SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
According to Daniel Mathews a lecturer in mathematics and founding member of Wikileaks, new laws passed in Australia (but not yet in effect) could criminalize the teaching of encryption. He explains how a ridiculously broad law could effectively make any encryption stronger than 512 bits criminal if your client is not Australian.
From the article:
The story begins with the Australian government's Defence and Strategic Goods List (DSGL). This list specifies goods considered important to national defence and security, and which are therefore tightly controlled.
Regulation of military weapons is not a particularly controversial idea. But the DSGL covers much more than munitions. It also includes many "dual-use" goods, which are goods with both military and civilian uses. This includes substantial sections on chemicals, electronics and telecommunications, among other things.
Disturbingly, the DSGL risks veering wildly in the direction of over-classification, covering activities that are completely unrelated to military or intelligence applications.
He says, "In short, the DSGL casts an extremely wide net, potentially catching open source privacy software, information security research and education, and the entire computer security industry in its snare. Most ridiculous, though, are some badly flawed technicalities. As I have argued before, the specifications are so imprecise that they potentially include a little algorithm you learned at primary school called division. If so, then division has become a potential weapon, and your calculator (or smartphone, computer, or any electronic device) is a potential delivery system for it."
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 22 2015, @10:51PM
It's not encrypted, it's just random noise!
🚓 ಠ_ಠ 👊 🔫🔫🔫 ☠
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 22 2015, @11:20PM
You could be forced to prove that all that noise you send doesn't contain any secrets..
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday May 22 2015, @11:26PM
You could be forced to prove that all that noise you send doesn't contain any secrets..
I can easily prove that any sufficiently large random block of white noise data contains just the text of Romeo and Juliet. I will decrypt it with an OTP and you will see for yourself. Since encryption is outlawed, the judge will never understand the flaw of this "proof."
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Saturday May 23 2015, @04:24AM
You will have to share with us this new method for proving a negative you apparently are privy to before you can be taken seriously.
In the meantime while we are awaiting this revelation, I deny your ability to force me to 'prove', much less do anything.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Saturday May 23 2015, @09:25AM
Well lawyer law can demand the impossible. They are not founded in the laws of nature. So you could be requested to prove the impossible or rot in jail in the meantime.