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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: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @10:00PM
I read about this days ago on Slashdot, of all places.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Friday May 22 2015, @10:27PM
The whole discussion is actually about something else. It does not handle in its core about mathematics or any dual-use or whatever. It is all about controlling knowledge. The person with knowledge which another person does not have is how to control a society divided into classes. Prevent the knowledge from being shared and the knowledgeable are either under (forced) control of the rulers or dissidents.
The game is nothing new, f.ex. remember the secret of porcelain? The internet has made knowledge into a commodity and that is a problem when you want to control that flow. We've seen a push-back from the "rulers" to put the genie back in the bottle. That, of course, does not work, so they resort to the only other option: make sharing knowledge illegal.
At some point, we, as a society, should have gathered enough knowledge to be able to see through this web of smoke and mirrors blaming something on somebody or some group. It is rhetoric and it does not change the fact that we have had a rather stable period /because/ we have been able to share much of our knowledge. A dangerous thing, an egalitarian system, because it deprives the rulers from power.
Just say no and resist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @07:12AM
this sort of thing is not new
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @04:30PM
It's not new, but it's as much of a violation of freedom of speech as ever. Completely unacceptable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @05:56PM
"Knowledge is power, guard it well." -- Librarian Isador Akios
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday May 22 2015, @10:38PM
To avoid being detected when exporting or teaching encryption, don't forget to encrypt it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 22 2015, @10:51PM
It's not encrypted, it's just random noise!
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(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.
(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.