"The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that," [Malcolm Turnbull] said on Friday. "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia." <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170714/10385237789/aussie-prime-minister-says-laws-math-dont-apply-australia-when-it-comes-to-encryption.shtml>
On Sat, 15 Jul 2017 09:53:13 +1200, I wrote:
"The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that," [Malcolm Turnbull] said on Friday. "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia."
Further item <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/malcolm-turnbull-prime-minister-laws-of-mathematics-do-not-apply-australia-encryption-l-a7842946.html> from The Independent: But Mr Turnbull stressed during the press conference that he was asking for the companies to work with the Government to change their current systems. The question is, of course, why does it have to be the companies? The Governments themselves employ some pretty major cryptographic talent; why can’t they offer a solution, just to show how wrong all the people in the unclassified community can be? After all, the NSA designed the “Skipjack” key-escrow encryption system (and accompanying “Clipper” chip implementation) back in the Clinton era, when the first round of this debate was running. The fact that, after it was declassified, that encryption system turned out to be pretty worthless is a minor point the politicians are free to disregard...
On Sat, 15 Jul 2017 09:53:13 +1200, I wrote:
"The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that," [Malcolm Turnbull] said on Friday. "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia."
Looks like the Australians are going ahead with their “Assistance And Access Bill 2018”, according to Juha Saarinen <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12135627>. His explanation of how such an unworkable idea could get as far as being enshrined in law is because ... the discussion ends up as a techies versus bureaucrats gabfest largely hidden away from those the outcome will affect the most — the public. I guess this is true. As long as it’s only the “experts” pushing back, the politicians can discount them and claim to be acting for the “ordinary people”, not for “special interests”. Whereas if there were more complaints from the ordinary public, then perhaps the politicians will take notice. This item <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/10/more_on_the_fiv.html> links to this analysis <https://www.lawfareblog.com/five-eyes-statement-encryption-things-are-seldom-what-they-seem>, which draws this interesting lesson from the whole Clipper chip debacle from the 1990s: The lesson that the law-enforcement agencies took from the Clipper episode was that specifying a particular lawful access solution was a poor strategy. Doing so enabled the computer security community to do what it does best: find security vulnerabilities in the technique. Because lawful access solutions inherently disrupt the security provided by encryption, any proposal for a lawful-access solution will carry serious security risks. And so law enforcement has sought to dodge that discussion by avoiding specifics of how a solution would work. In the current Going Dark effort, law enforcement's strategy has been to shun specifics.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro