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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."
Ten years for forgetting my pin number. I have done that.
They might just as well lock everyone up in advance, just in case.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Can one "plead the fifth" in Australia?
"[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."
With such capabilities, how could the courts prove the evidence was not tampered with, invented whole-cloth, planted by the police, or merely stored on the target device by a third party for purposes of framing or obfuscation?
So everyone with an interest in privacy will use steganographic tools, while everyone else has no privacy. Well done, Australia!
This is fucking awful.
I bet they wouldn't like it the public got access to THEIR phones, but its ok for them to get access to ours?
Fuckers.
Imagine a function built in to Android or IOS which re-encrypts the storage with a transient key which it then throws away.
It could be triggered by entering a special pin code or something similar.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The phone needs two keys - one unlocks it and the other wipes it and then unlocks it.
This was actually an issue for agents during WW2. Marks got agents to stop using memorized encryption keys and instead use one time codes written on silk, with instructions to burn each piece after use.
That way the Nazis could not torture there code out of them and then read their back traffic, which could be very serious.
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.
How ironic, someone from a country with the highest imprisonment rate in the western world calling Australia penal colony. That has not been the case for over 200 years.
Oh the irony, the current Australian government responsible for this is the conservative right wing LNP, verging on far right. If you were even reasonably informed you would know this, but your paranoia about duh Marxist does not allow you to conceive that this is the work of the right wing, as was the removal of a lot of guns by the same parties as currently in government.
Virtually nobody here cares about owning guns, and those who live in the country on farms frequently do have weapons on hand.
You are pretty much wrong in every single point, your lack of any knowledge is disturbing, tell me which part of the US are you from?
In other news, Australian authorities now requiring safe manufacturers to provide backdoor access, says they are 'too secure'.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Australia has jumped the Marxist shark.
This is much closer to fascist than anything else. Marxist is an economic ideology. Fascism is political/legal.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
If I can't protect my data with encryption then I have to go to other means. Data that cannot be found cannot be demanded.
Here people will say "but that isn't how I do things right now"... always the way with everything since always. We don't do things a certain way until we do.
Easy enough to do... does require pushing the data to secured remote servers or obscuring the data on the phone such that it doesn't appear to be data... at least enough so that the investigators and courts don't notice it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.