Australian Gov't unveils plans to gain access to encrypted messages

[mr moose]

29 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

 

edit: Took me awhile to figure out what to write. I do hope something in this scrap I've written proves mildly intriguing.

I assure you it all is.   

 

 

In days past money could only be un-traced if it was cash.  Targets had to be exactly that, targeted to gather the information, nowadays you can run a script to skim shitloads of information and target millions at once.  communications are a lot easier with not only being instant but a lot less susceptible to being attacked/stopped en route plus today you know instantly if your message was intercepted.  

 

 

 

 

[Zodiark1593]

15 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I assure you it all is.   

 

 

In days past money could only be un-traced if it was cash.  Targets had to be exactly that, targeted to gather the information, nowadays you can run a script to skim shitloads of information and target millions at once.  communications are a lot easier with not only being instant but a lot less susceptible to being attacked/stopped en route plus today you know instantly if your message was intercepted.  

 

 

 

 

You seem to see what I see. While individuals are able to utilize the internet however they see fit, likewise, a governing entity can use that same conduit to gather information as well. I would suspect, (hypothesize really) however that if a government were to do something to disrupt their population's trust in the internet, their own surveillance capabilities using the Internet, conversely, may be compromised as a greater portion of data gathered may be fabricated instead. What good would it do me if half the population is putting on tin foil hats when I'm looking away? 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Zodiark1593 said:

You seem to see what I see. While individuals are able to utilize the internet however they see fit, likewise, a governing entity can use that same conduit to gather information as well. I would suspect, (hypothesize really) however that if a government were to do something to disrupt their population's trust in the internet, their own surveillance capabilities using the Internet, conversely, may be compromised as a greater portion of data gathered may be fabricated instead. What good would it do me if half the population is putting on tin foil hats when I'm looking away? 

society isn't really made up from a hard set of rules you can apply concrete conditions to.   If it was society would either be chaotic or utopian.

[Bananasplit_00]

It's always fun when someone thinks they can legislate against the laws of "insert scientific term here*

[LAwLz]

17 hours ago, mr moose said:

No, but when compromises are not the best option then more options other than just blanket dismissing the issue are required. 

I am not dismissing the issue. I am saying the proposed solution is a horrible one that will do more damage than good (if it does any good whatsoever, there is no evidence to suggest that it even will).

 

17 hours ago, mr moose said:

I think the explanation I gave was sufficient.  If there are no other options or compromises then you have to pick your poison.  

What explanation did you give exactly?

"They want access to encrypted messages" is not an explanation because they already claim they can do that. If you claim that they are lying about being able to do it then clearly they are not trustworthy and therefore should not be given this massive amount of power.

 

17 hours ago, mr moose said:

We are faced with a serious problem where modern technology has effectively blindfolded the police. 

This is false. There is still a ton of things the police does and will continue to be able to do. In fact, if you want to protect citizens then you should be arguing against this legislation. The police has at several times said that the reason why they did not stop terrorist attacks was not because of a lack of information (like for example the example given in the video, where the terrorist had been reported 5 times to the police already) but rather because of an overwhelming amount of information to the point where it is hard to distinguish between a real threat and just random noise.

Again, you don't increase the odds of finding the needle in the haystack bu dumping on more hay.

 

17 hours ago, mr moose said:

Then mix that in with heavy doses of "the governments out to get me", which is a direct accusation based on fear

OK, now I am sure that you have been living under a rock.

The government IS out to spy on everyone. There is a massive amount of evidence for it. They want mass surveillance to the point where they can look up anything about anyone with a few clicks. Those systems are already in place to some degree, and they have been found to have been abused hundreds upon hundreds of times.

 

17 hours ago, mr moose said:

the more realistic fear of said backdoor being stolen or exploited by a third party.

That is a a big issue too, but it's not the only one.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I am not dismissing the issue. I am saying the proposed solution is a horrible one that will do more damage than good (if it does any good whatsoever, there is no evidence to suggest that it even will).

 

What explanation did you give exactly?

"They want access to encrypted messages" is not an explanation because they already claim they can do that. If you claim that they are lying about being able to do it then clearly they are not trustworthy and therefore should not be given this massive amount of power.

.

You quoted two explanations I gave and dismissed both.  Not to sure what else to say.

You're also trying to decipher the language of politicians to conclude a concrete motive.  It should be taken as read this is not possible.

 

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

This is false. There is still a ton of things the police does and will continue to be able to do. In fact, if you want to protect citizens then you should be arguing against this legislation. The police has at several times said that the reason why they did not stop terrorist attacks was not because of a lack of information (like for example the example given in the video, where the terrorist had been reported 5 times to the police already) but rather because of an overwhelming amount of information to the point where it is hard to distinguish between a real threat and just random noise.

Again, you don't increase the odds of finding the needle in the haystack bu dumping on more hay.

 

 

No, as  listed before it is demonstrably true.  But you are still stuck in the all or nothing mindset,  You are the one assuming there is a needle in the haystack to find, I am saying they already know where the needle is, but without something akin to the old wiretaps, mail interception etc, that works in this new age of technology they can't do anything about it.

 

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

OK, now I am sure that you have been living under a rock.

The government IS out to spy on everyone. There is a massive amount of evidence for it. They want mass surveillance to the point where they can look up anything about anyone with a few clicks. Those systems are already in place to some degree, and they have been found to have been abused hundreds upon hundreds of times.

 

That is a a big issue too, but it's not the only one.

 

You know, that sounds like a really good reason to just stop trying to intercept and stop criminals/terrorist.

 

As I said earlier, you  really only have two choices if you want to be concrete about this,  you either give the government control or the terrorist control.  Take your pick, who do you fear more?     In Australia if I was given a choice between having to handover an encryption key on court order or watching a car drive into people  I know what I would rather.

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

You quoted two explanations I gave and dismissed both.  Not to sure what else to say.

Can you please repeat those two explanations?

 

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

No, as  listed before it is demonstrably true. 

What did you prove was true exactly?

 

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

But you are still stuck in the all or nothing mindset

Yes, because that is the only option regarding this.

Even IF there was a middle-of-the-road option, I'd say that would be a bad option too (again, even IF it existed, which it doesn't).

 

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

You are the one assuming there is a needle in the haystack to find

The needles are the terrorists. The hay are innocent people. Are you saying that there are no terrorists in Australia? Because if that's the case then the government definitely don't need backdoors. If the terrorists are already know (like you say) then just arrest them.

 

52 minutes ago, mr moose said:

As I said earlier, you  really only have two choices if you want to be concrete about this,  you either give the government control or the terrorist control.  Take your pick, who do you fear more?     In Australia if I was given a choice between having to handover an encryption key on court order or watching a car drive into people  I know what I would rather.

I look at it differently.

I view it as:
1) You give up all privacy. You can at any moment in time from now on be eavesdropped on without your knowledge. On top of that, you are giving the government powers which has been proven to have been abused in other countries, and you are giving criminals the tools necessary to gain extremely detailed insight into peoples' lives. You are also making the polices' job more difficult.

2) You run the risk of the police maybe missing some crucial information every once in a while.

 

You have said that you are OK with option 1, but I would say any rational person who doesn't try to appeal to emotions would pick option number 2.

[LAwLz]

Here are some arguments for why backdoors should NOT be mandatory. I am writing it as a list because that’s easier to write and to digest. If anyone has another reason then feel free to post it.

 

1. As far as I am aware, there has never been any terrorist attack foiled by mass surveillance. Of course, that is a challenging thing to prove but when asked about it the NSA chief gave a few examples. However, when people looked into those examples it was found that mass surveillance played a very little part in most of them. There were only a handful of cases such as someone attempting to donate 8500 dollars to Al Shabab (Somalia terrorist group) that had been caught because of it, and that’s hardly a victory. So if this does not contribute to catching terrorists then what is the point? If this law doesn’t help in any way then it is useless and should not be passed.
    
2. It will be expensive. Making these chances as well as enforcing them is no simple task. Money than could have been spent elsewhere (like teaching people the extreme importance of proper encryption) is now wasted.
    
3. It puts everyone at risk. It will be found since people know to look for it. WannaCry is just the beginning. Considering how many tools that has been stolen from government recently it is only a matter of time before it gets leaked. It is not a question of “if” it gets leaked it will do damage. It’s a question of “when”. I even remember mr moose making the argument that “if there is a conspiracy involving the government then it would have been leaked already. They can’t keep things hidden for long” (not 100% accurate quote). If you believe that then you must also believe that the backdoors will be found and once they gets found, they will be abused.
    
4. It will not prevent terrorist from using encryption. If word gets out that WhatsApp, Signal and other programs are backdoored then terrorists will just stop using them. I mean, there is very little evidence that they actually use these things to organize attacks to begin with (the vast majority uses burner phones and just talk to each other in person, for example in prisons) but if we assume that they do then banning those things will just make terrorists use something else. Writing a good end-to-end encrypted chat service is not hard. There are very good open source frameworks out there that you can basically just copy and paste. Speaking of open source…
    
5. There is no way you can implement a backdoor into something open source and expect it to function. People can just patch it out if they want.
    
6. It can and will be misused. There are hundreds upon hundreds of examples of people in the NSA and other governments agencies which has access to spying tools using them for personal gains. For example, spying on their former spouses, or neighbors, or other people they are interested in. This will happen if this becomes law.
    
7. Police is already overwhelmed by info. Adding more useless info will make it harder to catch actual criminals. What is needed is more focused spying, not more mass surveillance.
    
8. Studies has shown that people behave differently (subconsciously) when they know they are not in private. For example, people express minority opinions less often when they are being watched by others. Even the thought of maybe being monitored will make people behave differently, as explained in the Panopticon concept. This is a direct threat to peoples’ freedom of thought and expression. I don’t think people realize what a fundamental part privacy plays in who we are or what we think. We are literally applying concepts originally designed to mentally fuck with prisoners to law-abiding citizens now.   

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Can you please repeat those two explanations?

 

What did you prove was true exactly?

 

Yes, because that is the only option regarding this.

Even IF there was a middle-of-the-road option, I'd say that would be a bad option too (again, even IF it existed, which it doesn't).

 

The needles are the terrorists. The hay are innocent people. Are you saying that there are no terrorists in Australia? Because if that's the case then the government definitely don't need backdoors. If the terrorists are already know (like you say) then just arrest them.

 

I look at it differently.

I view it as:
1) You give up all privacy. You can at any moment in time from now on be eavesdropped on without your knowledge. On top of that, you are giving the government powers which has been proven to have been abused in other countries, and you are giving criminals the tools necessary to gain extremely detailed insight into peoples' lives. You are also making the polices' job more difficult.

2) You run the risk of the police maybe missing some crucial information every once in a while.

 

You have said that you are OK with option 1, but I would say any rational person who doesn't try to appeal to emotions would pick option number 2.

 

No, both explanations are in this thread already.

 

you argued that the police are not blindfolded,  except they are, I have already listed a several things that the police cannot intercept/investigate today that historically were not a problem and didn't encroach the privacy of the general public. Hell even Tom Scott points that out in the video you linked.

 

I know the needles are the terrorists,   The point you missed was that you seem to think authorities won't find them. As is said,  they already know where the needle is, they don't need to find the needle, what they need is information about the needle.

 

I am not appealing to emotions, I am appealing to historical facts.  Had the police had the ability to intercept messages between terrorists they would know when and where the attack was to take place, that would stop it.  This is not an appeal to emotion.

 

 

 

 

[captain_to_fire]

On 7/15/2017 at 5:23 AM, WMGroomAK said:

While I'm sure this has probably already been discussed somewhere on the forum (maybe under a different topic), ZDNet has an article about the plans of the Australian Government to compel internet companies to assist law enforcement with decrypting messages with end to end encryption.  What makes this even better is that in a statement that the Australian PM gave to ZDNet, he assured them that the Australian Laws prevail over the laws of Mathematics.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-laws-of-australia-will-trump-the-laws-of-mathematics-turnbull/

As was noted in a WCCF article of all places, this is not really going to accomplish anything but undermine legitimate use of end to end encrypted communications as groups conducting illegal activities can easily transfer over to different services or even use open-source encryption.  Honestly though, this has given me a new favorite quote from a politician.

 

http://wccftech.com/australia-snoopers-charter-encryption/

You may want to update the OP http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/07/17/australian-government-to-ask-for-voluntary-access-to-encrypted-apple-data

[LAwLz]

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

No, both explanations are in this thread already.

And you refuse to point me to where those things were explained? Because I really can't find an adequate explanation for it anywhere.

 

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

you argued that the police are not blindfolded,  except they are, I have already listed a several things that the police cannot intercept/investigate today that historically were not a problem and didn't encroach the privacy of the general public. Hell even Tom Scott points that out in the video you linked.

But they aren't... Like I said before, the majority of terrorist plans are done over completely unencrypted channels such as burner phones and speaking face to face. Are we going to outlaw talking to people face to face too because the police have their "hands tied" if someone meets up and talk?

This entire argument relies on the idea that the police can't do anything unless they can read the messages of everyone, which is false. Encrypted messages is only a small part of the communications terrorists use, and we don't even know if a majority of that is even related to terrorism.

 

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

I know the needles are the terrorists,   The point you missed was that you seem to think authorities won't find them. As is said,  they already know where the needle is, they don't need to find the needle, what they need is information about the needle.

And this law will not have any impact on whether or not they can gain information about the needle. So the result will just be that the average joe suffers and gets their lives destroyed while terrorists continue to do whatever they want.

 

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

I am not appealing to emotions, I am appealing to historical facts.  Had the police had the ability to intercept messages between terrorists they would know when and where the attack was to take place, that would stop it.  This is not an appeal to emotion.

You appealed to emotions right here:

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

In Australia if I was given a choice between having to handover an encryption key on court order or watching a car drive into people  I know what I would rather.

"If we don't implement security holes into software then we will have to watch a car drive into people!"

 

What's even more sad is that you don't even seem to realize that this law would not stop anyone from driving a car into people. Once you start thinking like you do then it clouds your mind and rational.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

And you refuse to point me to where those things were explained? Because I really can't find an adequate explanation for it anywhere.

 

But they aren't... Like I said before, the majority of terrorist plans are done over completely unencrypted channels such as burner phones and speaking face to face. Are we going to outlaw talking to people face to face too because the police have their "hands tied" if someone meets up and talk?

This entire argument relies on the idea that the police can't do anything unless they can read the messages of everyone, which is false. Encrypted messages is only a small part of the communications terrorists use, and we don't even know if a majority of that is even related to terrorism.

 

And this law will not have any impact on whether or not they can gain information about the needle. So the result will just be that the average joe suffers and gets their lives destroyed while terrorists continue to do whatever they want.

 

You appealed to emotions right here:

"If we don't implement security holes into software then we will have to watch a car drive into people!"

 

What's even more sad is that you don't even seem to realize that this law would not stop anyone from driving a car into people. Once you start thinking like you do then it clouds your mind and rational.

And most of that is your opinion, not a fact.