Australian PM Calls for End-To-End Encryption Ban

Someone suspected of a crime for which there's no strong evidence could potentially be imprisoned just for talking to someone over an encrypted channel. "We can't get them on the main charge, but we can always just charge them for the encryption. If they weren't doing anything shady then why would they be using encryption anyway?"

It would be a horrible precedent.

Seems like you are conflating the efforts of the Great Firewall with the word encryption here.

There was a huge thread about it on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10835045

So the NRA collects a lot of money, targets unsupportive politicians, and can turn votes against them. The EFF has less money, and it's questionable whether ads attacking politicians for not supporting crypto would work. To the extent gun owners have bought the Republican scaremongering about terrorists, it might even backfire.

The EFF does what it can by focusing its efforts on the judicial system instead.

You might be aware that, to get involved in electioneering and financial support of candidates, an "NRA for encryption" would need to have a different tax status than EFF does.

If anything in Australia's history guns were used for oppression (of Aboriginal people) and not for liberation.

You can still own a gun in Australia. We just have a gun-averse culture, we do background checks on those who do have guns, and we have a National Firearms Agreement across all states and territories. Something I note that you don't have in the U.S. (well, some states do background checks, which is irrelevant if you buy a gun in a state that does not and move to the state that does).

You could, of course, read the Agreement yourself:

https://www.ag.gov.au/LegalSystem/Firearms/Documents/2017-na...

As for gang violence and illicit activities, a gun becomes more than a hobby and an actual tool.

2) Nuclear weapons are the only physical weapon that can check the US Government. That's why they shit their paints when a basically inconsequential country such as North Korea launches a potential nuclear rocket.

3) In the 1700s guns were the best weapon of the time. Nuclear weapons did not exist. Civilians were able to own basically military grade weapons and could theoretically rebel and potentially win.

4) In current days, if you wanted to legitimately make the claim of government check on power with civilian weapon ownership, you'd at least have to argue for military grade, fully automatic weaponry ownership rights by civilians. Not to mention the ability to stockpile explosive weapons and missiles. A bunch of civilians with gimped semi-auto ARs and hunting rifles would have been the 18th century equivalent of the right to bear bow and arrows or pitchforks and shovels.

In fact, I'd make the case that it is horrifying that anyone reading that statement doesn't understand exactly what it means.

Don't underestimate your opponents here. They are smart, well educated and know what is possible and what isn't.

Do you think the journalist who asked the question thought that mathematical law and national laws were the same kind of thing? Shouldn't you be mocking the journo just as much for asking such a silly question? People wonder why politicians hedge everything they say these days, and refuse to say much of substance. This is why: they get crucified on any single comment which sounds funny when taken out of context.

Disclaimer: not a conservative voter, and indeed generally vote on the far opposite side to Turnbull.

JACOB: The force of nearly all modern authority is derived from violence or the threat of violence. One must acknowledge with cryptography no amount of violence will ever solve a math problem.

JULIAN: Exactly.

JACOB: This is the important key. It doesn’t mean you can’t be tortured, it doesn’t mean that they can’t try to bug your house or subvert it in some way, but it means that if they find an encrypted message it doesn’t matter if they have the force of the authority behind everything that they do, they cannot solve that math problem. This, though, is the thing that is totally non-obvious to people that are non-technical, and it has to be driven home. If we could solve all of those math problems, it would be a different story and, of course, the government would be able to solve those math problems if anyone could.

One thing I miss from yesteryear is how people used to be able to understand what a politician was saying between the lines, and when a politician was going for a bit of dry humour. Now they just analyse the surface content. It's pretty sad.

Unfortunately our prime minister whoshiuld know a lot better as a result of being an IT pioneer in this country, is being fucking rediculous when it comes to his current political reality, because he doesn't have any balls.

This means he can't have it both ways

We managed to slip off the front pages for a bit.

I'm fine with the government tracking everything as long as it goes both ways. If this goes through, Turnbull shouldn't be able to so much as send a fucking Facebook poke without the population of Australia knowing it.

Of course, there's no way you can tell from the outside since it looks like an ordinary https connection to an ordinary server. Then again, I can think of more ways to implement end-to-end encryption over wiretapped channels without it being obvious that encrypted data is being exchanged (stego is quite easy to make but very hard to detect if you don't know the method). So the whole ban is pointless.

Terrorists and other criminals have an interest in arranging this, and it's quite easy, so they'll succeed. The general public will not care enough, and any widely used end-to-end solution will be banned anyway, so they'll just have to give up a little bit of privacy. No gains but at least the government is trying, right?