Yes, I agree with Patrick that framing the arguments on "math of encryption" is misguided. Yes, it leads to thinking that legislators are stupid similar to trying to pass a bill to redefine the value of pi.[1]
Let's be clear.... the lawmakers actually don't care if the most powerful supercomputers at NSA/GCHAQ can't crack WhatsApp's latest 2048-bit-quantum-elliptical-encryption used in conjunction with Apple iOS tamperproof enclave chip.
All that math doesn't matter. It's a mistake to think that government is retarded because "math is irreversible". That smugness makes people lose sight of the ultimate goal: the cleartext.
If getting that cleartext means new laws that require all Android/Apple phones include a software keyboard interceptor (the onscreen keyboard) to log keystrokes and send the cleartext to a government server, then so be it. Such a keystroke logger would then make the "irreversible math" a moot point.
Tldr: Don't frame the policy in terms of "encryption". Instead, focus on the "cleartext".
>The first problem actually has very little to do with end-to-end encryption and a lot more to do with access to messaging metadata.
This is true, but it's misleading because we know that governments eventually want more than the just the metadata.
>Now it’s all very well and good for WhatsApp to argue that it doesn’t have the technical means to do so, which is a response that has lead to all sorts of tangles in Brazil’s courts, but the Australian law will simply say “we don’t care. Get them.”.
This line dances close to what we really should be discussing (the cleartext). If you find yourself grumbling "the government wants to weaken encryption!", it means you're thinking like a computer scientist. On the other hand if you imagine, "if there was a new algorithm for _stronger encryption_ but it didn't matter because all the cleartext was available for monitoring", it means you're thinking like the government.
>Do we believe that law enforcement bodies should have the authority to monitor the communications of people suspected of serious criminal offences?
This question is another way of framing it which is closer to the aims of the government. They want to monitor the cleartext.