More on Australia plans law to force tech giants to decrypt messages

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Richard Forno <rforno () infowarrior org>
> Date: July 14, 2017 at 7:58:08 AM EDT
> To: Infowarrior List <infowarrior () attrition org>
> Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Australia plans law to force tech giants to decrypt messages
>
> Australia plans law to force tech giants to decrypt messages
>
> https://apnews.com/621e0913072a4cb5a1a7f7338721b059/Australia-plans-law-to-force-tech-giants-to-decrypt-messages
>
> CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian government on Friday proposed a new cybersecurity law to force global 
> technology companies such as Facebook and Google to help police by unscrambling encrypted messages sent by suspected 
> extremists and other criminals.
>
> But some experts, as well as Facebook, warned that weakening end-to-end encryption services so that police could 
> eavesdrop would leave communications vulnerable to hackers.
>
> The new law would be modeled on Britain’s Investigatory Powers Act, which was passed by the British Parliament in 
> November and gave intelligence agencies some of the most extensive surveillance powers in the Western world, the 
> government said.
>
> The Australian bill that would allow courts to order tech companies to quickly unlock communications will be 
> introduced to Parliament by November, officials said.
>
> Under the law, internet companies would have the same obligations telephone companies do to help law enforcement 
> agencies, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said. Law enforcement agencies would need warrants to access the 
> communications.
>
> “We’ve got a real problem in that the law enforcement agencies are increasingly unable to find out what terrorists 
> and drug traffickers and pedophile rings are up to because of the very high levels of encryption,” Turnbull told 
> reporters.
>
> “Where we can compel it, we will, but we will need the cooperation from the tech companies,” he added.
>
> The government expected resistance from some tech companies, many of them based in the United States. But the 
> companies “know morally they should” cooperate,” Turnbull said.
>
> “There is a culture, particularly in the United States, a very libertarian culture, which is quite anti-government in 
> the tech sector,” Turnbull said.
>
> “We need to say with one voice to Silicon Valley and its emulators: ‘All right, you’ve devised these great platforms, 
> now you’ve got to help us to ensure that the rule of law prevails,’” he added.
>
> Attorney-General George Brandis described the growth of encrypted communication applications such as WhatsApp, 
> Signal, Facebook Messenger and iMessage as “potentially the greatest degradation of intelligence and law enforcement 
> capability that we have seen in our lifetime.”
>
> Brandis said he met the British government’s chief cryptographer last week and believed it was technically possible 
> to decode encrypted messages in a time frame that police needed to act.
>
> This could be achieved without so-called back doors — built-in weaknesses that allowed a tech company access to a 
> communication but could also leave it vulnerable to hackers, Brandis said.
>
> Facebook said it had a protocol to respond to requests for police help. But the social media giant said it could not 
> read individual encrypted messages.
>
> “Weakening encrypted systems for them (police) would mean weakening it for everyone,” a Facebook statement said on 
> Friday.
>
> Australia was a major driver of a statement agreed at the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Germany last week that 
> called on the tech industry to provide “lawful and non-arbitrary access to available information” needed to protect 
> against terrorist threats.
>
> The Australian Federal Police say the proportion of communication traffic they monitor that was encrypted had grown 
> from 3 percent to more than 55 percent in only a few years.
>
> Police say 65 percent of organized crime investigations including terrorism and pedophile rings involved some kind of 
> encryption.



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