Slashdot Mirror
Apple Flies Top Privacy Executives Into Australia To Lobby Against Proposed Encryption Laws (patentlyapple.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Patently Apple: Last week Patently Apple posted a report titled "Australia proposed new Laws Compelling Companies like Facebook & Apple to Provide Access to Encrypted Messages." Days later, Australia's Prime Minister spoke about the encryption problem with the Australian press as noted in the video in our report. Now we're learning that Apple has flown in top executives to lobby Turnbull government on encryption laws. It sounds like a showdown is on the horizon. This is the second time this month that Apple has flown executives into Australia to lobby the government according to a Sydney publication. Apple executives met with Attorney-General George Brandis and senior staff in Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's office on Tuesday to discuss the company's concerns about the legal changes, which could see tech companies compelled to provide access to locked phones and third party messaging applications. Apple has argued in the meetings that as a starting point it does not want the updated laws to block tech companies from using encryption on their devices, nor for companies to have to provide decryption keys to allow access to secure communications. The company has argued that if it is compelled to provide a software "back door" into its phones to help law enforcement agencies catch criminals and terrorists, this would reduce the security for all users. It also says it has provided significant assistance to police agencies engaged in investigations, when asked. UPDATE 07/20/17: Headline has been updated to clarify that Apple is lobbying against the proposed encryption laws in Australia.
Apple Flies Top Privacy Executives Into Australia To Lobby Against Encryption
It sounds like they are lobbying against laws which require them to provide a backdoor for the government through their encryption. I'd call this arguing for encryption, not against it.
I hate that term. It should be replaced and removed completely. Commoners have zero clue what the f that meant from the start. When they don't understand, how in the world are they going to even care?
We should really be replacing it with 'locks', 'files lock', 'Computer files lock', because that's what it basically is. It locks the file(s) up and ensure those with the key can read it.
Not to mention when we put it back into context, we can now change backdoors into terms like 'secondary key' to the locks. It makes it easier to understand why this is bad.
-you have no control of the 'secondary key'
-your locks can be unlocked by someone else with the 'secondary key'
-the 'secondary key' can be stolen without you knowing
To actually start implementing it, we really need to start changing right from the technical articles, like using a simple parentheses into Encryption (files lock) and Backdoor (Secondary Key) would be 100% better for the commoners as a starter to understand.
The more people understand the issue, the better it is to resolve the issue.