But Australia runs detention centres much like you would expect of a communist regime!
Oz intel committee: Crypto-busting is only bad if you're a commie, and we're not by the way
Tech vendors: don't worry about Australian law enforcement demanding you decrypt user messages. It's OK, because we're not a communist regime. That's the upshot of a real exchange in the the powerful Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security conducting hearings into the country's crypto-busting "Assistance and …
COMMENTS
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Saturday 20th October 2018 02:03 GMT Denarius
Dentention
@Bryce* Not quite. Commies punish those trying to leave. We detain those trying to enter. So we are are not a totalitarian state. One can hope todays ex-PM replacement election might disturb the Force of the dark side. OTOH, St Julians latest exploit also sounds like an equivalent skit from the Goodies.
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Saturday 20th October 2018 11:09 GMT EricM
The trend towards intellectually inadequate governments continues...
in western countries at least .. UK, US, Australia/NZm Germany, etc. .. just trying to legislate their wishful thinking
Complex problems are met by stupid legislation pushed with stupid arguments by individuals that do not even seem to grasp what they are asking for, that take wishful thinking over real solutions.
It seems that individuals trained in law, economics administration or education, the traditional fields of politicians in western societies, are just not able to really understand 21.st century problems - let alone solve them.
Guess we need more engineers and scientists in politics ...
@ElReg Readers: Yes, I mean YOU...
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Monday 22nd October 2018 22:56 GMT GrumpyKiwi
Re: The trend towards intellectually inadequate governments continues...
Modern-era politics is where you go if you have no other talents in life. Groomed into it from the moment you enter university for an Arts or Communications Degree while becoming a member of the Young-XXXX party wing followed by a "career" of toadying, butt sniffing and PR.
Your typical El'Reg reader doesn't fit into that category.
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Sunday 21st October 2018 10:18 GMT Cpt Blue Bear
Re: Hashes are not encryption
"WTF? Hashing is not encryption."
Actually if you take a broad, layman's definition (and we are dealing with some of the layest of laymen here) it is. A quick shuftie at Google suggests something like: the process of converting information into code to prevent unauthorised access. That sounds like hashing to me.
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Monday 22nd October 2018 09:59 GMT DropBear
Re: Hashes are not encryption
"the process of converting information into code to prevent unauthorised access"
There are rather huge differences though - "encryption" usually kinda implies that the information can be recovered, which is not the case with hashing which is simply a fingerprint of that hashed data. Nothing can be recovered from it, it can only be compared to other hashes (usually produced from what you suspect the password might be).
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Monday 22nd October 2018 13:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Hashes are not encryption
> The process of converting information into code to prevent unauthorised access.
Well, if that's your definition of encryption, then this is encryption too:
$ cat somefile.txt > /dev/null; echo "0xDEADBEEF" > somefile.txt
The file is now permanently "encrypted".
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Monday 22nd October 2018 21:34 GMT Cpt Blue Bear
Re: Hashes are not encryption
"There are rather huge differences though..."
and
"Well, if that's your definition of encryption..." *
I think you have both missed my point. Its not my definition that is important here. Its the definition used by Oz lawmakers - a group well known for playing fast and loose with definitions.
That definition came from a Google search. I was a little surprised at how vague it was myself, but it is the sort of wording that non-technical people are going to use.
* Actually its not - you are replacing information not converting it. But again, that is not my point.
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Tuesday 23rd October 2018 01:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Hashes are not encryption
> Actually its not - you are replacing information not converting it. But again, that is not my point.
Huh? This is exactly what I was pointing out. Hashing replaces (loses) information.
My original comment is that the author of the article here on El Reg should know better than to say hashing is encryption. The author being somewhat technically inclined (I thought), unlike the politicians you're talking about.
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Sunday 21st October 2018 11:55 GMT Ken Hagan
We're not a communist regime
Neither is China -- it's a tyranny (in the Roman sense of the word) with an all-powerful king at the top barking out orders for courtiers to put into practice. A bit like Soviet Russia, in fact, or Nazi Germany.
If you look at what these regimes *did* rather than the bullshit they *said* about it, then there never were any communist regimes. But tyrannical bastard control freaks who want their jackboot on everyone's neck? Yeah, history has *lots* of those and technology is making it easier and easier for people like Mr Hastie to set up the necessary infrastructure and institutions, whether they are smart enough to appreciate the consequences or not.
The Americans in the 1780s had the right idea. You need to assume the worst and then explicitly design in mechanisms to prevent it. Then, for the rest of Time, the people who administer the system need to take the attitude that they *might* be evil.
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Sunday 21st October 2018 22:56 GMT kartstar
I'm not across exactly how a law like this goes through parliament. Will it need to go back through the house again? Or will it go straight to the senate? I was under the impression it's been voted through the house once. Hopefully it needs to go through the house again and my new local MP (Kerryn Phelps) votes to block it.
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Monday 22nd October 2018 03:11 GMT FozzyBear
It appears even industry experts are now dashing themselves against this idiocy. Every reasoned argument is now met with gross ignorance. This legislation appears to have the hallmarks of passing into law even against the mountain of common sense.I'm sick and tried of apologising for the gross stupidity of our politicians.
Instead I'm thinking a guillotine set on top of parliament house, with a nice long line of of these imbeciles (aka politicians). Those long grassy slopes should allow for a good build of speed.
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Monday 22nd October 2018 10:25 GMT The Central Scrutinizer
Maybe tbe Wentworth by-election on Saturday *might* slow down the stupidity. Hard to say. This government does not give a shit about facts. Look at their non-efforts on climate change. Anti encryption legislation is just one more to add to the list.
Be really interesting to see them try to ban stuff like Tor, VPNs etc. or get overseas companies to comply with their stupid law.
Hmm let's see.... Tor, VPNs, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, TAILS, the list goes on.
Good luck, dickheads.
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Monday 22nd October 2018 18:12 GMT fraunthall
No, they're not Commies, just good, old-fashioned Fascists - Nothing to worry about here
They may not be Commies - but they surely are Fascists. Of course, that makes it OK in the Australian Orwellian political world of Double-Think. Jamal Khashoggi should have gone to the Australian Consulate for help - Yeah, Sure.
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Friday 16th November 2018 13:13 GMT FooCrypt
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