Link is paywalled but worth posting just for headline.
It begins!
No self awareness.
I just canât understand. Do they not even try to understand their constitutes?
Billy boy is going to do the mother of all Steven Bradburys
2 Likes
Labor needs to come our publicly against Adani
2 Likes
YES
Please let this happen please please please. Comedy value would be incredible
3 Likes
Even if (fingers crossed) he loses Warringah, heâd still think he was a chance
1 Like
I thought i knew you. Have you lost your mind?
Pretty sure heâs barracking for an Abbott revival shiteshow. Get on board for that
1 Like
Oooh, I know this one.
Is it Pink Floyd?
Hmmmm.
1 Like
If Foley is the âbiggest sleaze bag aroundâ what is the need to know any further truth about him ?
The question is, how did Labor come to appoint a sleaze bag as a leader ?
Silly question, I suppose - after all itâs NSW Labor, the party of Eddie Obeid and friendsâŠ
If there is a 0.001 chance of him ACTUALLY becoming PM again, itâs too great a risk.
2 Likes
Might be entertaining. Which is more than you can say for Scummo.
Adani, eh ?
can these geriatric entitled boomers just â â â â off?
Looking Down Under for a Back Door
A proposed law in Australia could give U.S. law enforcement access to encrypted communications.
OCT 05, 20181:21 PM
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Baku_Retsu/iStock.
Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
Recently in Future Tense
- What We Know About the Marriott Hack Affecting Up to 500 Million Guests
- DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather Fined for Cryptocurrency Fraud After Illegally Promoting Scam Coin
- Finding Technologyâs Supernatural Spirit in a Pile of Abandoned Dolls
- Inmates Catfished Hundreds of Military Members in Large-Scale Sextortion Scam
For years, U.S. law enforcement has tried, and failed, to convince Congress to require tech companies to provide backdoor access to encrypted data and communications. But it might not need such legislation after all: It may end up with a back door to a back door, by way of the land Down Under.
The Australian government is working to enact legislation to make it easier for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access electronic communications information, including data protected by encryption, by forcing companies to weaken the security of their products. And the United States appears to be pushing for, and ready to exploit, that new lawâa practice known as policy laundering.
The U.S. Justice Department and FBI have been complaining for years that they are âgoing darkââthat is, losing the ability to obtain criminalsâ communications. Meanwhile, tech companies, security researchers, and privacy advocates have continued to explain that providing âexceptional accessâ to government threatens the individual rights and cybersecurity of all users. There is simply no way to guarantee that back doors created for the U.S. (or any) government will be secure against exploitation by others.
U.S. officials have tried to say recently that it is possible to develop so-called responsible encryption to permit such law enforcement access, but they still say that legislation is likely necessary because â[t]echnology companies almost certainly will not develop responsible encryption if left to their own [no pun intended?] devices.â But responsible encryption is a myth. Moreover, as the public learned in May, the U.S. government has been dramatically overstating the number of locked phones that it could not access due to encryption. Following this revelation, although the FBI continued to call for encryption legislation, the U.S.
governmentâs crusade seemed to die down.
It now appears that the United Statesâ efforts were largely pushed undergroundâor actually, Down Under. The United States brought its campaign for encryption back doors to the Five Eyesâan intelligence-sharing alliance composed of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States that dates back to World War II. Limited information is publicly available about how intelligence sharing works among the Five Eyes. But we do know that alliance members have also begun collaborating on law enforcement policy. Starting in 2013, these nations have participated in a âFive Country Ministerial,â which has evolved into an annual convening on strategy and information sharing regarding law enforcement and national security issues. The 2017 Joint CommuniquĂ© outlines plans to collaborate and share information on issues including global migration and refugee systems, cybersecurity, and encryption.
In August, the Five Country Ministerial 2018 doubled down on the issue of encryption. It released a Statement of Principles on Access to Evidence and Encryption in which the governments noted that if they continue to âencounter impedimentsâ in their efforts to access encrypted communications, they may pursue legislative mandates for encryption back doors.
That same month, the government of Australia released an âexposure draftâ of its Assistance and Access Bill 2018, which would grant the government new authorities to access electronic communications information, including encrypted data. Many provisions of the bill were modeled on the United Kingdomâs Investigatory Powers Act, which also raises serious threatsto privacy and creates new tools that the government may try to use to mandate back doors, though they have not yet been tested. Australiaâs bill includes some language that sounds good: It says that it would prohibit the government from requiring communications providers to createâor prevent them from repairingââa systemic weakness or systemic vulnerability.â That sounds like itâs explicitly not calling for a back door. But this promising language is undermined by the billâs authorization of powerful new tools. Through âtechnical assistance noticesâ and âtechnical capability notices,â the government could demand that communications providers take certain actions, including modifying their products. This means the government could require tech companies to install software or otherwise weaken product security to enable the government to access usersâ data.
The Australian government opened a public comment period on the proposed bill, and by the deadline of Sept. 10, it had received more than 14,000 submissions, including comments filed by New Americaâs Open Technology Institute, where I work. (New America is a partner with Slate and Arizona State University in Future Tense.) Our comments were joined by an international coalition of 21 civil society organizations and 10 tech companies and trade associations, and outline key human rights and cybersecurity risks posed by the bill. Despite the overwhelming number of comments, only 10 days later, the Australian government rushed to introduce a somewhat modified version of the bill in Parliament. The Parliament opened a new public comment procedure (which ends Oct. 12), but the revisions are quite minor. For example, the updated bill added language authorizing Australian courts to hear challenges to government data demands, but it still fails to provide a process for bringing such challenges, or a clear and meaningful standard that courts would follow in assessing any such cases.
Even with the revisions, the bill would grant broad authorities to the Australian government that threaten human rights and cybersecurity. For example, the bill appears to permit the type of demand made by the FBI when it sought to compel Apple to unlock an iPhone used by the 2015 San Bernardino, California, shooter. Although the FBI argued it sought only to unlock one phone, as Apple explained, building the requested software tool would have made the technique widely available, thereby threatening cybersecurity for other users. To make matters worse, it would be far more difficult to bring legal challenges to these new authorities if granted to Australia than it would be to contest similar powers in jurisdictions like the United States and the U.K., because Australia does not have a bill of rights.
Once enacted into law in Australia, these powerful new tools could help provide the United States with a back door to an encryption back door. The U.S. government cannot ask the Australian government to collect and hand over data that the United States is legally prohibited from collecting on its own, but some data may be shareable under the secret terms of the Five Eyes alliance. Beyond that, if Australia gains the tools to force providers to undermine the security of their products, the United States and other governments could exploit those same tools. For example, if Australia could compel Apple to build a new operating system to circumvent iPhone security featuresâas the FBI demanded in the San Bernardino shooter caseâthen, once the system was built, Apple could no longer argue that it lacked the capacity to turn over data to the U.S. government in similar cases. Similarly, if Australia forced Facebook to re-engineer WhatsAppâs encrypted chats to be accessible in response to Australian legal demands, those chats would also be vulnerable to other governmentsâ demands. There is also a risk that the U.S. government could seek to expand its own authority directly, by pointing to Australia as the new model for âresponsible encryptionâ legislation.
Either as a pathway or a model, the Australia bill creates risks to cybersecurity and privacy that extend well beyond that nationâs borders.
1 Like
Surely most of the operators would just stop offering their secure communication tools to Australians?
And then we/The Bad Guys use VPNs. So much achieved, AusGov.
Some real classy stuff going on.
Donât know Foley at all.
As I keep saying Political Parties and Parliament are a reflection of society, with sleazebags, drunks, crooks amongst the mostly wonderful people.
I cannot see it is fair or reasonable to believe or disbelieve either Foley or the journalists based on what was in the newspaper ; just my opinion.
And NSW Labor have been controlled by some I donor like in the past, but this has mostly changed for the better. Still a way to go.
Constituents? Mate, theyâre there to help out a few of their friends (and in Canavanâs case, family) make a fortune. The constituents should all shut up and learn how to mine more â â â â . Itâs not about people. Itâs about money.
Heâs married? Perhaps there really is someone for everyoneâŠ
Frydenburg and Morrison apparently sweating over how Banks is going to vote on religious freedoms. Not about the reason she left. Yeah, these guys are in touch with what the electorate are thinking.
1 Like
I reckon the no sitting days in the next 6 months might come back to bite them.
If they are all in Canberra some sort of corralling of the party and a chance to get something done might work.
By not being there and not having anything substantial to discuss, they are just giving space to the Abotts and Barnabys to fill with damaging sound bites.
1 Like