 08 2018, @09:09AM
Being a naturally occurring mineral, no one could patent it.
Lithium's efficacy for the prevention and the treatment of Bipolar Mania was discovered in the forties, but it was not licensed by the FDA until 1970.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @12:05PM (1 child)
Dude, don't ever contract a cancer that requires a patent protected medicine
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday December 08 2018, @08:32PM
A couple years ago I was taking an antidepressant that set The America Taxpayer back five grand a month.
It didn't do shit for me, but cheap as dirt Elavil (amitryptiline) is dandy as candy
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @08:12PM
It seems to me we waste a lot of time working around patents instead of improving upon existing tech.