
Australian PM Calls for End-To-End Encryption Ban - theunamedguy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/australian-pm-calls-end-end-encryption-ban-says-laws-mathematics-dont-apply-down
======
corndoge
You know, every time I see something like this, I really hope the legislation
passes. Then as the enforcement attempts to handle their impossible task we
get to sit back and watch as Tor and I2P and EFF get funded, citizens and
politicians gain a basic understanding of encryption, and governments learn
that one does not simply ban crypto.

It would be fun. So more power to them! Let's see Britain create their own
crypto free internet! Let's watch the public uproar as Google and WhatsApp
becomes unavailable in Australia! These things are just big opportunities to
get people familiar with what's at stake.

~~~
Sammi
Nope. Banning of encryption actually works for the most part in China. You
should fear politicians who want to do the same in your country.

~~~
_coldfire
Care to elaborate how China has banned it? Last time i was there I had no
problem using VPN, and a dozen or so services that utilise encryption, PGP
didn't magically stop working the moment i touched down. Customs were far more
concerned about my camera batteries than tools of digital freedom on my
laptop.

Seems like you are conflating the efforts of the Great Firewall with the word
encryption here.

------
chrischen
I wish the gun nuts in the US realize that the constitutional protection of
gun rights was drafted in a time when guns weren't niche and were necessary as
a check on government power.

Today, encryption is a check on government overreach, and guns are effectively
a vestigial hobby (unless you're in a gang or the illicit drug industry).

~~~
protomyth
Well, if you call us gun nuts, we might not respond well. Most of the folks I
know who love guns are pretty protective of their other rights, but fighting
constantly to keep one right does tend to drain the coffers for other causes.
FreedomWorks cares quite a bit about both.

I am not fond of the EFF because they don’t win. I would gladly contribute to
an NRA for encryption if it was shown the people running it would use the
exact same tactics as the NRA. No prisoners, no compromise, and flag waving.
It’s better to be feared than weak in politics.

As I understand it, Australia already got rid of guns, so it’s no real
surprise that their government is taking more of their liberties away.

~~~
DennisP
There are an awful lot of people in the U.S. who are very committed to
protecting gun rights, and are willing to vote on that issue. I don't think
we've gotten to that point with crypto; it's a much newer issue, kinda geeky,
way less visceral.

So the NRA collects a lot of money, targets unsupportive politicians, and can
turn votes against them. The EFF has less money, and it's questionable whether
ads attacking politicians for not supporting crypto would work. To the extent
gun owners have bought the Republican scaremongering about terrorists, it
might even backfire.

The EFF does what it can by focusing its efforts on the judicial system
instead.

~~~
protomyth
The legislature writes the laws. People need to make it election suicide to
oppose encryption.

I won’t go down the road on your terrorist comment since it has nothing to do
with the article.

~~~
DennisP
My point is that the government claims it needs to break encryption to protect
us from terrorists. Republicans tend to push that anti-terrorist angle pretty
hard. Given that most activist gun owners are Republicans, they might not be
all that supportive of cryptography.

 _Libertarian_ gun owners definitely support both gun rights and crypto, but
that's a smaller group.

You can only carry out the "election suicide" strategy if you have enough
popular support. Until then you're stuck with what the EFF does: education and
legal action.

~~~
protomyth
I think you'll find a lot of gun owners who are Republican think the party
leadership is out to lunch on some issues, and frankly opinions on side issues
in the party have changed multiple times. Witness a lot of the MJ debate.

> You can only carry out the "election suicide" strategy if you have enough
> popular support. Until then you're stuck with what the EFF does: education
> and legal action.

Well, education and legal action are fine things, but they will not get you to
where you want. They need to get over themselves and get a booth at the next
NRA convention and maybe a booth at some gun shows. A nice catch phrase
linking the protection provided by gun ownership with the protection offered
by encryption would be a nice bonus.

~~~
DennisP
I agree with all of that, and those sound like great ideas.

If the EFF would rather not link the issues for fear of alienating some
supporters, then maybe some new organization could.

------
gingernaut
_Pushed on how encrypted messages could be read when service providers don 't
hold the keys necessary decryption, and Turnbull had this to say:_

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

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2017/07/14/uk_spookhas_gch...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2017/07/14/uk_spookhas_gchq_can_crack_endtoend_encryption_says_australian_ag/)

~~~
nl
It's a huge, huge mistake to laugh at this.

Turnbull understands perfectly well he can't outlaw Math. What he can do is
build and international alliance to outlaw end-to-end encryption.

That's the goal here, and laughing at 'stupid' comments instead of looking at
how it might actually be accomplished is what got us metadata retention laws.

"First they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" doesn't just
apply to good things.

~~~
robbiep
The obscene thing is, any organisation large enough to willingly plot the
downfall of western civilisation is going to have a guy, or be able to
outsource the production of to a guy, who can develop an end to end encrypted
communications channel on an open platform.

Unfortunately our prime minister whoshiuld know a lot better as a result of
being an IT pioneer in this country, is being fucking rediculous when it comes
to his current political reality, because he doesn't have any balls.

~~~
fantispug
If it's illegal to send encrypted communications it will still have an impact.
If the source of any unapproved encrypted transmissions could be identified
there is a good chance the sender could be apprehended.

~~~
Retric
You assume it's obvious when something is encrypted. Steganography is
generally easier with encrypted messages as it looks random.

~~~
astrobe_
Indeed, unless the traffic/file is explicitly labeled as encrypted (protocol,
file header etc.) I think there's no way to tell if a particular piece of data
is encrypted or not.

More generally, the incredible stupidity in those calls for encryption bans is
that the "bad guys" will abide to the law. There's a dark market for botnets
etc., so why not for custom stealth encryption tools? I wouldn't be surprised
if it already exists.

------
jacques_chester
I see that we Australians have resumed our international role as laughing-
stock of the technology industry. As much as I disagree with the Greens
generally, losing Scott Ludlam at this moment is a serious loss.

For those of you able to donate, the equivalent of the EFF in Australia is the
EFA: [https://www.efa.org.au/](https://www.efa.org.au/)

~~~
cyphar
Did we ever stop being the laughing stock? Our only recent claim to fame is
Atlassian (plus some of the stuff CommBank pioneered). Aside from that,
everything else has been a total shit-show.

~~~
vacri
There was a time when we had a world-class telephony setup, the CSIRO was
making waves (literally as well as figuratively), and we punched well above
our (actually rather small) weight in the high tech and medical research
fields.

------
openfuture
"Terrorists are now only allowed to use waterpistols, this should dramatically
lessen casualties and help with identifying them"

~~~
Geojim
whispering is next on the ban list...

~~~
navs
Why must you give them ideas?

~~~
mtgx
You joke, but I believe police in the US is already installing advanced
microphones along with CCTV cameras to hear what people are talking about from
a distance.

~~~
dvtv75
I think there was something about gait analysis, too, just in case bad guys
started wearing disguises.

------
eloop
A few years ago ... [http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-03/malcolm-
turnbull-us...](http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-03/malcolm-turnbull-
uses-secret-messaging-app-instead-of-sms/6276712?pfmredir=sm)

------
arkem
I think calling this a ban on end-to-end encryption is an mis-
characterization.

According to the press conference where this comes from[1] it seems that
they're talking about legislation that would expand the Telecommunications
Act's provisions to require communications providers to assist law
enforcement[2] to cover internet messaging platforms.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Facebook would be obligated to backdoor
their encryption or store a keys for all communications or change the
architecture of their platform. They would be obligated to comply with
interception warrants to the best of their ability.

Forms that this assistance could take (from the act):

    
    
      (7)  A reference in this section to giving help includes a reference to giving help by way of:
    
        (a)  the provision of interception services, including services in executing an interception warrant under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 ; or
    
        (b)  giving effect to a stored communications warrant under that Act; or
    
        (c)  providing relevant information about:
    
          (i)  any communication that is lawfully intercepted under such an interception warrant; or
    
          (ii)  any communication that is lawfully accessed under such a stored communications warrant; or
    
        (ca)  complying with a domestic preservation notice or a foreign preservation notice that is in force under Part 3-1A of that Act; or
    
        (d)  giving effect to authorisations under Division 3 or 4 of Part 4-1 of that Act; or
    
        (e)  disclosing information or a document in accordance with section 280 of this Act. 
    

I prefer to see law enforcement have broad authorizations but limited special
powers (i.e. they're allowed to do a lot of things in pursuit of an
investigation but they don't have many ways to compel assistance) but I think
this story is overblown (largely because Turnbull's quote out of context is
pretty funny).

[1] [http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2017-07-14/press-conference-
attor...](http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2017-07-14/press-conference-attorney-
general-senator-hon-george-brandis-qc-and-acting)

[2]
[http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ta1997214/...](http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ta1997214/s313.html)

------
chris_wot
He didn't say that when he was _using_ end-to-end encryption.

~~~
cam_l
When / did he stop?

~~~
BigJono
Well I assume he has to if the law comes into place, or he'd be breaking it.

I'm fine with the government tracking everything as long as it goes both ways.
If this goes through, Turnbull shouldn't be able to so much as send a fucking
Facebook poke without the population of Australia knowing it.

~~~
sk0g
The police look down on speeding, but they are allowed to speed, go through
red lights, etc. The law doesn't apply to the ones that make them, apparently.

~~~
navs
Well I assume they're doing that while in pursuit of an individual or to get
to the scene of a crime.

~~~
lucb1e
A little off-topic, but no, very often not.

At least in the Netherlands they have to turn on both lights and sirens before
they are allowed to break traffic laws (such as passing red lights or
speeding), but out of the 3 times I've driven on the highway near a cop car,
twice they were speeding by quite a lot without being in any pursuit.

Of course it's an excellent way of speeding: stay behind the cop car at as
great a distance as possible. They know where their colleagues are (or speed
cameras) and they don't want to get caught breaking the law themselves.

------
wisty
As I understand it, it means banning end to end communication between clients.
So you can chat over https, but only if the server in the middle (which can be
served warrants) is doing the encryption.

~~~
askvictor
That's not end to end encryption.

~~~
lucb1e
To me it is. The server you'd be talking to in my case is physically mine, in
my home, so if I'm an endpoint and someone else is an endpoint, and they have
an encrypted connection to the server, for all intents and purposes, it's end
to end encrypted.

Of course, there's no way you can tell from the outside since it looks like an
ordinary https connection to an ordinary server. Then again, I can think of
more ways to implement end-to-end encryption over wiretapped channels without
it being obvious that encrypted data is being exchanged (stego is quite easy
to make but very hard to detect if you don't know the method). So the whole
ban is pointless.

Terrorists and other criminals have an interest in arranging this, and it's
quite easy, so they'll succeed. The general public will not care enough, and
any widely used end-to-end solution will be banned anyway, so they'll just
have to give up a little bit of privacy. No gains but at least the government
is trying, right?

~~~
kakarot
Sorry, but that's just wrong. End-to-end encryption has a specific definition
that you can't distort just to play devil's advocate.

~~~
itake
Can you elaborate? If I am communicating with a server over tls, how is that
not e2e encryption?

The communication between both clients (my computer and the server) are
encrypted locally such that mitm are not able to read our secure
communication. The "end" of the connection is either the server or my laptop.

~~~
SpaceManiac
"End to end" refers specifically to the two _people_ involved - that is,
nobody but the sender and recipient of a communication can read it. Twitter
DMs happen over TLS, but they're not end-to-end - Twitter knows the content of
the messages.

~~~
itake
Wikipedia just defines end to end as communication between nodes and it never
specifically defines end to end as "person to person". [0]

Do you have another source?

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-
end_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_principle)

~~~
kakarot
> . . . application-specific features reside in the communicating end nodes of
> the network, rather than in intermediary nodes . . .

No one ever said it was people. We're talking about communication between two
nodes that is simply facilitated by intermediary nodes. Your own source
supports the argument, I think you should reread it.

~~~
itake
Node 1 would be my laptop.

Node 2 would be the server.

Intermediary nodes would be the various routers, switches, and other
networking devices that inspects the traffic between the two nodes.

so my own source supports my question. nodes do not need to be "humans"

~~~
kakarot
Too bad that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, namely end-to-end
communication between two individually-operated clients.

------
borplk
Last week at G20 he saw Theresa May and said "I'll have what she's having".
And here we are.

------
Zigurd
"The laws of mathematics are very commendable but the only law that applies in
Australia is the law of Australia" Once they pass a law barring gravity from
affecting police investigations, it will be a crime to use gravity to prevent
flying cops from investigating.

------
daxfohl
May as well let's ban talking. Wait, and thinking too! Except for dickheads
that run for office because ... (somebody smarter and better connected than me
please end this sentence in a way that makes sense).

~~~
Quequau
Or more to the point all forms of electronic banking.

------
stevew20
I usually go the high route and write something insightful or informative on
HN. However, the only thing that comes to mind after reading this are phrases
like "What a fucking nut", or "Did no one review his speech for him, because
they were too busy pulling the stuck fruit loops from his nose?"

Australia, shame on you for letting this moron take up this position of power.
Oh wait.... I live in the USA.... Shame on me too.

------
forgottenacc57
It's stupid cause it doesn't solve the problem it is intended to.

~~~
kabdib
The problem they are trying to solve is not the problem that they _say_ they
are trying to solve.

------
lngnmn
Instead of better education, social security and jobs creation...

------
javiramos
Classic. It is always the politicians who screw things up.

------
openfuture
"Terrorists are now only allowed to use waterpistols, this will dramatically
lessen civilian casualties and help us identify them"

~~~
lucb1e
No, everyone except themselves. They're not saying "terrorists are not allowed
to use end-to-end", they're saying "nobody but us".

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
No, it's "nobody but us and anyone who's willing to break the law, even
bankers and other terrorists."

------
blubb-fish
and I thought he's a good and smart guy because he made fun of trump.

~~~
NamTaf
Smart? Yes. He's very intelligent, a former investment banker and very clever
politician. Good? Far less clear. He's done some ok things and some things
like this.

~~~
perilunar
The problem is he is beholden to too many people. Too many promises and deals
made to get the leadership.

------
type0
You just can't turn the bull, all pun intended.

