Crypto-Bashing Prime Minister Argues The Laws Of Mathematics Don't Apply In Australia (independent.co.uk)

An anonymous reader quotes the Independent:Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said the laws of mathematics come second to the law of the land in a row over privacy and encryption... When challenged by a technology journalist over whether it was possible to tackle the problem of criminals using encryption -- given that platform providers claim they are currently unable to break into the messages even if required to do so by law -- the Prime Minister raised eyebrows as he made his reply. "Well the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia," he said... "The important thing is to recognise the challenge and call on the companies for assistance. I am sure they know morally they should... They have to face up to their responsibility."
Facebook has already issued a statement saying that they "appreciate the important work law enforcement does, and we understand the need to carry out investigations. That's why we already have a protocol in place to respond to any requests we can.

"At the same time, weakening encrypted systems for them would mean weakening it for everyone."

Comments

Re:obey gravity...it's the law

[sg_oneill]

It makes me uncomfortable to say it, but he's prefereable to 99% of the others. I suspect that statement, made in the UK to a UK paper, was made to impress politicians in the UK that he's being tough and standing up to the cyber-terrorists.

Whatever Turnbull may be as a person, is pretty much redundant as he's completely incapable of standing up to the regressives in his party. He's so frightened of being rolled by the catholic far right in the party (Tony abbot, etc) he's sold everything he stood for down the river and just does whatever the ultra conservartives tell him to do, even s that behavior further sinks his reputation down the toilet of public opinion.

And the stupefying thing is, he's still getting knived by the far right anyway. He gains nothing by continuing to inflict unpopular and authoritarian far right nonsense on the population.

Re:'Law'?

[houghi]

That is language for you. Language between humans is always unpricise. Some attempts have been done to correct this and all have failed.

Context is everything and words will have different meaning at different moments. e.g. hacker or 'bad'.

Think of it as the computer language Perl, but more confusing.