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Australia's Major Parties Vote Against Encryption In Wake of Apple FBI Case (delimiter.com.au)
daria42 writes: If you're counting on Apple to keep your digital information safe, you may want to think again ... at least if you live in Australia. Yesterday the country's two major political parties — Labor and the Coalition — voted down a motion in Federal Parliament calling for strong encryption to be supported in the wake of the FBI's demands that Apple unlock iOS. It appears that implementing comprehensive telephone and email retention in Australia may not have been the end of demands by law enforcement in the country.
Congratulations Australia, you're fucked.
land of crocodiles, rabbits, and ex-convicts and their descendants. What should I expect?
A big part of the issue is that voters demand 'total security' from their governments - Citizens expect to be wrapped in a big, warm security blanket. You can't have total security and total liberty, so the governments dispense with liberty. Voters don't mind because hey, their kids are 'safe.'
You demanded security in place of liberty
Now you accept vulnerability in place of security
And you'll never get the liberty you paid for all this back.
At least stupidity doesn't skip continents.
This is interesting. I live in Australia and I have barely even heard about this vote. It's been a "non-issue" in the news, here. There has been minor coverage of the FBI issue with Apple but extremely minor. You'll note the link in the article, "delimiter" is hardly a mainstream news outlet. The main news outlets here (abc.net.au, etc.) haven't even got this on their front page (at the time of this post).
So basically, both sides of government have managed to keep it pretty much below the radar.
I'm not saying it's totally out of the news (I heard it in a news bulletin that lastest about 4 seconds) but the media is not running with this as an issue. So Joe Public will never care because he's never going to even know he should care.
How do we protect ourselves from a wicked majority?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You should re-name your country to Murdochville. His declared 'war against labor' (and lions share of the news media) is the reason why Australian politics looks the way it does in 2016.
This has been done so quiet and stealthy. What an embarrassing day to live here in Australia in regards to IT privacy.
A greens senator attempts to grandstand off the back of the FBI vs Apple story in the US to put forward a nothing puff piece that doesn't have any legislation or thought behind it and rather surprisingly the parties in power look at him and so oh go fuck off and waste someone else's time. If they hadn't then this non existent idea would have gone to the house of reps and they would have said "what the hell is this? There is nothing here to vote on, no legislation, no laws, nothing. Why am I looking at this?"
There was absolutely no way this was going to be passed by the senate and should be seen for the political crap that it is.
Note that this isn't an endorsement of mandatory data retention, which I oppose, or support for the FBI over apple. I just abhor political stunts like this that are then held up to mean something when they don't.
The motion called upon the Senate to note that strong digital encryption protects the personal and financial information of millions of people; that encryption is an important tool to prevent identity theft and other crime; that encryption ensures that public interest whistleblowers, journalists and other civil society actors can conduct their activities more securely; and that the Government, through services such as Medicare and Centrelink, and digital platforms such as myGov, depends on encryption to keep client information safe.
The motion also called upon the Senate to note that any decrease in public trust in digital systems and services will present an obstacle to the Government’s agile innovation agenda”.
Secondly, it called upon the Federal Government to “support the continued development and use of strong encryption technologies; resist any push from other governments to weaken encryption on personal devices; and work with law enforcement to develop alternative avenues to obtain information through warrants and targeted surveillance that does not put every Australian at greater risk of identity theft.”
It called on the senate to "support" and "note". Sounds like it was a largely pointless bill in the first place. Not that both major parties wouldn't sell out their voters for a dollar if it was on the table, but whether this particular bill passed or didn't will mean precisely squat to anyone, ever.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
You wouldn't have heard about it because this vote IS a non-issue.
It doesn't seem that it was a motion to actually do anything, just a motion to say "we acknowledge that perhaps something should probably be done at some indeterminate point in the future to support encryption".
The big parties didn't support it because they don't want another issue on the field as the election starts coming into view.
You didn't hear about it because it is a non-issue, not because of people not being interested, but because anything put forward by the greens or the independents in the senate is a non-issue. It's not even about the major parties keeping this below the radar, this is about as news worthy as a greens senator saying "From now on all t-shirts must be blue" and having that voted down.
This is solely and purely a political stunt by the greens to try and get some air time in the run up to the election later this year.
Terrorist cannot win so they use fear.
Accept fear and you have lost.
Use fear and operate in the interests of the terrorists.
Fear is a powerful mind chemical than dissipates very slowly.
Useful in all kinds of schemes.
Not a thing doesn't mean the opposite of that thing.
Scott's motion was always going to get voted down, these idiots can't even understand that technology isn't a consensus being used against them... ...But conflation is part of the problem. Stop it.
Both of Australia’s major political parties have explicitly rejected a Senate motion calling on the Government to support public use of strong encryption technologies
Let the public share the government secrets with their [favourite suspect]. The private part of the society will still use the strong encryption in their communications. Or will use until enough government secrets have leaked to force the private part of the society into New Zealand as a blob of refugees. Teehee!
For the past few years there's been a lot of stupidity coming from Australia. It's like they watch everything that goes on in the United States, choose the most stupid things, and implement it there.
Would anybody who lives there explain to us what's happening? Is it the conservative government? What's his name... Tony?
Poor article. They did not vote against strong encryption, they voted against a ridiculous motion that would have foisted costs on the government for no apparent reason. The government already has a body that ensures agencies etc use strong encryption(ASD). This was just a moronic greens party motion looking for publicity.
Why would a spur of the moment motion that has zero substance or effect regardless of whether it passes or not hold any news value whatsoever. The truly sad thing is somehow something like this actually made it here, sad indictment on this site really.
For the last week Slashdot and a couple of other sites have furiously been debating a society's construct of privacy, a consumer's right to encryption, a government's right to demand tools at gunpoint, a corporation's right to protect their intellectual property and unique selling proposition but you think politicians discussing encryption is a "political stunt" in a country where absolute strangers are required by law to record every URL you send through their POP and hot-spot. While this law won't guarantee their records of which bank you use, which schools/sports your children attend, possibly even what ailments and diseases afflict your household, are properly secured; it's a step in the correct direction and more important, makes an attempt to move in a citizen-unfriendly direction more difficult.
Should the incumbent government demand weak encryption, will that too be a "political stunt"? What protects Australians from their government? Very little in truth; just a few traditions and policies in case law. British justice, Lord Hoffman said (Regina versus Secretary of State for the Home Department Ex parte Simms [2000] 2 Appeal Cases 115, 131):
That's because this has essentially zero effect.
"The motion called upon the Senate to note that strong digital encryption protects the personal and financial information of millions of people; that encryption is an important tool to prevent identity theft and other crime; that encryption ensures that public interest whistleblowers, journalists and other civil society actors can conduct their activities more securely; and that the Government, through services such as Medicare and Centrelink, and digital platforms such as myGov, depends on encryption to keep client information safe. The motion also called upon the Senate to note that any decrease in public trust in digital systems and services will present an obstacle to the Government’s agile innovation agenda”."
In other words, the first part was the government recognising a point. Kinda pointless.
"Secondly, it called upon the Federal Government to “support the continued development and use of strong encryption technologies; resist any push from other governments to weaken encryption on personal devices; and work with law enforcement to develop alternative avenues to obtain information through warrants and targeted surveillance that does not put every Australian at greater risk of identity theft.”"
Three parts:
1) support development of encryption tech
2) resist weakening decryption
3) work out alternative ways to get the information.
1) The government already funds science development. Why focus specifically on encryption?
2) It's not like the Australian government will ever have much say in this. Even if this motion passed.
3) Ok. So how does Scott want LEAs to be able to get the information? Ultimately there are three ways: A) Encryption which is weaker, and thus more easily broken. Back doors will come into this category. B) Do what the FBI is doing and try to get apple to create a way that the encryption is still strong and secure. But they can brute force the password without risk of the device wiping itself. C) This category involved long term detention until the password is revealed.
Even if this had passed the senate, it'd be business as usual, and we still wouldn't have heard about it.
Apple is a purveyor of proprietary software, you cannot audit the software in the first place. Why take Apple's word? Just because they say their products are secure does not mean that it is. They goof up a lot already (icloud). Whose to say they won't goof up again? Further, backroom deals are made between government and megacorps all the time. Apple has enough precedent to show that they are not interested in the well being of society, rather turning a profit is their priority. They have such a market share that that they do as they please and people will buy their products anyway. It would be silly to trust their devices in the first place.
It was a political stunt as the motion said nothing, mandated nothing, had no substance and was dumped on the parliament without prior consultantation. Everyone in their knew from the moment this was done it would not pass, even the greens.
Well no shit. If http://www.news.com.au/ is the premier news site that people go to, then it's hardly surprising people remain uninformed and dumb/stupid. I'd say my country deserves better politicians but I'm not so sure anymore.
Did anyone expect anything different from the honorary 51st state of America?
I mean have the Australian government ever disagreed or stood up to the USA? If the world stage were like a school then the USA would be a bunch of arsehole bullying jocks and Australia would be a little nerdy kid doing whatever they tell them to in hope that they may get recognition.
As much as I love watching Master Chef Australia, This is why I couldn't move there.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
If any government can't protect your information then it has failed you.
Yes of course and if only Labor were able to vote to protect us, like they did with supporting the TPP, supporting internet monitoring of all citizens... No, both the major parties are for morons to vote for. Even if you dislike some of the Greens policies, like I do, you really should be voting for them if you have a pinch of intelligence. They are the only party able to help, they did an amazing job when Labor was in power and had to deal with them, the minor parties also did alright in saving us from the doom of Abbott and his 18th century views BUT with the recent changes we will no longer have minor parties get seats from 0.005% of votes (which is a good thing imo) so the only sensible thing is to vote Greens this fed election and have Labor second last and Liberals last.
All large political decisions come from the Queen.
what a completely fucking retarded summary and title. No Australian parliament did NOT vote against encryption or for any weakening of it. They voted down a dumb fucking motion from a minor party thrown into the ring at the last minute with no thought, no content and which actually did fucking nothing but waste everyones time. Who the fuck writes these dipshit summaries?
There was no debate. None. What so ever. A minor party figure got up and went on a rant and then said "I call upon you to vote on my rant".
The independents also voted for it so that they wouldn't be seen to be part of the major parties.
None of what you have said I disagree with, but it is also not relevant to what occurred.
I'm somewhat out of the loop on this whole thing. We've got a few major countries trying to ban encryption. So does this mean their schools will also stop teaching math? And does this also mean that medical records, banking information, and account passwords/data will all be stored in plain text? I've never really been too concerned about foreign data policies, but if my sensitive data is going to be stored in plain text, I'm going to be extra cautious as to what I register to, and where I go. I honestly don't understand how anybody could think outlawing encryption is a good thing - especially since "bad guys" aren't in the business of following lawes. While everybody following the legal system will be exposed, the "bad guys" will be extra hidden while they continue breaking laws by using encryption.
Encryption is a very basic foundation technology that is required to run a successful business. It's not the tech industries fault that Neanderthals continue to run law enforcement and politics in Australia, however the jobs will leave.
Oh look Apple fanboys with mod points.
The stupidity of governments and the people who voted the clowns in, is truly astounding. Same problem in the US.
Hold it right there. How could someone possibly ever formulate such a strategy?
Real-life news that a third party (e.g. Apple) is going to be coerced into giving you up, shouldn't have an effect on anything, because you already asked yourself, "what if?"
C'mon, every one of us already knows there is only one party in the universe who can protect your data: you.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
In the U.S. every phone call and email is already monitored by the government. What's the point in encrypting the phone if the government already has access to all information it sends or receives? Are they looking for photos or files created on the mobile device? It seems like there's no point to locking down the device.
Yes, Gillard was for the TPP, but the carbon tax is the main reason why the Murdoch empire came out against Labor. The oligarchs are very picky these days: They want total loyalty to their version of capitalism on all the issues.
Highest incidence of alcohol related brain shrinkage in the World, in addition "abo hunting" went on right up to the early 60's.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I can hardly believe, but am willing to stand corrected, that such a large majority of Australians are actually against strong encryption to protect themselves from snooping by, among others, their own government. Is this a sign of a messed-up electoral system (first past the post or first past the post plus)? Or do these governments want to grant themselves these abilities, abusing the democratic process?
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
This whole thing seems reminiscent of the U.S. Cold War efforts against Big Mother.
Or was it Brother Russia?
thats what happens when both big parties agree. Also how come they can only agree when they are taking away our liberties.
The Australian Government also isn't trying to ban strong encryption or mandate backdoors. They simply don't care and this has no impact on Australians. We still use strong encryption freely and without government interference.
A minor part, the Greens, put up a motion that is rejected, as practically everything they offer up is... This isn't news. It is not unusual for a government to only support their own legislation, unless it is part of a side deal for minor party support. It gives the issue a bit of publicity which is all the Greens were really after and might force government politicians to take a position on strong encryption, if the media take the bait.