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: 5, Informative) by U on Saturday May 23 2015, @12:00AM
This law contains some real gems:
So any Intel LGA2011 CPU is now banned, as is any CPU >3GHz. Apparently Australia is now scared of people having computers that are just too fast.
SIMD: now illegal in Australia.
Say goodbye to any remotely modern semiconductor fab.
Any external interconnect faster than 16 Gbit/s is now illegal. Anything with USB3, 40Gb Ethernet, 100Gb Ethernet or Thunderbolt is banned.
Here's the whole list. [comlaw.gov.au] Of course, there's plenty on cryptography too.
Somebody call me out if I've got this utterly wrong, but as far as I can tell it really is this ridiculous.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 23 2015, @08:37AM
Is it just me that thinks the Australian government has gone completely nuts? Not even the US government seems to do this?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday May 23 2015, @08:46AM
I get the idea that a bunch of people living in glass houses think the way to protect their assets is to confiscate all the rocks.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fritsd on Saturday May 23 2015, @09:02AM
That sounds like:
1. somebody wants to hobble the Australian high-tech industry, so that it can't become competitive with other countries
2. this person or group infiltrated the current Abbott government to get their plan executed
3. this person or group tells the Australians: "it's for your own good that Australians don't learn too much about computers, because security"
If I were Australian, I'd be clamoring for a full investigation of whichever foreign influence wrote this law.