“Im from the government and you’re here to help” – The AA Act is a hackers dream | Hacker News Reader

“Im from the government and you’re here to help” – The AA Act is a hackers dream

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18 pointslongstaff20097 comments

I’ve just gotten a response from 1Password indicating that it is their current, though not yet solidified, belief that the Australian government cannot compel its overseas developers:

“It turns out that we picked up on a popular (mis)understanding of a previous draft of the law. It does not appear that the law could be used to force any Australians work for us to go behind our backs. The law is bad for a large number of reasons, but it does not actually have that particular problem.”

They went on to comment on the possibility of a rogue employee, Aussie or not, being a security risk, which I was heartened by, but I would like to ask whether the assumption that any Australian overseas can be compelled is true or not.

Does that mean companies shouldn't trust Australians?

The comment and the article just suggested they couldn't be compelled into subterfuge as an employee of an American company, at least by their interpretation.

Regardless I am not a lawyer and it is early days for this bill and how it will turn out in courts and application.

As an Australian developer, I am disappointed and worried for the future of our industry. I had planned to do software for some time yet.

It would be interesting to know how they think requests would get fulfilled in practice. I called a couple of MPs offices to ask and they couldn't find anyone to provide an answer

"Hello, we are based and operate under the jurisdiction of Panama. We do not have HQ nor our staff based in Australia. Therefore, this law will not have any effect to our company whatsoever." - NordVPN

"We are following the Australian #AAbill closely. The updated regulation does not address any of our #privacy concerns, which we explain here https://protonvpn.com/blog/assistance-access-bill-australia/ …. ProtonMail users will not be impacted because as a Swiss company, we are not subject to Australian law." - ProtonMail

This seems to be the stance of a lot of companies

Really the fact that they have to clarify that alone means that they are grossly unqualified to be legislators - let alone that they passed that abomination.

“Hi Norm? This is Mr. Eddie Vedder from the Federal Police. Listen, we were tracking a dangerous terrorist cell when our BLT drive just went AWOL. Could you please get me a log of all the account activity of Mr. Fred Bloggs? Australian federal law requires you to comply with this request. Thanks, Norman."

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