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Comment by femto | Hacker News Reader

Australia has already shown what the end-game is, with its "The Assistance and Access Act 2018" [1]. It's not illegal to have end-to-end encryption, but it's illegal to deny access to the ends of the encrypted pipe.

As an aside, Australia has just implemented the next step: the "Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2021" [2], which makes it legal to hack your device to access the ends of the pipe. Useful if the ends of the pipe are not controlled by a malleable corporation.

[1] https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/natio...

[2] https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislat...

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This actually sounds like the right way to go. Individual, warrant based access is comparable to wiretapping in a way that Apple's dragnet approach is not.

Don't forget the #datbill as well. [1]

Australia is a bad joke at this point. I thought nanny state was bad but we're firmly moving into Stasi territory now.

Even the government's obvious incompetence is looking like not enough protection in the face of all these overreaches.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/efa_oz/status/1430674903548661767

This is so disgusting.

Ah, this old bogeyman.

The media drastically overreacted to that act, to the point where the Department of Home Affairs now has an entire page dedicated to addressing the false reporting [0].

The TL;DR is that the act doesn't allow the government to introduce mass surveillance. Section 317ZG [1] expressly forbids any law enforcement request from _having the effect_ of introducing any systemic vulnerability or weakness and _explicitly_ calls out new decryption capabilities as under that umbrella. Your claim that a company can't deny access to the ends of an e2e-encrypted pipe is false.

And yes, that new act exists. The government will be able to hack into your devices and take over your accounts _with a warrant_, just like they can break into your house or take money from your bank account _with a warrant_.

[0]: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/natio...

[1]: http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ta1997...

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