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Regardless of what the laws of mathematics state around breaking into end-to-end encryption, the Australian government is determined to bring in laws that go against them, with the Prime Minister of Australia telling ZDNet that the laws produced in Canberra are able to trump the laws of mathematics
"The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that," he said on Friday. "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia."
Turnbull also shows his erudition in regards with all cyber.
Under questioning from journalists, Turnbull gave his definition of a backdoor.
"A back door is typically a flaw in a software program that perhaps the -- you know, the developer of the software program is not aware of and that somebody who knows about it can exploit," he said. "And, you know, if there are flaws in software programs, obviously, that's why you get updates on your phone and your computer all the time."
"So we're not talking about that. We're talking about lawful access."
And, if the highest authority in Australia isn't enough, the Australian Attorney General also brings in an irrefutable argument from overseas authority - come on, punk, I dare you try to refute GCHQ, see what happens.
Speaking earlier on Friday morning, Brandis said he has been informed by the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intelligence agency that the government's plan to bust encrypted messages is possible.
"Last Wednesday, I met with the chief cryptographer at GCHQ ... and he assured me this was feasible," he said.
Newscientist, buzzfeed, huffpo.
[Typo corrected post-publication - Ed.(FP)]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Monday July 17 2017, @11:43AM (10 children)
It seems obvious to me what
means.
They're not talking about breaking good crypto, they're talking about making it a crime to use good crypto or making it a crime to not filter internet connections to ban/prevent good crypto.
The standard SN automobile analogy is this scenario is like making fun of a cop for being a moron because the laws of physics overrule his stupid speed limit and its trivial to construct an automobile that can exceed 25 MPH in this residential zone therefore him and his law is so ignorant ha ha ha funny.
/usr/share/misc/magic on my machine has a little recipe for the file command to recognize GPG encrypted files. Simply do deep traffic analysis to block those and a bunch of MIME types and a bunch of SSH negotiations at the ISP level and they're pretty much all good. Not good enough to work, but good enough for the ISP to avoid prosecution by putting forth a reasonable effort. 40 bit DES keys will be permitted (well, this is nanny state, so maybe licensed...)
I am a little unclear what the purpose of this is other than the usual power grab. I mean, this is freaking Australia. Not exactly Pearl Harbor every day over there. Its like putting lots of legislative effort against werewolves, elves, and centaurs, you can do it, but its not really worth the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @12:02PM
I've never heard any cop claim that traffic laws overrule the laws of physics.
Any cop that would dive for cover when he is standing in the way of a speeding car is pretty well aware that the laws of physics always win.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @12:12PM (1 child)
You'll think differently when the werewolves attack! What do you mean, there are no werewolves? Of course you've never seen one, that's because our successful efforts to keep them away!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @02:02PM
We need an immigration ban on Transylvania!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 17 2017, @12:57PM
In other words, the end-to-end encryption apps (WhatsApp, Open Whisper, etc) will be banned into Australia, that's what you say?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @02:14PM
Australia is one of the five eyes, us never need to pass these laws if they ship all ur data through the magic wombat anus. Or some such.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday July 17 2017, @03:34PM
Well, China is moving in this direction and it seems that others will follow. Should this surprise us?
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday July 18 2017, @03:57AM
Agree that this seems like a power grab, and I suspect I know who the chief architect was [aph.gov.au].
Brandis has been trying to control the Internet in Australia since Day 1 of becoming Attorney General. This is just the latest step in the process. A more dodgy AG would be hard to find.
Very sad that the Libs have not been following the very relevant FBI case in the US last year. If Apple refuses to hand data over to the FBI, what makes Australia think that they'll all of a sudden roll over for them? The NSA leaks have also shown that governments cannot promise that their decryption tools and backdoors will never fall into the wrong hands.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:20AM (2 children)
Use stenography and streams within streams? on a superficial look it will look compliant and nice. Only when the data is need will it be a brick wall or a discovered diversion.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:53PM (1 child)
steganography?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday July 20 2017, @02:22AM
Oooooppsie. Correct ;)
Should be: