Australian Officials Want Encryption Laws To Fight 'Terrorist Messaging' (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica: Two top Australian government officials said Sunday that they will push for "thwarting the encryption of terrorist messaging" during an upcoming meeting next week of the so-called "Five Eyes" group of English-speaking nations that routinely share intelligence... According to a statement released by Attorney General George Brandis, and Peter Dutton, the country's top immigration official, Australia will press for new laws, pressure private companies, and urge for a new international data sharing agreement amongst the quintet of countries... "Within a short number of years, effectively, 100 per cent of communications are going to use encryption," Brandis told Australian newspaper The Age recently. "This problem is going to degrade if not destroy our capacity to gather and act upon intelligence unless it's addressed"... Many experts say, however, that any method that would allow the government access even during certain situations would weaken overall security for everyone.
America's former American director of national intelligence recently urged Silicon Valley to "apply that same creativity, innovation to figuring out a way that both the interests of privacy as well as security can be guaranteed." Though he also added, "I don't know what the answer is. I'm not an IT geek, but I just don't think we're in a very good place right now."

Comments

Again, let the Leaders Lead

[Snotnose]

Let them be forced to use weakened encryption, then see how their tune changes when their banks accounts get raided.

They ain't gonna learn on their own, let them pay a heavy price for ignoring what people who know what they're taking about are saying.

Re:Again, let the Leaders Lead

[Rick Schumann]

I agree with you, except you're not aware of how this would actually work: The politicians (and the rich, of course) would be allowed to use totally unbreakable encryption to protect themselves. It's us filthy common citizens who would have to go back to paying cash and mailing paper checks for things, or risk having our lives ruined by criminals.

cause and effect

[Gravis Zero]

"Within a short number of years, effectively, 100 per cent of communications are going to use encryption,"

Gee, I wonder why that is. -_-

Good luck, assholes.

I think I should create a macro

[Opportunist]

To write this here. Because I write it every single time some politician comes up with this bullshit.

There is no such thing as a "backdoor", a "secret key" or any other way to break encryption that only a nation or a group of nations will have. And you don't even have to be a computer geek to understand this. Simply politics explains it fully, no higher brain power necessary, so even politicians should be able to understand this.

1. This is the key to ALL secrets. Because if someone or something is exempt, the terrorists will use that kind of encryption, too. Because someone who plans to kill people and potentially himself doesn't give a fuck about petty laws like this.
2. This also means that all trade secrets of all corporations worldwide have to be vulnerable to this key.

Can you imagine how valuable this key is? Can you see corporations or even nations being interested in acquiring this key, no matter the money or force required?

Or, so even a prime minister can understand it: Everything, every access, you get that way, Iran and North Korea do, too.

Here it is again

[willoughby]

"We can't be free because we have to be safe."