A recent alleged Islamic terrorist plot in Melbourne has prompted fresh calls from Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to endorse the Assistance and Access Bill, proposed in August 2018, which may help government agencies access user data on computers and mobile devices.
Mr. Dutton believes that the planned attack involving Hanifi Halis, Ertunc Eriklioglu, and Samed Eriklioglu may have been successful if the alleged terrorists had solely used encrypted communications for planning. Mr. Dutton described the ease at which criminals and potential terrorists could communicate as an "unacceptable risk". According to police, counter-terrorism agents have foiled 15 attempted attacks since 2014, four of which have been described as "major".
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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: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 25 2018, @12:40AM (6 children)
All they need do is communicate in some obscure dialect. I'm not even a linguist, but I've noted that the same names can be spelled and even pronounced in many different ways. So, you get a few tribesmen who speak back-country Arabic, or even some nearly dead tribal language. Good luck figuring out what they are up to even if it's all in plaintext.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @01:12AM (5 children)
Wow ... way to lump every Muslim into one big dangerous plot against the world.
>> I'm not even a linguist
You're not a lot of things. But you still think you can spot all sorts of conspiracies against your self identified "white male Christian" [soylentnews.org] subgroup. Do you sleep with one eye open and one hand on a gun?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @01:24AM (2 children)
+
Some day you're going to mouth off to the wrong person, and you will find yourself in a situation you cannot talk your way out of.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Blymie on Sunday November 25 2018, @08:47AM
I don't understand this subthread. The OP didn't say "All Arabic speaking persons are terrorists", or "All Muslims are terrorists", or what not. Only that if you found someone speaking an obscure "back-country Arabic", it would be near impossible to decipher.
It's the same sort of thing the Americans did in WWII. They used Native Americans speaking Navajo over the radio, and no one figured it out.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 25 2018, @09:36PM
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @02:16AM
You mean a lot of dangerous local plots.
In the region of Australia, moslem [straitstimes.com] Indonesia's military has been practcing for well over four decades invasions of Australia. A couple times the only thing holding the practice back from becoming a full-scale attack has been Australia's ties with the US and the strength and influence of the US. When the Republicans have weakened the standing and power of the US sufficiently then one of the next times won't be an exercise.
Strong US or not, Australia can be weakened enough by more moslem transmigration to the point where it is unable to either defend itself even long enough ask for international help.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @09:02AM
way to lump every Muslim into one big dangerous plot against the world
They do that themselves. You should read the K book and discover this for yourself first hand.
First up you must know that you are an enemy. The kafirophobes believe themselves to be permanently at war with outsiders. None of the lines about making peace and accepting others applies to you.
Next up know that your women will be considered to be "spoils of war" to be dominated by true believing muslims
Accept that their goal is to take over the planet and plan accordingly.
Have a nice life.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @12:55AM (3 children)
We've stopped all these attempted attacks ... so clearly we need sweeping new powers to invade everyone's privacy in order to stop attacks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @09:05AM (1 child)
I hate to defend their side but they only barely stopped this one. They know how close they came to missing it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by driverless on Sunday November 25 2018, @11:52AM
It was a bunch of guys who allegedly discussed doing something somewhere with a gun, if they could figure out how to get their hands on one. Yep, really critical threat there, we just narrowly scraped through with that one.
I live in a country where we've had nutcases who openly advocate armed insurrection for years now, so not even bragging to each other in secret like those guys did but speaking publicly about it. They're nutcases, the police keep general tabs on them but mostly leave them alone, and they pretty much leave everyone else alone, they're all talk, occasional theatrics for the media, and no action.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday November 25 2018, @11:34AM
Or more generically:
where $thing could be "spaghetti", "used tram tickets", "small red plastic balls", or "idiot Australian politicians". Clearly we need to ban all of those in order to stop terrorism.
Oh, and also every other $thing describable by nouns as well, they all need to be banned to stop terrorism.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Sunday November 25 2018, @01:02AM (7 children)
Ex-police, dumbest sort of authoritarian (even dumber than our Runaway). His Queensland upbringing may have something to do with it, I suspect he made from the Hillbilly Dictator [wikipedia.org] a role model [insidestory.org.au].
---
Now, some could say: "Yeah, naah, mate, that's Downunder backyard, I don't need to care much".
However, any other in his ministerial shoes will do the same - that's US policy, pushing against encryption laws with the hope such laws will be adopted first by some minion nations then diffuse in all 5-eyes nations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Blymie on Sunday November 25 2018, @08:50AM (4 children)
Thing is, people are often influenced by the media.
Ever see those movies, where they get a hold of someone's cell phone, and solve the whole mystery from it? Or, if they don't get the phone, and some secret code on it, the world will end?
Yeah. That's what's in their mind.
In reality, it's typically not the case. Anyone dumbass enough to be part of a modern terrorist group, that does such things, would likely not be following doctrine.
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Sunday November 25 2018, @10:03AM (1 child)
I used to work in the same office as a woman who was convinced that everything on CSI was stuff that cops routinely did. Everything from 'enhance the photo to see fingerprints', 'DNA says this guy is 6'2" and has a big nose', to 'paint chips that were from a can of paint sold by Fred at Home Depot on the 12th of june to a bald guy wearing leather-soled shoes'.
She really believed the cops could and did do that stuff.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 26 2018, @01:41PM
The sort of women who watch cop dramas, legal dramas, or medical dramas think exactly like that. They are just the late night replacement for the soaps the majority of women watched in decades past (and a dwindling number of housewives still watch today.) The scariest part is quite a lot of them have degrees or some level of intelligence, but either due to naivety or some fantasy about the competence of hollywood, assume that they actually do vet all their plots rather than make up something hokey that fills the void, not unlike the void they are filling in their lives with the shows in the first place.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 25 2018, @10:18AM (1 child)
Bashing unrealistic portrayals in movies is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Cops think and do a lot of stupid crap. The kind of guy who lusts to be a cop because he might get to shoot someone, the racist and sexist pigs and power trippers and brownshirt wannabes who want the power to harass ordinary citizens, the sort who construes the most innocent of actions into big crimes-- police departments have a hell of a time keeping bozos like that off the force, or containing their ugly agenda when they do make it on. Incredibly, some cities have this idea that a cop shouldn't be smart, and will reject applicants for being too smart. Dummies with guns and badges is a recipe for embarrassment and farce at the least, and tragedy and disaster at the worst.
Australia has been in the news a lot lately over their stupid handling of technological matters. This latest demand is merely par for the course. Perhaps Queensland is one of those jurisdictions that doesn't want their cops to be too smart.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday November 26 2018, @03:29AM
That's grossly unfair!!!
Back in Joh's [wikipedia.org] day they were widely considered to be the best that money could buy! [wikipedia.org]
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday November 25 2018, @10:20PM (1 child)
I did not realise he was a mate of Joh's. Isn't it a rule in Australia to remind anyone who mentions Joh that he was born in New Zealand? Bloody Kiwis.
I have seen Dutton's most recent leadership challenge described as "amateur hour" which kind of makes sense now.
Nasty, unimaginative, and probably corrupt. Should be Queensland's state motto.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 26 2018, @01:08AM
Mate? No, I never said that. Couldn't be since Dutton is born in 1970, he was 17yo when Joh went down. It seems likely to me that he took Joh as a role model in his teenage years, though.
He seems to be following Joh footsteps even down to the level of possible conflict of interest [theguardian.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @02:26AM (1 child)
A free society presents an unacceptable level of risk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @03:45AM
Once a terrorist superbug is released, false flag or not, freedom as you know it will be cancelled. Same for the creation of real artificial intelligence if that happens first.
The threat from extremists with guns and bombs is very minimal, and they want to ban encryption. Upgrade the threat just a little bit, and they will take everyone's privacy away.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @05:32AM
if it comes to australia it will come to the rest of south east asia.
these countries are still relient on the "mini-amerika" of the region to set technical standards.
what south east asia needs is more protection from possible autocratic rulers in the future, not less.
however since the usa has pivoted from the middle east towards asia, especially china, communication lines need to be "soften up" in case china doesnt back down or agrees to some shared profit from south china sea oil (racket)?
it is sad that a long history of friendly cooperation between australia and south east asia is put to the stake because the far away ally has a sudden interest in the region.
i guess times change ...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @04:38PM (1 child)
let a bunch of desert rats into the country find some half retarded motherfuckers doing what they do and use that as justification to take away law abiding citizens' rights. when are the people going to exterminate every mole that pops his head up trying to subvert the freedom of the people? there are no consequences for these parasites.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday November 26 2018, @03:34AM
Unfortunately conservative politicians are a protected species.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 26 2018, @04:56PM
Bah, I already watched this series on Netflix. They need to come up with more original stories, if they want it to be believable.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"