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Apple Rebukes Australia's 'Dangerously Ambiguous' Anti-Encryption Bill (techcrunch.com)
Apple has strongly criticized Australia's anti-encryption bill, calling it "dangerously ambiguous" and "alarming to every Australian." From a report: The Australian government's draft law -- known as the Access and Assistance Bill -- would compel tech companies operating in the country, like Apple, to provide "assistance" to law enforcement and intelligence agencies in accessing electronic data. The government claims that encrypted communications are "increasingly being used by terrorist groups and organized criminals to avoid detection and disruption," without citing evidence. But critics say that the bill's "broad authorities that would undermine cybersecurity and human rights, including the right to privacy" by forcing companies to build backdoors and hand over user data -- even when it's encrypted. Now, Apple is the latest company after Google and Facebook joined civil and digital rights groups -- including Amnesty International -- to oppose the bill, amid fears that the government will rush through the bill before the end of the year. In a seven-page letter to the Australian parliament, Apple said that it "would be wrong to weaken security for millions of law-abiding customers in order to investigate the very few who pose a threat." The company adds, "We appreciate the government's outreach to Apple and other companies during the drafting of this bill. While we are pleased that some of the suggestions incorporated improve the legislation, the unfortunate fact is that the draft legislation remains dangerously ambiguous with respect to encryption and security. This is no time to weaken encryption. Rather than serving the interests of Australian law enforcement, it will just weaken the security and privacy of regular customers while pushing criminals further off the grid."
Either everyone is secure, or nobody is.
#DeleteFacebook
Or just an aspiring police state like everywhere else?
yet you will roll over for China. I guess the market there is bigger.
Good luck with your "privacy" fight.
AKA: the government
Maybe we can get the Australian government's help in getting apps approved
See Netflix's "Secret City" (from the folks who brought you "House of Cards",
for whatever that's worth).
At least they gave us the wonder of the world that is Margot Robbie.
As much as I dislike Apple and their products, I must agree on this issue. Either encryption is unbreakable, or its useless! This is a fact! You can't have it both ways. If there are back doors or other access for law enforcement, then the encryption is not worth a shit! Why? Because of the fact that encryption is unbreakable or it provides no security at all. If law enforcement or government agencies can get access, then so will hackers! And then there is the fact that whenever law enforcement or governments have had that access in the past, there has been massive abuse of that access!!
The only way to prevent abuse of people's privacy is UNBREAKABLE ENCRYPTION!!!!!!!!!
I have a general concern or worry that the existing powerful institutions in our nation aren't accepting the democratic decisions of the nation when we tell them that their plan to break encryption is butt-fucking stupid. That they're simply take another approach and get it in passed elsewhere, so they can utalize Parrallel Construction with their allies to effectively violate the 4th admendment. Case point, both Australia and the USA are part of the 5 eyes intelligence community alliance. This sort of disregard for the existing power structure, our democracy, lends weight to the argument that they no longer have the best interests of the masses at heart and that they're simply doing it to expand their own power. You know, if they really did help their Australian counter-parts to come up with this bill. But how would we ever know?
ECHELON turned out to be a real thing. It had good intentions. Hey, I'm all for our cops working together to catch bad guys. Thwarting Soviet Russia was, you know, a good thing. Their system sucked and if they took over we'd all likely starve. But it evolved past that initial purpose into a global surveillance of private and commercial communications. Power corrupts. And this sort of power can't be trusted with anyone. We need to cast it into mt. Doom.
The encryption libraries are easy to get and just a pinky swear will get you unlimited key length libraries.
Just under that, check out Table 43B, "Arrests Under 18". There, blacks constitute 60.6% of arrests for murder and non-negligent homicide. Must be those "teenagers" after all.
They just need to hint that they'll stop selling iPhones in Australia, and the people will start making phone calls to government people
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
> The government claims that encrypted communications are "increasingly being used by terrorist groups and organized criminals to avoid detection and disruption," without citing evidence
I know it isn't popular to say that a claim should be accepted without evidence, but I think it would be ignorant to assume that more and more terrorist groups and organized criminals are not using encrypted communications.
I'll tell you what's sad. It's sad that Apple hasn't got the balls to say "if you do this, we will no longer make or sell any products subject to these insecurities in your country."
If politicians are not prevented by economic and other (legal, not suggesting otherwise) means from destroying liberty, they will do so - because they are, for the most part, powerful and often rich, and this kind of behavior inevitably makes them more so.
Either we prevent that result, or we prevent the action that leads to that result — otherwise our liberties will continue to erode in favor of benefits for the rich and/or powerful.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You mean that white account for 67.5% of rape and 68.9% of all crime. Looking down the list other than a few instances where blacks outrank whites in crime section...
So, we'd get a bigger bang for our bucks accord to the FBI dealing with crimes by whites. And after all the whites are managed then go after the blacks..
Nice cherry picking there. Us Whites take the lead in almost every other category (go us!). Using the statistics you provided, there were about 5k murders attributed to Black people, and literally over a million other violent crimes committed by White people. Sounds like we're actually safer with Black people!
Try correlating with economic level or other relevant factors if you want accurate answers- if you just want data that supports your conclusions, keep doing what you're doing so well.
We should organise a mass boycott of banking apps in protest.
To pay for anything turn up at you bank and use up the bank's employee's time to make payments.
That should get the message across by proxy.
Governments (five eyes anyway) don't listen to tech companies or the public. They do listen to the money men though.
You mean that white account for 67.5% of rape and 68.9% of all crime. Looking down the list other than a few instances where blacks outrank whites in crime section...
So, we'd get a bigger bang for our bucks accord to the FBI dealing with crimes by whites. And after all the whites are managed then go after the blacks..
So 65% of the population accounts for 68.9% of all crime.
Meanwhile 13% accounts for most violent crime. More like 6.5% when you consider it's overwhelmingly black males committing the violent crimes. Hmm... with limited police resources, do you go after the 6.5% and have a HUGE imapct, or the 65%? Math must be tough for you.
...rape or murder anyone and so don't get arrested, ever think to see how that would work out?
As much grandstanding and high handedness they try to do the fact of the matter is that Australia is the bitch of the United States. It's been a known and open fact since the US bent Whitlam over their knee and gave him a spanking.
Australians take it up the ass from the US and their holier than thou attitude is just another shit-scam to try to comfort themselves.
apple does not do the same in china
After my initial submission to parliament I've continued to analyze this Bill. My friends are interested in this however many of them didn't know what they could do, so I wrote this for them, detailing progress so far. I hope this helps anyone else trying to fight this really bad law.
Greetings Friends,
Thank you all for your good will and support in replying to my first email. Thank you for tolerating a mass email. Considering some of the question I got back I thought I would update you all about how this bad law is progressing. I'll attempt to answer your questions so that everyone is kept informed.
Questions
One friend suggested that he left the Communist states to escape this kind of surveillance.
Where it differs is that the Stasi only had capability to monitor 40 phone calls at a time. With modern technology it is quite easy to monitor every person by adapting the apps on our phones we use, when we talk to an AI (like Siri) or, friends on them.
Another friend pointed out that our Attorney General is making representations to the UK,US,NZ and Canadian Governments to pass these laws.
The issue for us is that corporate information technology has no interest in investing in countries that can potentially interfere with their operations. This is a direct attack on employment opportunities in Australia and will drive a lot of investment in Australia's economy to Singapore. This is a direct attack on employment opportunities in Australia.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/...
What can these guys do with this law?
Well I haven't completed all of the analysis however this is what I've learned so far. Your phone, computer, tablet, home router and any vehicle computers can all be utilised to gather data on an individual. The telecommunications providers, the companies behind the websites you use can all be compelled to spy on you. Everything you do can be monitored. These are Front Door security holes, intended and by design.
This law also exposes Australian citizens to the laws from other countries, I've still getting my head around to how far it goes.
How will this affect my business?
Your business can be compelled to cooperate with the government to monitor individual. If you take a position where you protect privacy of your clients you are exposed to the liability for the government's actions. The govt can compel you to alter project deployments and comply with in a deadline. They can alter scope at will and your business is responsible for maintaining govt infrastructure until they no longer need it. Penalties exceed $250,000 per instance in addition to liability.
Is anyone else involved in this?
Yes, to my relief more and more people and organisations are becoming aware of this. Privacy focused organisations have started shifting their attention, which attracted the attention of some companies like Google and Apple. To my surprise Telstra, the NBN joined in the fight so that gives you some idea about the level of interference they anticipate. Some State government departments also starting to raise objections. I was in among the other private citizens that wrote objections to this bill. We need all the help we can get.
What can I do?
I think the best description is with Digital Rights Watch:
https://digitalrightswatch.org...
They provide a short script on how you can interact with Labor Senators and voice your concerns. Feel free to use any of the information I've provided.
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I'm sure that Apple, like Google, has more than one set of master keys. However under this law Apple would be compelled to comply which would then result in law enforcement is all five eyes countries having access to that "key group" under the Echelon agreement. Over time, intelligence agencies would continue to gather and share those keys.
Under this law if an American comes to Australia, the US can request an investigation of that individual and secure keys for key groups in the states. An American citizen can be jailed until they co-operate and Apple fined repeatedly until they do as well.
The stakes are high, if this law is passed in Australia, it will affect all western countries signed to intelligence sharing agreement.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Australia has always belonged to China.
It's full title is "Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill". The "other legislation" bit means that, in the future, other online services can be forced to install a back-door.
Here's the flaw in the law: The USA pretends to own the internet so Australian politicians can't order-around offshore corporations. This means Facebook and Apple can disable government spying by closing their Australian offices and serving Australian customers from a place that doesn't enact Australian law.
Facebook and Apple should design their services to pass through a third-party encryptor/decryptor application; thus they will be unable to provide the encryption keys used by a device. They will also have to enact a method of receiving the public key from the encryptor/decryptor application.
Even the government appointed overseer of the government is concerned.
https://www.itnews.com.au/news...
Here is mine... pity I sent it before Krebs wrote https://krebsonsecurity.com/20...
This is a submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) review of the Telecommunication and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018 [0].
Chinese surveillance society [1] offers a chilling vision of a society I never want to live in.
Just as Apple differentiates itself [2] clearly from Google and Facebook by saying we will never sell your data (you aren't the product), I think Western democracies ought to clearly differentiate themselves from China.
Currently we're heading towards a local optima that will look more and more like China. Because of certain problems (paedophiles, drug dealers, terrorists), government wants weak encryption. Then in large part because of weak encryption, we can't use Chinese components in our networks [3].
Well, the truth is that paedophiles/drug dealers/terrorists will all wake up to the fact that comms on common services can be intercepted, and will use their own encryption (routed over TOR or similar, so you can't tell who the endpoints are). Phantom Secure is evidence that this horse has already bolted[4]. Though I guess you might make any private encryption technology illegal? Why not?!!
The net result being that only people with "nothing to hide" will be using services that you can surveil.
Thinking more broadly, if drugs such as marijuana and MDMA were legal, then probably 95% of the so-called encryption problem goes away. And lots of other problems as well... Count on certain relatively benign recreational drugs being legalized soon after self-driving cars become common.
And then I'd argue that you catch the paedophiles and terrorists with creative policing[5]. You don't absolutely need this kind of legislation to then get into their phones [6].
In summary, a much better approach would be to support strong encryption (the global optimum), and say clearly we don't want to follow China. With strong encyption right across our telecomms networks, we'd be able to source equipment from Huwaie and ZTE ... Of course, there's the additional concern that the Chinese could stop packet transmission entirely (ie a kill switch), or make it unreliable, but that's a different problem to "they might read our stuff".
The real concern would then be any laptop server[7] or phone made in China (ie most of them) - the terminal devices where stuff must be decrypted for the user to see.
Of course, the problem is that embracing "strong encryption" is anathema to the received wisdom from the rest of the Five Eyes [8], and you need to take a broader perspective to realise it is the right choice for an open society.
[0] https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliam...
[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com...
[3] https://www.itnews.com.au/news... https://www.itnews.com.au/news...
[4] http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... https://www.theregister.co.uk/...
[5]
Even the government appointed overseer of the government is concerned. https://www.itnews.com.au/news...
Thank you!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Us Whites
Nice try, Moishe.