Comment by chrismorgan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrismorgan | Hacker News Reader

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On “banning math” and that “politicians have tried to do that before”: I suspect you are referring at least in part to what the Australian Prime Minister said in 2017:

> The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.

This particular statement was widely lampooned in tech circles at the time as obvious nonsense. Yet it’s actually perfectly sound: legislation is all about restricting you from doing things that are possible. (Now some of the other stuff Mr. Turnbull said at that time was drivel; he seemed to be under the impression that it was possible to allow law enforcement to access end-to-end encrypted content without it comprising a backdoor, which the industry as a whole considers axiomatically false.)

It’s the government’s prerogative to ban mathematics. And indeed they already have in various areas due to copyright and possibly patent laws (c.f. illegal numbers). Now I personally think they would be unwise to ban any form of encryption, but realise that they’re quite at liberty to not just try to ban it.

It’s a stupid statement because he’s using imprecision of the English language to try to make some sly commentary on his institutions relative power while also exposing the _exact_ point tech/science makes. While he has the power to make the _practice_ of mathematics law illegal, the law of mathematics that defines encryption will still exist, in the same places his man-made law touches.

> This particular statement was widely lampooned in tech circles at the time as obvious nonsense. Yet it’s actually perfectly sound: legislation is all about restricting you from doing things that are possible.

Quite. I guess it also makes perfect sense to ban water from flowing down hills. It's possible, after all ...

The reality is some of their laws have already been torn apart. Australia used to have one of the strongest censorship regimes of any democracy. They gave only up after passing the silly things when then banned computer violent games, in an age where everybody bought them from an overseas online store. I think the kids must have blinked in disbelief at the stupidity of their elders, then returned to their game pads.

Then there are laws I really would like to work - like the anti spam laws. I'll lay odds the head of the Federal Police gets spam addressed to him every day. I hope for his sake it's blocked by technology, because it sure as hell isn't stopped by any of the laws they passed or his police force.

People aren't lampooning the idea the government can't ban whatever they want. They are laughing that in an age when encryption algorithms are form the core of ecommerce, are published on Wikipedia, thousands of web sites and government standards, the government is claiming banning them will have any more effect than passing a law saying π is 3.

It was an absurd statement. Moreover, Turnbull knew that, and didn't appear care. Which means it was pure bullshit. I'm guessing it was dog whistle to the crazy right that had sway in the party at time.

Exactly, it's not like the police isn't abusing physical access to goods, or "lawful" access to phone conversations or citizens databases.

How else will police fund their new cars [1] or arrest the new boyfriend of their ex [2] ?

My point is that the government sees no problem at all with the potential for large scale abuse of government access, just like they don't have any serious safeguards against abuse of existing ones, for example, holding physical keys (for example, would you consider using emergency keys for entering a girls' dormitory and forcing everyone in the hallway to "check for lockdown laws being upheld" a perfectly legal precaution. And if they do it for such absurdly juvenile things, what hope is there for them to do better under pressure ?)

[1] https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-po... [2] https://psmag.com/news/stalker-cop-police-protection-danger-...

Indiana also tried legislating 3 as the value for Pi. The bill giving various values for Pi from 3 to 3.2 to 4 made it to the senate for ratification before it was quashed.

So I propose a trade: any time Australians want to mock politicians we’ll refer to the Indiana Pi bill, any time North Americans want to mock politicians they can refer to “the laws of this country not the laws of mathematics”.

Noting that this was not about banning the possible but making the impossible mandatory.

The only laws that can't be broken are the laws of physics.

But can punish a person for doing an act that is perfectly legit under the laws of physics

Of course. If you drop a large weight on someone from a great height, that's generally seen as a problem. ;)

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