Aussie Attorney General's War On Encrypted Web Services

Bismillah writes "If Attorney-General Brandis gets his way in the process of revising Australia's Telecommunications Interception Act, users and providers of VPNs and other encrypted services will by law be required to decrypt government intercepted data. Because, 'sophisticated criminals and terrorists.' New Zealand already has a similar law, the Telecommunications Interception and Computer Security Act. Apparently, large Internet service providers such as Microsoft and Facebook won't be exempt from the TICSA and must facilitate interception of traffic."

Comments

Gravity

[scsirob]

The attorney-general can write a law to defy gravity, but putting a signature on such law will not make people fly.

In other words: madness.

Re:Gravity

[KeensMustard]

Thankfully the Attorney General only has the power to enforce laws, not to write laws (that's the job of the elected senators and ministers).

Yes. How fortunate that Senator George Brandis isn't you know, a member of the Senate.

But seriously, of all the inner circle of petrified, ideological nincompoops in the new government this guy is up with the best of them. He has no idea about law, how law should be made or enforced, the intent of law and the notion of correct legal practice and judicial ruling. Just the person you want, you know, for the attorney general.

He was an Q & A the other night, arguing for the removal of the racial villification clauses form the Racial Discrimination acts. Why? Because one of his cronies had been found guilty under this section. He said it out loud. Other more apparently learned members of the panel schooled him on the notion of "the rule of law".

No, George. It's not the role of the law to protect your racist buddies when they make false claims against named persons and then publish them, explcitly alleging that their alleged behaviour is typical of their race (or worse, racial mixture)

Perfect Forward Secrecy

[grahammm]

So they would ban the use of Perfect Forward Secrecy. Using PFS it is impossible to decrypt the intercepted content even with the Certificate's private key.

Genius

[pitchpipe]

Yeah! Let's weaken security on networks that most major financial transactions travel over, because we really have no problems with criminals committing fraud over these networks.

Yes Mr. Contractor, for the new ultra-hardened backdoor with super-duper locks I'd like you to leave the key over there under that rock. No, I'm sure only our RSA, NSA, TLA certified guys will be using it. How would anyone else know it's there?

Re:Snowden

[TapeCutter]

This is fallout from the Snowden leaks.

No, Brandis doesn't need an excuse for this behaviour, he was like this before Snowden was born. His predecessor (and mentor) from the Howard government was Ruddock, Ruddock was the guy who threw out the Magna Carta in order to make a political prisoner out of David Hicks, it was the most shameful act of any Aussie AG I have witnessed in the last 50 odd years. I will be very surprised if Brandis does not sink even lower than Ruddock (assuming that's possible).

People who thirst for the power that comes with the role of AG should somehow be banned from applying for the job.

Re:Insanity

[ozmanjusri]

People in power trying to stay in power ?

Almost, but this guy doesn't have the brains to think that far.

George Brandis is s sneering scumbag and lying rodent who wants to be Dick Cheney when he grows up, but lacks the compassion, gun skills and wit.

He used taxpayer money to go to a friend's wedding, but has accepted the task of writing a ministerial code of conduct. He's also told the Australian arts community that they don't have the right to refuse funding from corporate sponsors whose ethical values conflict with those of the artists, and plans to punish them if they don't comply.

Re:Insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Above is the whooshiest whoosh ever to have wooshed.

Re:Insanity

[gweihir]

This is actually business as usual. If the population of a country forgets to kick their "representatives" in the face whenever they develop delusions, then the government slowly morphs into totalitarianism. The problem is that ordinary people are highly susceptible to manipulation and governments are getting better at it. The "we did not know what was happening"-excuse that so many Germans used after Nazi-Germany was overthrown will not fly this time.

Re:Take your pants down

[BlueStrat]

Here's the third: Take your business elsewhere.

The world is a large place. Someone might want to tell Mr. Bigwig that his laws mean jack in all but one country.

Except that this trend towards increased government surveillance of the general populace by government intelligence and LE agencies, often in blatant violation of their nations' own laws and founding documents & principles, is a global phenomenon, particularly in the West, and no longer limited to a handful of dictatorships and totalitarian nations.

Blowing this stuff off because "just switch to a foreign provider" is short-sighted.

Individual freedom around the world, particularly digital privacy/security against intrusive, and often illegal by their own laws, digital spying by governments against their own citizens, is on a downward trend as the US and other Western nations grow increasingly paranoid and authoritarian.

The struggle against such invasive surveillance must likewise be global as these regimes work together both in the actual surveillance and also on the political side to increase their scope and power ever further.

This is particularly true among "Five Eyes" nations like Australia. What good would it do to switch to using services outside the country you're in if all the practical alternatives are just as bad or worse?

Strat