Crypto-Bashing Prime Minister Argues The Laws Of Mathematics Don't Apply In Australia (independent.co.uk) 330
An anonymous reader quotes the Independent:Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said the laws of mathematics come second to the law of the land in a row over privacy and encryption... When challenged by a technology journalist over whether it was possible to tackle the problem of criminals using encryption -- given that platform providers claim they are currently unable to break into the messages even if required to do so by law -- the Prime Minister raised eyebrows as he made his reply. "Well the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia," he said... "The important thing is to recognise the challenge and call on the companies for assistance. I am sure they know morally they should... They have to face up to their responsibility."
Facebook has already issued a statement saying that they "appreciate the important work law enforcement does, and we understand the need to carry out investigations. That's why we already have a protocol in place to respond to any requests we can.
"At the same time, weakening encrypted systems for them would mean weakening it for everyone."
Facebook has already issued a statement saying that they "appreciate the important work law enforcement does, and we understand the need to carry out investigations. That's why we already have a protocol in place to respond to any requests we can.
"At the same time, weakening encrypted systems for them would mean weakening it for everyone."
Idiots everywhere... (Score:4, Informative)
Can't take this anymore...
Re:Idiots everywhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't take this anymore...
Hard realization: If there was a brief blip on humanity's timeline where science and rationality held the tiniest advantage in our collective esteem over base tribalism, fearmongering, and ignorance-as-a-worldview, it came and went while we were busy mistaking it for a new era of reason.
Re:Idiots everywhere... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, for most of humanity, including basically all politicians and their fans, that is completely true. Only a small part of the human race qualifies as rational and these people do not seek power.
Re:Idiots everywhere... (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, for most of humanity, including basically all politicians and their fans, that is completely true. Only a small part of the human race qualifies as rational and these people do not seek power.
Next up? We need to have a vote on Ohm's law! All resistance must be eliminated!
Re:Idiots everywhere... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that's about right, sadly.
Future historians may look on the last few hundred years in the same way as the first Greek/Mycenaean civilisation prior to the Greek dark ages [wikipedia.org], or Rome prior to the fall of the empire.
There have been blips before. They never last. We're just unlucky that we're living through the end of one and can remember the high water mark.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But you give the gender studies, intersectionalist a$$holes a pass?
Complaining about tribalism - look to the universities humanities departments.first.
Chances are high the US will continue to meet the Paris Treaty standards without giving away billions in tax payer dollars.
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How much will climate change cost to deal with? Is it less than the cost of the Paris agreement?
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STEM is more than STEM degrees. A business person would be better off learning how to write macros than taking another literature course.
Having some idea about chemistry (not saying becoming a chemist) is a good thing. For instance we still need coal to make steel and it has nothing to do with generating heat.
In days gone by people needed to be able to read the weather, know different trees and plants. That is less important for daily survival - but math and tech skills. Now, that's more import
Re:Idiots everywhere... (Score:5, Funny)
This is great news actually, because it means that this moron is not the PM of Australia. After all, to become PM you must be the leader of the party with the largest representation in parliament. If the laws of Mathematics don't apply, well... how can you say that one number is larger than another?
Re: Idiots everywhere... (Score:3, Insightful)
It shall soon be illegal to speak in person without government authorities present to ensure nothing illegal is being discussed.
Re: Idiots everywhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
It shall soon be illegal to speak in person without government authorities present to ensure nothing illegal is being discussed.
The government rep wouldn't have to be present if they could just convince people to carry small, wirelessly connected computing devices in their pockets that contain cameras and microphones. If people were to start doing that, then the government would be pretty much be able to monitor anything it wants anytime it wants.
Luckily, I doubt there's much chance of getting folks to carry such a device around with them at all times....
Re: Idiots everywhere... (Score:3, Funny)
Whooooosh
obey gravity...it's the law (Score:5, Funny)
Re:obey gravity...it's the law (Score:5, Insightful)
"I know dis defies da law of gravity... but I never studied law!" - Bugs Bunny
Mr Turnbull has. What is with politicians today making nonsensical statements like this? I would have thought to get to the position of Prime Minister - or President - you'd at least have to have had some experience in thinking before opening your yap.
Re:obey gravity...it's the law (Score:4)
What is with politicians today making nonsensical statements like this?
This is far from a recent development.
Re:obey gravity...it's the law (Score:5, Insightful)
Douglas Adams might have something to share on the topic:
“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
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Sadly, Turnbull is one of the smarter ones.
It makes me uncomfortable to say it, but he's prefereable to 99% of the others. I suspect that statement, made in the UK to a UK paper, was made to impress politicians in the UK that he's being tough and standing up to the cyber-terrorists.
Why, oh, why don't the vested interests here - banks in particular - step in and tell the politicians that they should stop making stupid statements about encryption. If politicians decide that encryption should be weakened to en
Re:obey gravity...it's the law (Score:5, Interesting)
Whatever Turnbull may be as a person, is pretty much redundant as he's completely incapable of standing up to the regressives in his party. He's so frightened of being rolled by the catholic far right in the party (Tony abbot, etc) he's sold everything he stood for down the river and just does whatever the ultra conservartives tell him to do, even s that behavior further sinks his reputation down the toilet of public opinion.
And the stupefying thing is, he's still getting knived by the far right anyway. He gains nothing by continuing to inflict unpopular and authoritarian far right nonsense on the population.
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Re:obey gravity...it's the law (Score:4, Interesting)
That's the problem that these politicians have. For encryption, there are two totally contradictory things that we want: Uncrackable crypto for everyone, easily crackable crypto for serious criminals and terrorists. Yes, I myself would love if communications of terrorists could be made readable. I just know that you can't have that without endangering everything.
The NSA has always said that crackable crypto is all in all bad for US national security. And they have provided us with proof that backdoors will not be kept secret (because their stash of zero day exploits ended up in the hands of criminals). And just recently the former boss of GCHQ has said exactly the same thing
Re:obey gravity...it's the law (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're setting up a false impression that "uncrackable" is the standard most people have had or are looking for.
Most people consider:
That the general public has access to truly unbreakable encryption (except for the $5 wrench) is a new situation that's fundamentally different from the past few centuries. Did people really ask for it? Or did it more or less just happen, robbing law enforcement, military intelligence etc. of powerful tools to fight crime, terror and enemy states? Look at all the people who saw Snowden and more or less said "duh, that's what the NSA should be doing you traitor". There are a lot of people that want to revive the Clipper chip and backdoor everyone's phones.
That said, I think globalism will throw a monkey wrench in their efforts. Would Americans trust a backdoor made by Apple? Maybe. Would Russia, China, Germany or the rest of the world? Hell no, not as long as all the keys are on US soil, one NSL or NSA black ops job and it's all compromised. And no handing the keys directly to the government, that's too open for abuse. It would have to be to my local ISP or telco, with the government asking permission through a warrant. But as long as I could use some inner crypto without repercussions, what's the point? They decrypt it, find my PGP message and... nothing. They'd also have to outlaw everything else.
That could be one route though, say that if you use these law enforcement compliant devices there is a system and a process for retrieving the key. Everything else, you either hand over the key or go to jail. I think you're kinda missing the point of what he said, if you've built a system relying on some form of "willful ignorance" of what the key is, they can always make a law to force you to change the way the system works. Like, either comply or shut down - those are your options, like they did with Lavabit. They can't compel you to the impossible, but they can compel you to cease doing whatever they don't like.
Re:obey gravity...it's the law (Score:4, Informative)
One of the big differences is that it takes a warrant and some non-negligble effort and expense to raid your house, crack your safe, etc.
Back-doored encryption takes essentially zero effort to break, and we already know that most of the major governments around the world are sweeping up all the commnications they can get their hands on with absolutely no regard for the letter of the law, much less the spirit (i.e. information exchange between intelligence agencies that are prohibited from spying on their own populace, but are more than happy to spy on each other's populace and then trade the results).
Individual people can't hope to read even a tiny fraction of the information collected - but computer analysis can sift through mountains in moments, and is getting better at "understanding" and condensing the information at an incredible rate.
There's a world of difference between law enforcement invading your privacy when they have a warrant-worthy reason to suspect wrong-doing, and shady intelligence agencies constantly invading *everybody's* privacy.
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Mr Turnbull has. What is with politicians today making nonsensical statements like this?
Well as someone who has studied the law I would expect him to have some knowledge of tax law. Usually, those laws rely on the laws of mathematics - at least I've no idea how you can calculate taxes without mathematics. If the laws of Australia are quite literally built on top of the laws of mathematics I'd be very careful about undermining the importance of those laws otherwise there might be interesting tax consequences.
Re:obey gravity...it's the law (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I guarantee you will never get to be a tax advisor to a politician.
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So, apparently he's not done a very good study of law either.
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One of the most important attributes of most Australian politicians is to be a technological creten.
*tiny voice* I believe it's spelled "Cretin".
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Kryten?
Re:obey gravity...it's the law (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:obey gravity...it's the law (Score:5, Funny)
Oh come on... Think bigger.
Why not just order that the criminals are no longer protected by the law of gravity?
So they'll just float away, up into space. Or down, them being in Australia and all.
Then, they could get rid of those pesky laws of thermodynamics and finally allow Australia to harness the power of all those perpetual motion machines people keep inventing.
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You mean like Indiana almost did in 1897. They at least were going to round to 1 decimal place, 3.2
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The law of mahtematic always apply in sicilicon valley I know I live there making 55K + sideline bisiness.
The laws of spelling... not so much.
Re: obey gravity...it's the law (Score:2)
He promised he would do that. Remember? Australia voted the LNP in, fair and square, on the policy platform: we're not labor. We will kill the NBN.
Don't blame him for following through on a pre-election promise.
Ancestor found for Malcolm Turnbull (Score:5, Funny)
What? Want citation? Just give me 30 minutes and then check Wikipedia.
Not related to Canute, but his advisors (Score:4, Interesting)
A quick search shows that Malcolm Turnbull has Royal Blood and he is a direct descendant, all the way through male heirs, of King Canute.
Canute tried to command the tide knowing full well that it would not work to show his idiot advisors that there were limits to the power of the crown. So Turnbull must have been related to Canute's advisors which makes sense since Prime Minister is the modern equivalent to an advisor in a Royal Court even if the power dynamics are now very different.
Perhaps the Queen could step in to re-educate this twit since it worked before for his distant ancestor? I'd suggest having him stand in the middle of the outback in the full sun on a hot summer's day while she signs a law to make the sun to stop shining or 8pm to follow 10am if you want a more mathematical flavour.
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Perhaps the Queen could step in to re-educate this twit ... while she signs a law to make the sun to stop shining or 8pm to follow 10am
Umm... 8pm does follow 10am. It follows it 10 hours later.
Maybe try 8pm to happen within 5 minutes of 10am or something.
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A quick search shows that Malcolm Turnbull has Royal Blood and he is a direct descendant, all the way through male heirs, of King Canute.
Canute tried to command the tide knowing full well that it would not work to show his idiot advisors that there were limits to the power of the crown. So Turnbull must have been related to Canute's advisors which makes sense since Prime Minister is the modern equivalent to an advisor in a Royal Court even if the power dynamics are now very different.
I think that Malcolm Turnbull has more in common with the traditional Norwegian spelling of Canute, that's what we meant when we said "Turnbull is an utter Cnut".
Wants a piece of the pi (Score:2)
It might be too late to stop this process (Score:4, Interesting)
There is already sufficient mass of people who believe encryption can have proper backdoors for police enforcement, or even worse that only criminals have something to hide. We have seen this discourse in recent political cycles, and given tendency to mark any expert opinion as "fake news" do not help either.
The "geek" image given on media always helps portray fake ability to overcome anything. Even Star Trek had this: "10 hours, you have 2". I would assume people are thinking "the experts are just lazy, they say it cannot be done, but in fact they are just avoiding the work".
I'm not sure it will be solved in a short while, once people understand why proper encryption is necessary (i.e: loss of online commerce, or even bank account contents) the sentiment might start to change.
Re:It might be too late to stop this process (Score:4, Insightful)
Even Star Trek had this: "10 hours, you have 2".
I don't think that's fair. TFA is talking about encryption, a mathematical process. The laws of math are fundamental; you can't get around them. What was portrayed in Star Trek wasn't fundamental math, it was some kind of problem, usually something broken that needed repairing, and they had limited time because the Klingons were chasing them or somesuch. The captain didn't give them 2 hours just because, he was informing them how much time they realistically had based on the environment (i.e. angry aliens bearing down on them). So the idea was to get the engineers (who are really technicians and troubleshooters in the show; the real engineers are back at Mars designing the next-generation starships) to cut corners to come up with something workable even if it's very risky, or to come up with some new approach that takes less time (again, risky). It's not that different from regular engineering work: if the boss wants me to design something, I can estimate how much time it'll take, but my estimate is a worst-case estimate because I don't want to be rushed, I don't want to stay at work late, I want time to use the bathroom and take breaks, I want time to have unnecessary conversations with coworkers, etc. I could do something in a fraction of the time, but it'll be hurried and half-assed and I might not even get that working in time. But I don't have angry Romulans about to drop their cloaking device and shoot at me either; in that circumstance, I'd take a faster route.
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So the idea was to get the engineers (who are really technicians and troubleshooters in the show; the real engineers are back at Mars designing the next-generation starships)
This is so off-topic, but astronauts are often engineers. Do you think you're too valuable to strap to a rocket?
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I understood "engineer" on the Enterprise to be equivalent to the engineer on a locomotive, as in people concerned with the propulsion of a vehicle. Calling them technicians would not be inaccurate either, they are people well trained and skilled in all kinds of technology. Saying that they are not "real engineers" is in my mind simply not understanding that the word has two common meanings for occupations.
Telling a person that operates a train for a living is not a "real engineer" to his/her face could r
Shovels on locomotives (Score:4, Interesting)
Scotty knew enough to start with an archaic computer he had never seen before (Ach! The keyboard, yes!) and sketch out the process for generating transparent aluminum, so I would consider him considerably further skilled than a technician.
Maybe we should think of this fictional character as the 23rd century counterpart to a naval officer (Scotty had officer rank, we wasn't a Chief Warrant Officer or such rank) in charge of Engineering on a nuclear aircraft carrier? Who probably has at least an undergrad degree in Nuclear Engineering?
As to getting battered by a shovel, didn't locomotives lose their shovels decades ago when they switched from coal-fired steam to oil-fired Diesel?
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Maybe we should think of this fictional character as the 23rd century counterpart to a naval officer (Scotty had officer rank, we wasn't a Chief Warrant Officer or such rank) in charge of Engineering on a nuclear aircraft carrier? Who probably has at least an undergrad degree in Nuclear Engineering?
Sure, Commander Scott likely did have training, in this fictional world, that would equate to an engineering degree that one would expect someone from a person leading the team managing the propulsion systems on a modern day real world aircraft carrier. His position was chief of engineering, or something similar, because he was in charge of the engines. The people under his command should be accurately considered "engineers" because they are members of the engineering department, and maintained the engine
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"Real engineer" don't just sit in the office (Score:4, Informative)
So the idea was to get the engineers (who are really technicians and troubleshooters in the show; ; the real engineers are back at Mars designing the next-generation starships) to cut corners to come up with something workable even if it's very risky, or to come up with some new approach that takes less time (again, risky).
I'm wondering if you haven't actually worked as an engineer by that statement or if you do you have an exceptionally rare ivory tower job. I've got nearly three decades experience as a working engineer and I can assure you that a good portion of nearly every real world engineer's time is spent troubleshooting and fixing technical problems. Exactly the sort of stuff you are describing on the show. Very few engineers worthy of the title manage to stay back at the home office designing product without getting their hands dirty fixing the inevitable problems that result when their design breaks or is asked to do what it wasn't designed for. Engineers are asked all the time to come up with stop gap solutions as well as ways to same money, time, or other resources. Think Apollo 13. You seriously want to claim those guys were just "technicians and troubleshooters" just because they were coming up with workable-but-risky solutions? The "real engineers" aren't just drawing stuff on a white board in the office - the job is actually much more diverse than that and the good news is that it's much more interesting as a result.
Another part of the engineer's job they don't tell you about in school is how much time you'll spend writing and revising documentation. And it's been my experience that a large portion of the engineers out there are rather bad at this mundane but very important task. They tend to overlook details rather routinely and they forget that they aren't writing primarily for themselves. The point of engineering documentation is to describe something so OTHER PEOPLE can understand what needs to be done efficiently and to the smallest relevant detail. That's something they could teach in colleges but do not for some reason.
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Want it back? Pay for a quality VPN at the desktop router level every year.
All the government ISP collection then knows is that person moved data around 24/7 to a VPN.
No network anonymity but privacy is recovered and no browser, app, software, malware should be able to get a real isp ip past the ethernet connected VPN router...
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Will be interesting to see what happens in the first mass-hack because of backdoored encryption. May take a while, but even the NSA has had their secrets stolen. If they cannot keep backdoor information secure, then nobody can. I can assure you however that no large financial institution will ever use backdoored encryption. They may be willing to hand over a disk with all the transaction willingly, but they will not allow themselves to be hacked that way by just anybody that tries. The risk that it would ki
The PM is an idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Malcolm Turnball (or Chairman Mal as we call him) is an ex lawyer from a privileged background who lucked into dropping a few bucks into some 1990's "computer thingy that my financial advisor assures me is a good investment" and riding in the wave of the first tech boom, to the tune of about 300 million dollars.
He honestly considers himself the smartest person in the room.
He's a fucking lawyer who won life's big lottery.
I'm sure you guys have similar stories about your politicians.
The sooner this imbecile is gone from politics, the better.
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What? He made money with investment banking and arguably won the lottery with his investments, but he didn't come from a privileged background. He grew up with a single dad below the poverty line.
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He was also the winning lawyer in the "Spycatcher" case. He's not stupid, and if we get rid of him, who's the next most likely candidate to step up?
Yup, Abbott.
And don't try to convince anyone that the labor party has better talent, or even the ability to pick better talent - remember Stephen Conroy? Neither party has a stellar record of picking talent over popularity.
Re: The PM is an idiot. (Score:4, Informative)
I remember Stephen Conroy. He gave us an all-fiber NBN.
So what did we do? We voted him out, and we piss and moan that the LNP is killing our NBN (making good on their pre-election promise).
Who's the real idiot here?
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He was a boarder at Sydney Grammar. One of Australia's most privileged and expensive schools. I wouldnt call this growing up below the poverty line.
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Considering all the other idiots in his party that could potentially replace him are worse, I think the best hope is that we get a change of government at the next election.
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Much like other jurisdictions, some Australians of certain political faiths *hate* the opposition and its leaders with a passion approaching that of, well, conservatives' hate for liberals, and find it difficult to engage in civil debate, preferring to lash out in personal attacks. I admit I held Rudd and Swan in contempt for their smug, "we know best" attitude, and I think Gillard was a breath of fresh air. I despaired when the LNP put Abbott into the leadership, knowing it would set us back many years.
For
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If tech companies ensure the government has full access, then any attempt to "keep their users as secure as possible" is useless window-dressing. So what he's actually asking for, in practice, is for tech companies to remove security for all users, all the time. What he and others just *fail to believe* is that tech companies can't break encryption for the government only. They genuinely think that a secret back door is possible. They are stupid evil fuckwits whose behaviour is made worse by the fact that t
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This is a surefire way to sink any and all businesses that even remotely deal with any kind of data in Australia. Because why the FUCK would I entrust any company in AUS with my data if everyone and their grandma has access to that data?
And no, "government only" key only means "every government on the planet and whoever else has enough bucks". There is no "feds only" backdoor. Never has been, never will be.
If you are stupid enough to implement this, any and all IT businesses will not leave but flee your cou
'Law'? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's disappointing to me that we still use the word 'law' to refer to entirely different things:
1. Things humans make up that they then want other human beings to follow.
2. Things humans make up after observing something in order to describe it.
Descriptive laws and prescriptive laws are exact opposites, both chronologically and causally.
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Much like how so many things in science are "just a theory"? The prime minister needs an introductory course in information theory.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
sacrifices without actually addressing problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sacrifices without actually addressing problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason is so those in power can snoop on the population and control the population.
A quick read about "numbers stations" shows how information can be broadcast but the recipients can not be traced.
A conversation with the Brits about how the IRA were able to operate for decades without computers and encryption would also be enlightening.
And of course people have something to hide, a high flying lawyer who like to dress in women clothes at night, a gay footballer who is not "out", a politician who visits prostitutes, a bored housewife on Tinder, a family whose children may have different fathers, an abused wife who has a secret bank account, there are thousands of legitimate reasons for privacy and security.
If any of these people became an activist, the dirt the government gathers will allow them control.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:sacrifices without actually addressing problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a terrible phrase. It purposely obscures the fact that there are legitimate reasons to hide things. It is a perfect encapsulation of everything that is wrong with authoritarian populist politics.
Joke (Score:2)
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I hope this is a kind of joke. If it is not, then he should pass a law to trump gravity, so that Australian can quickly become a world-class leader as flying cars supplier.
I don't think we want to legally allow Trump mess with gravity, he might try.
If, by his own admission, he is not.... (Score:2)
Either he believes that he knows more than experts, or he believes that experts are liars. Which is it?
Re: If, by his own admission, he is not.... (Score:4, Funny)
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I appreciated it.
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The state police forces, the feds, and various other agencies want this, and they have effective lobbying. State police want it, they lobby their minister, he/she takes that to the table when they all present their cases to the federal government (along with vague threats to cause trouble if they don't get their way), and it all begins to sound like that's what the *people* want, unfortunately the *people* only get to have their say every 3-4 years. I suspect MacGibbon's voice is being drowned out by the sh
Re:If, by his own admission, he is not.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Likely both. Dumb people always think they know and understand everything. And when they are proven to be wrong in a non-ignorable fashion, then that is just a fluke to them. Ever tried to somebody really dumb that they do not get it? It is completely hopeless.
Re:If, by his own admission, he is not.... (Score:5, Informative)
If he didn't disagree with the math, then he would know that there is no possible way to do that without compromising the security of things that *should* legitimately be encrypted, such as electronic bank transactions, for example. If back doors exist, they will be just as usable by people with nefarious intentions as they would be by those who may mean, however sincerely, to protect us from such people.
If law enforcement has an encryption back door, then that exact same back door can and most certainly would be used by criminals. Laws against it wouldn't actually stop anyone who was already intent on breaking the law anyways, so all one is accomplishing by adding such backdoors is endangering everybody so that law enforcement is more readily able to catch people that may have otherwise used it for nefarious purposes.... except now law enforcement has exponentially *MORE* work to do, because now they also have to catch all of the bad guys who are using these back doors with nefarious intentions to harm people... people they wouldn't even have to *TRY* to catch if private individuals were allowed to use truly secure encryption.
To be fair, it is certainly regrettable that criminals can get away with their actions by using externally undecipherable encryption to conceal any evidence of their misdoings, but in the end, it is simply outside of the realm of the principles of reality by which this world seems to operate that one can ever really prevent this without seriously endangering those that could have had an entirely legitimate use for encryption.
There is no agent in this world, or for that matter in all of the entire knowable universe, that could hope to actually enforce the notion of "X can do this math, but Y cannot", so that is why what he is asking for defies the laws of math.... and unlike laws of a nation, the laws of math are not simply constraints by which people or things are expected or obligated to conform to, they are observations that have been rigorously proven to be universally true within the domain that any given such law governs.
I for one (Score:5, Funny)
I for one look forward to Australia's War on Mathematics.
Re: (Score:2)
Does it look something like this?
https://xkcd.com/1856/ [xkcd.com]
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Re:I for one (Score:4, Funny)
I for one look forward to Australia's War on Mathematics.
We took on the emus once... It didn't go well....
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I for one look forward to Australia's War on Mathematics.
They are allocating a billion dollars to it. 50% will be on publicity, 50% on enforcement when a law of mathematics conflicts with policy and another 50% on education, so that mathematicians learn the real Australian laws. A further 50% is contingency and will be returned to the treasury if not required.
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Don't joke about serious matters. Australia has a long history of proudly fighting ineffective wars [wikipedia.org]
It was a metaphor (Score:2)
Is Australia becoming the Alabama/Indiana of the P (Score:2)
This reminds me of a satirical piece by Mark Boslough about the Alabama state legislature wanting to change the value of Pi from the irational value of 3.14159... to the simplier biblical value of 3.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
And of course, not to mention back in 1897, when the Indiana state legislature seriously considered defining Pi to 3.2.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
This is especially interesting considering that the seeds for the Brainpool elliptic curve doma
transcript of Turnbull's press conference (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.malcolmturnbull.co... [malcolmturnbull.com.au]
Are you sure he's Australian? (Score:2)
need to make a collect call to him and ask toilet (Score:2)
need to make a collect call to him and ask about what way the water runs in his toilet
Ladies and gentlemen (Score:3)
The man who tech companies hailed as a boon to the entire tech industry as a former chairman of Ozemail during the rise of the internet. Here's a man who should "get it.".
Ozemail went under during the dot.com crash, but hey I'm sure he had nothing to do with that. Maybe they tried to use some of that that strange mathematical thing.
oh for... (Score:3)
the "technology" companies first excuse when a government asks for lawful intercepts is "we can't do that its encrypted" when they can tell exactly how long you watched a cat video or what posts you have been looking at because they track that...
(facebook et al is after all a website/platform)
what the australian government was saying very, very badly is that they want access to the platform and didnt want to be burdened by cryptology on the stream.
The information stream might be encrypted but the end points and server certainly not... the problem is who do you give access to ?
The endpoints are in the hands of consumers however the platform is not...
good luck
John Jones
Whoomp, there it is! Proof positive of stupidity! (Score:2, Insightful)
English speaking nations (Score:2)
What is wrong with the major majority English speaking nations ? It is like a virus that makes people stupid is focusing on people who's first language is English. All that seems to be left is Canada, and about half that country speaks French. Maybe I should learn French :)
Re: (Score:2)
Its just UK and Commonwealth laws going back to WW1.
Defence of the Realm Act 1914 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Then ENIGMA, collection of all calls to and from Ireland in the 1960-1990's
All part of winning. The police or mil gets the message, all the content, context, both sides to the conversation and can then act in secret.
Different aspects of Commonwealth law and UK law got considered over decades and collection was legal.
Maybe he's got a quick way to solve discrete logs (Score:2)
The Aussie PM claim that Australian laws are stronger than commendable mathematics make perfect sense if he's got a way to crack encryption.
Math has not shown that solving discrete logarithms need be difficult. Simply nobody has come public with a solution yet. But then why would they?
John Clarke must be spinning in his grave (Score:3)
I suspect Oz politicians bumped him off so they could get away with such idiotic statements.
Nothing New (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Liberty thru marksmanship never caught-hold downunder ...
Y'might wanna tell that to Ned Kelly, mate. He found out all about marksmanship, the hard way.
Wot? Oh, look it up, for Christ's sake, ya dopey seppo. I'm not ya mum.
Re: (Score:2)
I am in New Zealand, but there are books in the library that I work at about the "Battle of the Eureka Stockade" more formally known as the Eureka Rebellion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
You know damn well, they'll simply reduce the crypto till it can be broken.
Right around then, politicians world-wide will start to regret all those "teach the kids how to code" initiatives, because the kids will write their OWN crypto. Sure, most of it will contain newbie mistakes and will be breakable.. and some of it will work.
Re: (Score:2)
Except - even if they enforce that with built-in crypto, they won't be able to prevent people sending pre-encrypted data over plaintext / weak crypto media. The only adversely affected will be people with legit interest in encryption.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I wonder what if someone sent mr. Prime Minister an encrypted message - printed on paper, by snail mail. With an unencrypted hint that the contents are an info about upcoming terrorist attack, or his assassination attempt or such. And suggest he makes the post office deal with decrypting the message for him.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
don't tell the government to go fuck themselves.
I hate their subservience
I think they did: "[we, Facebook] appreciate the important work law enforcement does, and we understand the need to carry out investigations. That's why we already have a protocol in place to respond to any requests we can." That's lawyer talk for "you look butt-hurt and stupid. Please fuck off."
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Storm in a tea-cup (Score:5, Insightful)
The laws of nature limit what laws humans may implement. You cannot make a law that falling out of windows is illegal on grounds that gravity must not apply. I mean, of course you can make such a law, it's just impossible to enforce it and you look like a complete idiot for even proposing one.
Like this goofball here.
And yes, it IS impossible to give governments a backdoor while at the same time having sensible encryption that allows your economy to make sensible business deals. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You can either have an economy that works or you can have broken encryption with backdoors. Pick your poison. Because one thing is certain: As soon as you must not use sensible encryption anymore in a country, it becomes really, really, REALLY difficult to convince a foreign actor to deal with you in any sort of deal that requires even the least kind of confidentiality.
And you better don't expect me to do any kind of business online in such a country.