Australia’s Proposed Surveillance Laws Will Break the Trust Tech Depends On
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Considering the history of both of these men, I predict a grim history for Australia's privacy related laws. They're both staunchly pro-surveillance, anti-immigration (to the point of racism) and, I suspect, highly corrupt. I know that last statement is accusative, but Peter Dutton is currently embroiled in a situation where he released a French au pair and her partner from immigration detention because (allegedly) her prospective employer's second cousin lobbied the government to do so, and that family has donated large amounts of funds to the party. Meanwhile, others are held in sub-human conditions purely for trying to arrive in Australia as refugees, by boat. This situation is unfolding right now, but I doubt there will be any fallout.
Australia's current leadership was not voted in by the population of the country (as seems to be the trend for the last few years, no matter who you voted for), and seems to be set on an anti-privacy, liberty-destroying, nationalist agenda.
As an Australian, I'm incredibly embarrassed by all involved.
DHA is a portfolio that's more or less specifically designed to deliver policy like this and frame everything in terms of "national security". Even the DHA staff I personally know aren't fans of how the structure of the national security bureaucracy has changed over the last year.
My bigger problem here is lack of pushback from the Opposition. The "bipartisan consensus" on national security matters need not mean uncritical acceptance of badly-designed laws and inhumane policies.
I plan to write to a bunch of Labor MPs/Senators about this, hopefully they can be nudged towards sanity (as Stephen Conroy eventually was on his terrible idea of the internet filter years ago).
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Binary_Transparency
Even if this is only used to detect after-the-fact that an attack has happened, that will still help us to assess the scale of the risks that software users face, and maybe allow citizens to hold governments accountable for how they use the dangerous powers they are seeking.
For those playing along for the thrill of reading long text: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/freedom-information-opinion-a...
Is there a good critical analysis (WRT free speech) of this bill you can recommend?
Text of bill is here: http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-76/first-re...
Something that specifically granted powers to the government, and no other powers, so we wouldn't have to worry about this kind of stuff in the future when an ill-informed majority wants to make decisions for the rest of us.
Australia seems like precisely the right-sized society to be affected by pushback against this sort of behavior without being large enough to overwhelm outside opposition.
The first three are just copied and pasted from this article: https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/foss-software-alternati...
I've used (am using) Zoho for a domain of mine. It doesn't see a lot of use - but it's worked whenever I've needed it.
2. Whilst all the issues in the article are cause for concern, what are the practical, technical and legal limitations to these requests? As I stated in a comment to a previous article, warrants are required for pursuing end-users (don't know about companies), so that means it's not a willy-nilly application of new powers.
It wouldn't be practical to pursue trivial crimes through forcing a company to release an intentionally insecure app update that targets one person.
Having said that, however, the Australian Government has authorised warrants to raid the homes of whistleblowers and their lawyers (see below), so I'm probably underestimating the pettiness of the powerful.
3. Further articles illustrating Australia's recent and worrying lurch towards authoritarianism and nationalism:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-28/witness-k-and-bernard-...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-29/chelsea-manning-austra...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-23/huawei-banned-from-pro...
First they helped to liberate East Timor and I said "good onya, mate", then they tried to screw billions of dollars from East Timor by illegally planting listening devices in the offices of the East Timorese government and I said "whoa, hang on a sec, that's Unaustralian! That's not why we helped them achieve independence in the first place is it? You sly c*nts!", then they came for my private messages...
But no, we're apparently terrified of immigrants and love nothing more than the smack of firm leadership.
Congrats, you can now buy rifles and shotguns.
There was a recent case of a father who was rejected from 3 gun clubs because he was too shifty and yet the 4th accepted him and the cops didn't see any reason to reject him. He bought a rifle and shot both his teenage kids at his x-wife's house.
Also you just have to pickup the weekly papers to see cops are afraid of the rising gang violence and the amount of illegal guns that they are finding and being used.
But airsoft guns are illegal so i feel so much safer than countries like NZ that let you buy AR-15s /s
As a counterpoint, gun culture (sports and hunting) is really strong here in Finland. Removing people's rights to do what they want is infringing on freedom, and often for no real purpose.
Civilians in the US are not allowed to own assault rifles either, and haven't for decades. There are a tiny number of assault rifles in civilians' hands that were first sold over 30 years ago and were grandfathered in, but they are absurdly expensive (due to their rarity) and are generally owned by collectors.
What you're probably thinking of is "automatic".
The first rifle they produced was the AR-1, a bolt-action rifle.
My understanding is that in the USA you can't buy a "fully-automatic rifle", which is what the rest of the world calls a machine gun. Nor can you buy an "automatic weapon" which is a gun that looks like an automatic rifle. You can buy a semi-automatic AR-15, which can shoot 45 rounds or so per minute.
As an Aussie, I'm also cool with not allowing people to have AR-15s. A round or two a minute should be enough for most people.
The terms are not confusing. "Assault rifle" is a technical term with a precise definition. How a gun looks doesn't actually matter.
Maybe in your country. The Encyclopedia Britannica says:
"assault rifles are distinguished by their high rate of automatic or semiautomatic fire...In those countries where assault rifles can be purchased in the civilian market, their sale is subject to various restrictions, such as the elimination of automatic action and of the capacity to fire high-performance military ammunition."
So an assault rifle can be automatic or semiautomatic, and you may buy an assault rifle that has been modified to remove automatic action. Isn't that confusing?
We really need to get more people sending letters or contacting their MPs to give them more data points of how normal people actually feel about these issues! I fear political apathy is a bit of a self-fulfilling cycle - the more people think talking to their MPs won't change anything (and don't bother), the less their views will be represented.
Mind you they were helped by England passing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_Act_2013 to cut down on libel tourism. But it still isn't a crown that you particularly want to have.
I suppose it's not that you can't disagree it's just that apathy means many won't and walk heard first into a Soviet/east german stasi society. This is even the stuff of fiction we have recent history to look upon. But it's all for the greater good, right? Born of compassion and a desire to protect surely?
Though as a company, for this law, I would be sure to take the possibility for bad press and loss of customers into the billing calculations. And those are huge.
It could be apathy, or it could be that they genuinely believe the government is doing the right thing. Don't discount the latter because the former is easier for your worldview
* 1,464 Western Australian government officials used ‘Password123’ as their password. Cool, cool. - The Washington Post || https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/22/western...
These are the same people that want all Australians to move their health records online and made it manual opt-out. Amongst every other system uses old methods. The tax system doesn’t use 2FA.
At least the credit cards use a chip and PIN... oh wait, now on contactless payment.