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Australians Who Won't Unlock Their Phones Could Face 10 Years In Jail (sophos.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Sophos security blog:
The Australian government wants to force companies to help it get at suspected criminals' data. If they can't, it would jail people for up to a decade if they refuse to unlock their phones. The country's Assistance and Access Bill, introduced this week for public consultation, strengthens the penalties for people who refuse to unlock their phones for the police. Under Australia's existing Crimes Act, judges could jail a person for two years for not handing over their data. The proposed Bill extends that to up to ten years, arguing that the existing penalty wasn't strong enough...
[C]ompanies would be subject to two kinds of government order that would compel them to help retrieve a suspect's information. The first of these is a "technical assistance notice" that requires telcos to hand over any decryption keys they hold. This notice would help the government in end-to-end encryption cases where the target lets a service provider hold their own encryption keys. But what if the suspect stores the keys themselves? In that case, the government would pull out the big guns with a second kind of order called a technical capability notice. It forces communications providers to build new capabilities that would help the government access a target's information where possible. In short, the government asks companies whether they can access the data. If they can't, then the second order asks them to figure out a way....
The government's explanatory note says that the Bill could force a manufacturer to hand over detailed specs of a device, install government software on it, help agencies develop their own "systems and capabilities", and notify agencies of major changes to their systems.
"[T]he proposed legislation also creates a new class of access warrant that lets police officers get evidence from devices in secret before the device encrypts it, including intercepting communications and using other computers to access the data. It also amends existing search and seizure warrants, allowing the cops to access data remotely, including online accounts."
[C]ompanies would be subject to two kinds of government order that would compel them to help retrieve a suspect's information. The first of these is a "technical assistance notice" that requires telcos to hand over any decryption keys they hold. This notice would help the government in end-to-end encryption cases where the target lets a service provider hold their own encryption keys. But what if the suspect stores the keys themselves? In that case, the government would pull out the big guns with a second kind of order called a technical capability notice. It forces communications providers to build new capabilities that would help the government access a target's information where possible. In short, the government asks companies whether they can access the data. If they can't, then the second order asks them to figure out a way....
The government's explanatory note says that the Bill could force a manufacturer to hand over detailed specs of a device, install government software on it, help agencies develop their own "systems and capabilities", and notify agencies of major changes to their systems.
"[T]he proposed legislation also creates a new class of access warrant that lets police officers get evidence from devices in secret before the device encrypts it, including intercepting communications and using other computers to access the data. It also amends existing search and seizure warrants, allowing the cops to access data remotely, including online accounts."
So everyone with an interest in privacy will use steganographic tools, while everyone else has no privacy. Well done, Australia!
Arrest someone your government dislikes, take phone, demand pin, change pin, tell detainee their pin doesn't work so you must have lied, put in jail for 10 years.
[blockquote]I don't know how much you know about the Australian constitution, but good luck on that one. We already have secret quasi-courts with Star Chamber powers, such as the power to compel testimony and imprison silent witnesses, in the form of the various state anti-corruption commissions.[/blockquote]
Its worse than that. The Libs (for our american friends, our Liberal party is equivilent to your Republican party, I know, confusing right?) gave the industrial relations courts have those powers too, as a way to get unions to hand over membership lists and the like. Doesn't work though, getting done for contempt of court for refusing to snitch on your unions considered a badge of honor for many in the movement,
The worst part is , its tradition now that whenever a state or federal Liberal party gets power, the first thing they try to do is drag the labor party through the same court process to try and find out what sort of sneaky politicians have been nice to unions, or whatever the thoughtcrime allegation of the week is. Those and the Royal commissions that the libs like to do to intimidate labor never really find much except a few politicians that have fucked some reciepts for taxi fares or whatever, but its not about finding guilt, its about intimidation.
We have a *very* anti-democratic conservative movement here.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.