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Comment by acutesoftware | Hacker News Reader

I am an Australian software developer and am currently getting https://www.lifepim.com ready for release which, funnily enough has the main selling point as "Your data is private, secure and free from adverts" - what a joke.

The scary part is not knowing how the law is going to be implemented - I am hopeful that smart people work on the implementation of it in terms of practicality.

If it is an on request thing "give us the details of terrorist@blah.com" then that is doable, but if they really want backdoor access to all accounts, then that is ridiculous amount of work and a lot of security risks to worry about.

Wait and see I guess.

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I would not use your software because I don't believe my data on it could possibly be private and secure. Especially after you've just said you could do an "on request thing" for certain users data.

Sadly our government has failed us. We are the laughing stock of the whole world (except maybe China).

I’m sure your customers will believe you if you say that your government did not tell you to lie about backdoors and weaknesses in your products security.

That's the scary part about this - a company is not allowed to tell people when the data was accessed

They are allowed to provide statistical information (in 6-month windows). Still completely useless in a practical sense.

No. That was an amendment that was not passed.

We got the full dictatorship version with no reporting at all.

The section on statistics was in the first reading of the bill.

Technically, it's not like a dictatorship at all. A dictatorship is a government where there's one person at the top with ultimate power. What you have really is more like a "cabal", much like China's government.

Oops. Totalitarian government?

Looks like a cool product.

Realistically could we just setup all code to be hosted overseas and then pay a set of reviewers in Europe to check PR's for possible backdoors? Don't think the law let's them compell you to build the backdoor in a super secret and hidden way...

The way it’s written that could be 5 years in gaol because you let people know about it.

Not relevant, but I love the old-school spelling of "gaol". Is it still used anywhere or are you being whimsical?

That's the official spelling in Australia, and I think the UK.

Yes, Australia uses it still. e.g. Ballarat Gaol, Old Melbourne Gaol.

Ah, that's delightful.

Thanks! I don't hosting overseas would work, but then again - who knows how it would be implemented.

Don't launch in Australia.

Or don't launch in Europe.

GDPR and this legislation are in direct conflict. Pick a market...

Can launches can be targeted (legally) to a country? The site is hosted in London and am already GDPR compliant - wonder if this is means it is not under Australian laws?

If you're not an Aussie company, and don't have any staff in Australia, then it's a long reach for them to do something to you.

If you specifically reject all customers attempting to sign up from an Aussie IP address, or with an Aussie physical address (if you have that), then you're on pretty firm ground to tell them to piss off if they come knocking.

But, y'know, I'm not a lawyer, and you might be subject to whatever whims any country cares to hit you with. Get some legal advice before trusting some random internet comment ;)

I guess the poster child for this is Kim Dotcom. Launched a file sharing service from New Zealand that didn't break any NZ laws.

USA didn't like it though, and asked NZ to extradite him to face charges in the USA.

Legal battle still going, I think... but the business is dead.

I doubt Australia has that much clout, but you never know when an extradition will be the price of some favour to someone...

If the business is registered in Australia then you're under Australian laws, regardless of where it's hosted.

All my hosting is done in the US, but that doesn't mean any of my businesses are necessarily American.

In this case, its a market of ~25million vs a market of nearly ~500 million people..

easy choice to make.

Nothing bad about GDPR, since it's actually made to protect citizens.

totally agree. Which means their contradiction of the Aussie rules means...

Yup, your software just became compromised. No way in hell I'd ever use that now.

Time to find a new career, sorry.

It is now legally impossible for data to be private or secure. Your product is now dead by law.

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