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Signal says it can't allow government access to users' chats
Last week, the Australian government passed the country's controversial Access and Assistance Bill 2018 into law, legislation that allows government agencies to demand access to encrypted communications. Companies that don't comply with the new law could face fines of up to AU$10 million ($7.3 million). A number of companies that stand to be affected have spoken out about the legislation, and Signal has now joined in, explaining that it won't be able to fulfill such requests if asked.
"By design, Signal does not have a record of your contacts, social graph, conversation list, location, user avatar, user profile name, group memberships, group titles or group avatars," Signal's Joshua Lund wrote in a blog post. "The end-to-end encrypted contents of every message and voice/video call are protected by keys that are entirely inaccessible to us." Lund added that Signal is open source, meaning anyone can "verify or examine the code for each release." "People often use Signal to share secrets with their friends, but we can't hide secrets in our software," he wrote. "We can't include a backdoor in Signal."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Friday December 14 2018, @10:32PM (27 children)
Good for them. Of course, as they're not profit motivated, they find the high road a good bit easier to take.
This is a huge point in favor of open source software, at least until they start making it illegal.
--
Democracy: Where any two idiots outvote a genius.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @11:08PM (14 children)
This is totally unacceptable. What kind of encryption is "open source" anyway? It sounds like illegal cyber. Aren't these "open source" hackers incels too? We need to ship these queers off to boot camp. Killing some chicoms will straighten them out.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday December 14 2018, @11:14PM
We need to ship these queers off to boot camp
So you propose to remove them from a penal colony in exchange for boot camp? How's that a punishment?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday December 14 2018, @11:17PM (12 children)
Australia doesn't need to build a boot camp.
"Welcome to Nullarbor. Here are your 100 liters of water. When you are done undressing, you may go in any direction you choose, and we'll check with your tracking collar that you're not getting help. You will be airdropped food twice a month. Those of you who are currently refusing to answer our question may do so at any time by pressing the red button. We will pick you up as soon as have verified your statements."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Saturday December 15 2018, @01:59AM (11 children)
Yeah, that's justification for civil war and marching all the politicians into the ocean
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 15 2018, @02:02AM (10 children)
You really believe it's easier than voting them out?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @04:41AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @06:05AM (3 children)
Yes. There 24million Australians but only a few hundreds politicians. It's far easier to cut off a hundred diseased heads than to march >12million upright dingoes to the right ballot.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 15 2018, @04:47PM (2 children)
Then all you will get is another hundred diseased heads winning the next vote.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @06:16PM (1 child)
that's ok, cuz you can kill them too. rinse, repeat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @08:17PM
It's very inefficient. It won't feed that many people. You'll have to kill the people that vote for them also if you want to solve the hunger problem and population control.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:38PM (3 children)
Voting them out is inappropriate in the situation described. Hell, the situation described might as well be post apocalyptic. "Break a deal, spin the wheel" type shit.
If people are being tortured for encryption keys, those are not your leaders, but your captors. Yes, you kill those men. Marching them into the ocean is a mercy considering what they would've done to the citizens, all under the guise of protecting the citizenry.
That's always my response to the $5 cryptanalysis wrench, which is what bob_super alluded to. Government would be in the wrong, and would have lost all moral, ethical, and legal authority over me the instant they start abusing me like that. Those are not cops, not officers, not detectives, but thugs hiding behind badges. I have zero compassion for those animals, and you put them down like diseased dogs.
At the point government does that, voting has FAILED. That's when you rise up, kill a couple thousand elites, and remind them of who outnumbers who. That absolutely includes all the politicians too. I expect any that are against those tyrannical measures to join the people in revolution, or be revolted against.
You can't defend yourself with the rule of law and your political processes when they've abjectly failed to uphold and protect principles of freedom that the citizens ostensibly suffered to get. I can come to no other conclusion in the dystopia that bob_super presented.
That being said, I agree with your implied statement. At this specific point in time, the best thing Australians can do is vote out every single politician supporting that piece of shit that is terrorizing his citizens to strip them of the god given right to privacy. In addition to massive civil disobedience by every single Australian. Were I Australian, I would make sure they would need to put in me in prison and waste the taxes doing so. Let's see the resolve of the politicians when you have 100,000 overflowing the jails and prisons simply because the defended their rights to privacy.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Sunday December 16 2018, @12:25AM (2 children)
That's when you rise up, kill a couple thousand elites, and remind them of who outnumbers who. That absolutely includes all the politicians too. I expect any that are against those tyrannical measures to join the people in revolution, or be revolted against.
Well, you know that doesn't work. It just starts the cycle of bullshit all over again. You only get a new set of tyrants.
At the point government does that*, the voter has FAILED, sir. They aren't even making the feeblest of efforts. They support the worst of the worst. One big reason is the antipathy they show towards each other. They believe the stupidest gossip and innuendo. What can you expect from a government elected by these kinds of primitive and paranoid people?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday December 16 2018, @11:25PM (1 child)
In the case of France, it took awhile. The French still have vastly higher standards of living than I do in the US. In terms of pay, vacations, medical, etc. Or they did, and that's why the French are upset with income inequality and asymmetrically applied austerity measures. So at least with France, it's arguable. With the US I'm actually willing to concede that freedom largely died almost before the civil war. It certainly doesn't feel like the land of the free and the home of the brave when you have coal police murdering people for their rich employers.
Incorrect, sir. Many have made quite the effort through voting, but the voting is rigged, manipulated, or filled with intimidation. You seem to be alluding to so-called 3rd world countries, and many of those haven't actually experienced democracy, but instead a farce of democracy. When the voting is so far divested from the governments actions, and violence is regularly performed by the government against the populations, it's not that voters that have failed. It's government, and by government I refer to the collection of elite individuals no longer burdened by representative democracy, but instead pandering to monied interests and the powerful.
You see that most clearly, with democracy in start contrast to tyranny, in 3rd world countries, but don't be deceived for a second to believe that the US isn't also rigged by the powerful against the weak. Those voters in NC that had their votes stolen from them are at fault for their government? Even though so many laws existed simply to remove the right of voting from black people?
That, and voting has always been between a shit sandwich and a used douchenozzle. Only the rich can afford to run for office, and that's only recently changed through the advent of crowdfunding. Even still, it doesn't seem to matter who we vote on, the people always get fucked anyways.
If, and it seems when, the US crosses that final line to tyrannical government that needs to be overthrown, it won't be the voters at fault. Especially when the whole system is gamed and rigged.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday December 17 2018, @12:43AM
Many have made quite the effort through voting, but the voting is rigged, manipulated, or filled with intimidation.
Absolute nonsense. ~95% of the vote goes to the GOP/DNC every time. The "effort" is statistically invisible. Stop the blame passing! You're just reciting propaganda.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday December 16 2018, @01:27AM
Maybe not, but definitely much more entertaining...
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday December 14 2018, @11:09PM (3 children)
Given that the code is easily available, we are all waiting for Australia to declare math illegal in order to catch Bad People.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Friday December 14 2018, @11:24PM (1 child)
Well, here in the good 'ol USA, Texas declared some glassware only legal with a permit [crscientific.com] when when they didn't like what some uses of chemistry could accomplish. Despite the fact that you can make glassware pretty easily in your garage, even pretty fancy and broadly-temperature-tolerant glassware.
And then there are plants that are illegal here. You know: dirt, seed, water. Complex stuff!
You think politicians aren't willing to declare some kinds of software illegal along the same lines as these other natural and somewhat inevitable things?
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Government: Designed to provide you with "service" and...
...the Media: Designed to provide you with Vaseline.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:59AM
I thought (not really, but still) Texas was all about Small Government. How could this be!?
(Score: 5, Informative) by deimtee on Saturday December 15 2018, @01:52AM
Just to prove that our politicians can be as stupid as anyone else's :
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/malcolm-turnbull-prime-minister-laws-of-mathematics-do-not-apply-australia-encryption-l-a7842946.html [independent.co.uk]
(Yes, that was last week's prime minister, but this week's is at least as stupid.)
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday December 14 2018, @11:10PM (7 children)
You don't have to be profit-driven to leave the high road in a hurry. Threats of lawsuits or jail time often does the trick.
In this case of course, the high road is the only option, as there is technically no other answer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Friday December 14 2018, @11:30PM (6 children)
Of course there are other answers. The AU government could declare the software source contraband, its use illegal, and assert various kinds of legal unpleasantness against the author(s.)
I'm not saying they're good answers, but certainly this kind of thing is well within the bounds of what politicians do on a fairly regular basis.
--
The 3 Functional Retardations:
traditional, jingoistic, and religious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @02:56AM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:14AM
Not saying they can. I am saying they can hold your feet to the fire if you indulge in it. Just ask all those people sitting in jails all over the world for having the temerity to personaly or consensually indulge in recreational drug activities.
It's not that you can't do it — not at all — it's that if you do, they will do their very best to screw you sideways. With barbed wire. Coated with acid. When they finish with you, you'll probably never be able to get a good job again. Your family, if any, will suffer. Your personal relationships will suffer. Your finances will likely crash hard.
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No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 15 2018, @04:50PM
Maybe do like Lenin did in 1922 - put all philosophers on a ship and send them into exile?
I'm tempted to agree with him on that one. But you gotta do it all at once, otherwise how would you know where to begin?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday December 15 2018, @03:14AM (2 children)
You misunderstand: the only pressure that is allowed to be applied flows from the US to Aus, any other direction is STRICTLY prohibited.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:14AM (1 child)
Irrelevant.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:33AM
Signal seems to be US based...
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.