
Australia's tech industry savages Labor for backing bill - Daviey
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/you-bunch-of-idiots-australias-tech-industry-savages-labor-for-backing-the-governments-encryption-bill-2018-12
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brad0
I am really unhappy this has happened. I’m an Australian living in the USA for
a large tech company. I’m on a work visa.

I’m going to visit family back in Australia this Christmas. What happens if
during the time I’m outside the USA the company I work for pulls my visa? I
have to abandon my life that I’ve setup here?

Surely I can sue the Australian government in that case. There’s no way I can
earn the money I earn here back in Australia.

~~~
g45y45
Germany. Thats my plan if I need to leave the US. I will never work in
Australia again after this or under this regime. I encourage Australian
technologists to escape while they can.

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peatmoss
It really bums me out, but I think I’m going to have to abandon Fastmail on
principle. Hopefully this law will be repealed quickly before the damage to
Australian software companies is too great.

~~~
regecks
Why victimize Fastmail? Law enforcement access to your email inbox remains
exactly the same as before this bill was passed.

If you're just punishing any Australian company, FeelsBadMan (as an Australian
developer).

~~~
hedora
I thought Fastmail offered (as much as is possible) “secure” email, but it
says in their blog post that they routinely hand entire mailboxes over to law
enforcement.

On the top hit they say they host everything in New Jersey, USA (with backups
in seattle) but later say they are only governed by Australian law and don’t
respond to US court orders:
[https://www.fastmail.com/help/ourservice/security.html](https://www.fastmail.com/help/ourservice/security.html)

Caveat emptor, I guess.

~~~
mtgx
FastMail was never a "secure email service provider" \- just an email provider
that offer a good (UX-wise) alternative to Gmail, without mining your private
conversations for advertising purposes.

I think they made it pretty clear a while back in a blog post on HN that
security was not their #1 concern, like it is say for ProtonMail or other end-
to-end encrypted email services.

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gumby
The coalition clearly did this at the behest of the US and UK to be a 5 eyes
beard. Yet this very action locks Australian tech companies out of those
countries -- it's threatening my ability to work.

Labor had no reason to kowtow to this crap.

~~~
xfitm3
Have a source suggesting it was the US/UK?

[https://www.npr.org/2018/10/02/627249909/australia-and-
new-z...](https://www.npr.org/2018/10/02/627249909/australia-and-new-zealand-
are-ground-zero-for-chinese-influence)

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macintux
Much discussion overnight here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18661483](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18661483)

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zerotolerance
Remember Lavabit...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit)

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patchtopic
I am disgusted by these clowns and as an Australian embarrassed that somehow
these people ended up in power and representing us.

also:
[https://twitter.com/beneltham/status/1070276535007948800](https://twitter.com/beneltham/status/1070276535007948800)
i.e. it appears one the new powers cant be used by anti-corruption agencies..
funny that..

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TheMagicHorsey
The utter stupidity and short-sightedness of politicians is on display in both
the US and Australia this week.

~~~
brad0
What happened in the US?

~~~
Nasrudith
The hearing where Steve King asked iPhone questions to Google and asked why
Trump shows up under "idiot" so often in image searches. When it is entirely
automated.

~~~
shard972
Can we at least have a more intelligent conversation about how google designs
its algorithms than "It's entirely automated".

Everyone here knows that google didn't just plug a bunch of servers together
and it just magically came up with a search engine.

The idea that google has completely washed its hands of any untoward tweaking
of search results to favour one party or another is just ignoring the reality
of the claims being targeted at google.

It didn't help either that when questioned about things like the plan to
"improve hispanic voter outreach in key states" that google just pretends like
it never happened.

~~~
Nasrudith
I didn't think the issue worth discussing since it seemed to be a clear case
of deliberate power inversion - politicians trying to put fear in the media
instead of the other way around. It seemed to be clear cut messenger shooting
because reality refused to honor their persecution complex.

Really Google is pretty stereotypical corporate gutless about taking off auto-
complete at anything remotely controversial even when it is an objective truth
that say Santorum got his name associated with literal filth in response to
comparing legalized gay relationships with beastiality. I saw little reason to
bother with complexities when the accusations were so coarse and wrong.

Also how is improving hispanic voter outreach remotely a matter of
controversy? The US has universal voting rights. Their job is to connect
people with information. Complaining about it strikes of the Dotcom Freudian
slips of bribery in complaining about him making music videoes with rappers -
that isn't remotely illegal and bringing it up says far more about the source
than the subject. That is downright saintly compared to lobbying and media
conglomerates giving blatant editorial pushes.

~~~
shard972
> Also how is improving hispanic voter outreach remotely a matter of
> controversy?

Well hispanics mostly vote for democrats, so by increasing hispanic turnout
you will get more democratic votes. If google cared about democracy, why not
help everyone get out the vote? Why are they specifically hiring busses for
hispanics in swing states unless they are trying to help the democrats?

> The US has universal voting rights. Their job is to connect people with
> information.

Yes, and im telling you they were not connecting all people, but focusing on
connecting certain kinds of people to vote.

> Complaining about it strikes of the Dotcom Freudian slips of bribery in
> complaining about him making music videoes with rappers

Huh?

> That is downright saintly compared to lobbying and media conglomerates
> giving blatant editorial pushes.

So i don't get your arguemnt other than something about kim dotcom and rappers
and because of that it's actually a good thing?

How would you feel if facebook ran a campaign of "getting out the white vote"
that paid millions of dollars in adds and hiring rentals and drivers to get
out only white people to the polls? Or just replace white with democrat or
republian.

I don't see how anyone sees this as "saintly" rather than exactly what it is,
a company in it's position of power trying to influence the results of an
election. I have no idea how anyone but a radical capitalist sees that as a
great service.

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gnode
Is the effect of this limited to domestic industry, or does it affect
Australians working abroad? Can the Australian government ask a citizen
working abroad to spy on their foreign employer, and threaten them with
imprisonment if they return without doing so?

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AzzieElbab
They are simply making implicit things explicit. Though, I am not sure why

~~~
chopin
Maybe the implicit thing didn't work?

~~~
marcus_holmes
more likely the Coalition needed something they could all agree on to be seen
to be _doing something_. There's precious little that the various bits of the
parties agree on, so picking on the nerds was an easy one.

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iron0013
Why is Labor being "savaged" if the conservatives are the ones presenting,
pushing for, and providing the overwhelming proportion of the votes for the
bill?

