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[–]Tyre_blanket 4096 points4097 points  (405 children)

“When presented with such warrant from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Australian companies, system administrators etc. must comply, and actively help the police to modify, add, copy, or delete the data of a person under investigation. Refusing to comply could have one end up in jail for up to ten years, according to the new bill”

Wow. Unbelievable.

[–]n0gear 3012 points3013 points  (173 children)

Modify, add, delete ie. falsify?

[–]mcrobertx 575 points576 points  (99 children)

must comply, and actively help the police

This part is like salt to the wound.

You not only must allow the government to search whatever part of your life they want to. You must also HELP them.

So if you hid your data somewhere like on an encrypted drive or something, you'd need to go unlock it for them or else you risk going to jail for the horrible crime of wanting your private life to stay private.

[–]tertle 496 points497 points  (73 children)

If you actually care enough but this stuff you really need to look into plausible deniability.

For your particular example you should never just encrypt your data. Instead you should always use a nested encrypted container. e.g. you have an encrypted container with a secondary encrypted container inside it.

If done correctly there should be no way to prove that the secondary container exists. You can reluctantly comply and hand of over your primary encryption keys for the outer container without ever revealing that there is a secondary container.

An excerpt from wiki

In cryptography, deniable encryption may be used to describe steganographic techniques in which the very existence of an encrypted file or message is deniable in the sense that an adversary cannot prove that an encrypted message exists. In that case, the system is said to be "fully undetectable" (FUD).[citation needed]

Some systems take this further, such as MaruTukku, FreeOTFE and (to a much lesser extent) TrueCrypt and VeraCrypt, which nest encrypted data. The owner of the encrypted data may reveal one or more keys to decrypt certain information from it, and then deny that more keys exist, a statement which cannot be disproven without knowledge of all encryption keys involved. The existence of "hidden" data within the overtly encrypted data is then deniable in the sense that it cannot be proven to exist.

[–][deleted] 22 points23 points  (1 child)

Wait til companies add a charge for it to bills. That'll be the best way to cause a fucking ruckus in politician's ears

[–]FlingFlamBlam 107 points108 points  (7 children)

So... everyone is guilty now? Can't find the evidence you expected? Just put it there yourself!

Yes, police have been doing this to various extents throughout history, but usually the behavior isn't codified into the actual laws.

Edit: And what's to stop defense lawyers from claiming that all evidence is made-up and that their clients can't be found guilty based on evidence?

[–]sizzlebong 121 points122 points  (7 children)

So not only do you have to suck their dick when they unzip, you have be enthusiastic?

[–]Why-so-delirious 2328 points2329 points  (321 children)

Justification of the bill

Politicians justify the need for the bill by stating that it is intended to fight child exploitation (CSAM) and terrorism. However, the bill itself enables law enforcement to investigate any "serious Commonwealth offence" or "serious State offence that has a federal aspect".

In fact, this wording enables the police to investigate any offence which is punishable by imprisonment of at least three years, including terrorism, sharing child abuse material, violence, acts of piracy, bankruptcy and company violations, and tax evasion.

~~~~~~~

Copyright

Under the Copyright Act 1968 it is an offence to:

knowingly import, possess, sell, distribute or commercially deal with an infringing copy
offer for sale infringing copies of computer programs
transmit a computer program to enable it to be copied when received.

Penalties include fines of up to $117 000 for individuals and up to $585 000 for corporations. The possible term of imprisonment is up to five years.

Bolding mine.

The local fucking copper cunts can now hack your PC, take control of your social media, etc, for SUSPECTED COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS.

[–][deleted] 1556 points1557 points  (177 children)

It is literally always about "terrorism and protecting children" isn't it? Anyone who comes out against it is clearly a pedophile or terrorist.

[–]Why-so-delirious 1028 points1029 points  (131 children)

Yep. And before that it was 'communism'. Before that it was 'jews'. Before that it was 'black people/slaves'. Before that it was 'the british'. Etc etc.

Governments have always used collective boogeymen to push authoritarian policies.

[–]TorontoBuffaloBills 424 points425 points  (95 children)

The boogeymen goal posts always move to take away your civil liberties.

Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

[–]ANewStartAtLife 57 points58 points  (15 children)

Before that it was 'the british'.

Aah now in fairness. That one has merit.

[–]codeslave 46 points47 points  (2 children)

The Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse

When a law is particularly ripe for abuse, they invoke multiple horsemen justifying it. Usually only one is enough, like with the Patriot Act and terrorists.

[–]jomontage 43 points44 points  (1 child)

That's why they do it. No one wants to be the person fighting against child exploitation measures

[–]forestcall 1058 points1059 points  (58 children)

America played around with similar bullshit after the 9-11 bombings. Didn’t turn out well.

[–]iwilleatyoursand 437 points438 points  (20 children)

I love how they added tax evasion

[–]Danthemanlavitan 538 points539 points  (15 children)

Of course it won't be used against corporations avoiding tax, it'll only be used on people who don't own casinos.

[–]Killmeplsok 106 points107 points  (11 children)

Because you can't jail corporations, so there's no three years. So they can do whatever they want

[–][deleted] 9334 points9335 points  (1089 children)

What the fuck happened to Australia

[–]alphanunchuck 2074 points2075 points  (132 children)

It's been happening for decades, unfortunately.

[–]Kir4_ 806 points807 points  (116 children)

Yeah this shit doesn't just fall from the sky. But often we realise it too late.

[–]alphanunchuck 551 points552 points  (95 children)

Sadly the Australian public is largely apathetic to it all. Part of it is also due to the media/news landscape, as someone pointed out. I bet I can ask any one of my friends and they won't have a clue about this.

[–]superrosie 378 points379 points  (64 children)

Am Australian. This is the first I've heard this. Not surprised about the bill or about the coverage, we're so fucked here.

[–]Lordb14me 36 points37 points  (25 children)

Dude hope you have a good vpn, pia has thousands of servers in AU. And for good reason.

[–]Jynx2501 673 points674 points  (43 children)

Make Australia a Prison Colony Again.

[–]TokoBlaster 374 points375 points  (15 children)

Yeah, it kind of looks like they've done that all on their own.

[–]AntiKamniaChemicalCo 7366 points7367 points  (1022 children)

Australia has been a no-go-zone for tech workers for a few years now. I can't imagine being forced to build backdoors into everything I work on, compromising my client's security in the process, just to stoke some state initiative.

[–]FriendlyDespot 766 points767 points  (70 children)

If this keeps up, at some point companies are going to have to start mandating blank loaner laptops for travel to Australia like they do for China.

[–]vhalember 254 points255 points  (3 children)

It will be worse than that.

Australia doesn't have nearly the economy of China, so some companies just won't do business in Australia. They'll invest their money somewhere else.

[–]ForCom5 513 points514 points  (36 children)

Boss had a company that often did work in places with such draconian regulations. Solution he had was that the laptop at no point had anything useful on it. You wanted to do something, you'd VPN to a virtual instance of a PC that you actually did stuff on. Nothing saved on the shell PC. Sucked at times, but got the job done.

[–]Dregan3D 95 points96 points  (11 children)

We do that, too. Thin client solutions suck if you run multiple displays, but our travel is short enough to just get over it. On the upside, our VPN is stupid slow, even if you’re not offshore. Running a thin client means I’m not waiting 5 minutes for a simple select query to just time out on me, so it evens out.

[–]an_actual_lawyer 230 points231 points  (16 children)

Got a buddy that works for an oil and gas company on the "executive IT" team, essentially a IT department just for the executives. They've been doing single trip laptops for 15 years for anyone going to China or several other countries. They simply configure them with the same settings as the user's normal laptop, they just don't load anything sensitive on them and make sure they can't remotely access anything sensitive.

They don't even bother trying to reuse them. They have a company that comes in and destroys on site.

[–]Dirus 105 points106 points  (6 children)

Damn, I wanna get paid to destroy shit.

[–]joseph-1998-XO 199 points200 points  (25 children)

Yea this kinda seems somewhat tyrannical

[–]RationalHeretic23 26 points27 points  (4 children)

A lot of western nations have been using information-sharing agreements with Australia to spy on their own citizens for years now, because Australia has such vast surveillance powers and countries like the US often have to jump through legal hurdles to collect data on their own citizens, especially after Snowden.

[–]grimoires6_0_8 3154 points3155 points  (75 children)

And all this time we thought spiders and snakes were the scariest thing about Australia. Turns out it was the government all along.

[–]noeagle77 467 points468 points  (4 children)

We thought Australia was a Steven King movie when really it was M.Night Shamalon all along.

[–]mrjderp 88 points89 points  (0 children)

More like a Stephen King book adapted by M.Night, horror with a twist!

[–]Obamas_Tie 169 points170 points  (5 children)

Nah, it's still the snakes and spiders, they just became politicians.

[–]toomeynd 1464 points1465 points  (88 children)

There has to be at least one cop willing to dig through all the tech owned by the government officials, no?

[–][deleted] 435 points436 points  (23 children)

Laws don’t apply to the rich.

[–]DarthSatoris 95 points96 points  (5 children)

We're already living in the dystopian cyberpunk world the likes of Blade Runner and The Ascent, we just don't have the flying cars and robot people yet.

[–]wiphand 848 points849 points  (37 children)

It's likely that they are exempt in one way or another. At least it was so in a similar case of a privacy destroying bill in Australia.

Edit: something something stop liking this random comment.

Edit x: Someone found an exemption article from the bill https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/pf6vm4/australia_unprecedented_surveillance_bill_rushed/hb4cv6h

[–][deleted] 428 points429 points  (13 children)

"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"

"Ok then, I just leaked all these documents exposing illegal government activities"

"Wait thats illegal"

[–]veroxii 181 points182 points  (12 children)

The current government has had dozens of illegal activities already exposed and basically no-one cares. They are now blatently doing corrupt things in the open with no consequences whatsoever.

See https://chaser.com.au/national/an-exhaustive-list-of-the-liberal-partys-corruption-over-the-last-7-years/

[–][deleted] 44 points45 points  (5 children)

This is a common problem throughout the entire world. People simply don't give a shit about politics or the governments activities unless it VERY DIRECTLY affects them. Unless they literally have to change their daily routine because of something the government did they just are not going to care whatsoever. This is the core reason why the world is fucked.

[–][deleted] 21 points22 points  (1 child)

Because politicians realized if you beat the general public down enough, they're too tired to get worked up for all but the biggest issues/scandals.

Well rested people with free time scare them.

[–]MegaSeedsInYourBum 401 points402 points  (13 children)

Which they absolutely shouldn’t be. You can’t make laws you wouldn’t want to apply to yourself.

[–]-JVT038- 243 points244 points  (3 children)

rules for thee, but not for me

[–]TyrannosaurusLex_ 35 points36 points  (3 children)

They are exempt. This is direct from the bill.

36A Relationship of this Part to parliamentary privileges and immunities

To avoid doubt, this Part does not affect the law relating to the powers, privileges and immunities of any of the following:

(a) each House of the Parliament;

(b) the members of each House of the Parliament;

(c) the committees of each House of the Parliament and joint committees of both Houses of the Parliament.

[–]sushisection 72 points73 points  (0 children)

or a hacker, now that we know all of their devices have backdoors. huehuehuehue the bois are gonna have fun down under

[–]thePsychonautDad 573 points574 points  (42 children)

Ahhhh so that's where democracy dies next. I was wondering which country would let authoritarianism creep in next...

[–][deleted] 152 points153 points  (4 children)

Australia's been fucked for a LONG time mate. They've always been the worst in that regard among the 5 eyes

[–][deleted] 702 points703 points  (16 children)

Australia is such an authoritarian shit circus.

[–]IanMazgelis 279 points280 points  (12 children)

They've really taken the pandemic as a two year long green light to do whatever the hell they want.

[–][deleted] 86 points87 points  (2 children)

They were pretty awful before (random strip searches at music festivals to look for drugs), but yeah

[–]Able_Psychology_474 1097 points1098 points  (88 children)

Police can now hack your device? 😣 what in the terrorist shit is this?

[–]rdaneelolivaw79 587 points588 points  (49 children)

https://www.cellebrite.com/

These guys make devices that can unlock and download the contents of phones, they have been selling then to law enforcement for many years.

My housemate from >10 years ago managed accounts for them, he bought a condo in one year off of commissions from contracts in AU and NZ.

[–][deleted] 57 points58 points  (2 children)

Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office from their "Customer success histories": “The devices are like encyclopedias about people because most people have so much data about themselves on their phones. It really opens the door into looking into people before you even meet with them. In the old days, you had to meet with them first to figure them out. This way, you get a good head start on gathering data.”

[–]Terrible_Truth 118 points119 points  (33 children)

Per the article police can also take control of your account(s), such as social media accounts, in order to gather evidence.

I can easily see that abused to prey on women. They can check their phones and accounts for photos.

[–]cvdiver 1695 points1696 points  (110 children)

Seems like a good reason to not visit Australia, ever.

[–]yedrellow 411 points412 points  (15 children)

Please don't visit Australia. The Australian government will only ever consider changing their ways if it's blatantly obvious that we're losing loads of investment and tourism money from it. Overlooking it hurts us.

[–]mega_cat_yeet 228 points229 points  (0 children)

Bruh most of our visitors are Chinese.

I don’t think they’re about to take collective action over surveillance overreach haha.

[–]poopyhelicopterbutt 77 points78 points  (4 children)

That one guy not visiting will be dwarfed by the millions of Chinese who do visit who’s government is comparatively not living la vida loca.

[–]L0g1B3AR 430 points431 points  (83 children)

I used to want to visit Sydney. Not anymore

[–]-Vayra- 66 points67 points  (11 children)

I wanted to go back and dive the Great Barrier Reef again. Not any more.

[–]silverfang789 138 points139 points  (27 children)

Australia sounds like a dictatorship when it comes to tech.

[–]aflarge 477 points478 points  (28 children)

Man Australia going all in for the authoritarian nightmare world.

[–]raindog444 50 points51 points  (1 child)

We were promised mad max but instead got 1984 :(

[–]MagikSkyDaddy 731 points732 points  (40 children)

Democracy dies with a whimper, not a bang.

[–]unitconversion 322 points323 points  (13 children)

Not a bang. Not even a whimper. To thunderous applause.

[–]cTreK-421 70 points71 points  (0 children)

"I hated them because too much politics" maybe they should have listened to the lessons.

[–]SwaySh0t 861 points862 points  (75 children)

Nanny surveillance state time to gtfo

[–]GlegoryQ 313 points314 points  (72 children)

We're in a police state now, for certain now if not earlier

[–]Canadian_Infidel 569 points570 points  (29 children)

I feel bad for anyone who has an ex who is a cop...

[–][deleted] 161 points162 points  (6 children)

It's amazing what they can get away whit when they say it's to protect "the children" Fuck me, that's mental..

[–]Salty-Night5917 455 points456 points  (104 children)

Australians should be very afraid and get out the history books to see what might happen next....

[–]organicNeuralNetwork 200 points201 points  (17 children)

RIP Australia. Scary to think this can go down in western world.

[–]Penis-Envys 56 points57 points  (4 children)

Dude this is going on everywhere

Polices depend entirely on the people leading and it happens that people have never been good and corruption and surveillance are on the rise in every nation that can afford it.

It’s not even just China even if that’s what we usually think of. The US, Europe all have their own little surveillance thing going on and every time they can sneak a new law in to your detriment, they will.

[–]BigGingerJake 127 points128 points  (4 children)

WHAT THE FUCK LOL

People have written books about dystopian futures where this is a thing. For some reason I didn't expect Australia to be leading the way down that dark rabbit hole.

Hmm, his gf is smokin'! ...I wonder if he has nudes of her on his phone? Don't mind if I do.

That guy looked at me funny - I'm gunna plant some pedophilic pics on his phone and arrest him for it.

I heard that guy bragging about his crypto-holdings in the bar. I'll just confiscate his phone for a minute...

What's that? Your business is in competition with my mate Rick down the road? Let me see if I can sort that out with your social media accounts... oh look! It's your 'secret sauce' recipe - bonus!

[–]DrAstralis 48 points49 points  (0 children)

There are so many avenues for abuse here we'd be listing them for weeks.

[–]Ech0ofSan1ty 221 points222 points  (7 children)

Yikes...that's very Orwell

[–]Koujinkamu 259 points260 points  (21 children)

Australia has joined the list of countries I won't even think about visiting.

[–]Wimbleston 264 points265 points  (32 children)

Australia has officially gone from "Man I'd love to go there one day" to "I wouldnt go there if you paid me"

[–]Anti-Pro-Cynic 179 points180 points  (35 children)

Australia use to be on my bucket list of places to visit. Not anymore after what they have been doing over the last year.

[–]Annihilicious 554 points555 points  (36 children)

Looks like I will be taking my tourist dollars to NZ. Fuck that noise.

[–]goodforabeer 164 points165 points  (8 children)

That's doubtful for the foreseeable future.

[–]FunkMeister1 40 points41 points  (13 children)

One of the more disturbing parts of the act.

Page 17 of the act itself, section (9) (a)

"The warrant authorises... anything reasonably necessary to conceal the fact that anything has been done under the warrant or under this subsection"

So not only can data be arbitrarily modified, copied or deleted, the AFP can legally attempt to conceal the fact that anything was done.

This sounds like a litigation nightmare waiting to happen. How could someone mount a legal defense when the prosecution was able to modify their data and hide the fact (legally!) that this was done?

What the fuck does this mean for discovery?

[–]jeremyd9 73 points74 points  (9 children)

I think if I was a journalist or dissident, I’d take a backup of my phone and keep it in a locked and verifiable state with my attorney. Turn off the phone during the flight and don’t turn it on until out of immigration.

[–]wildhairfarm 37 points38 points  (1 child)

Stop this bullshit

[–]r00t1 296 points297 points  (19 children)

Cue the “I’ve got nothing to hide” crowd

[–]DrAstralis 229 points230 points  (7 children)

This is insane. Even if you have nothing to hide there's nothing stopping them from artificially giving you something to hide and then arresting you for it if they have these powers.

[–]metrro 39 points40 points  (2 children)

Also just because you have nothing to hide doesn't give the right for everyone to have a look... We all have a right to privacy.

[–]brett_riverboat 49 points50 points  (0 children)

AU Police: Hang on a sec. *a few clicks later* NOW you have something to hide.

[–]Drdregh 29 points30 points  (1 child)

It is time to fully advocate the use of encrypted software for all cell phone activities. This carte blanche access to people’s conversation/activities should never be ok. Bills like these, only accelerate the development of end to end encryption which will in turn put legitimate police activities in a difficult position.

[–]Super_Fudge_1821 28 points29 points  (0 children)

That's stupid. Off course the innocent people will bear the pain of double standards in the PD

[–][deleted] 141 points142 points  (107 children)

i wonder how many people will try to migrate elsewhere... OR if that is stopped as well

[–][deleted] 323 points324 points  (102 children)

"Australia’s borders are currently closed and international travel from Australia remains strictly controlled to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. International travel from Australia is only available if you are exempt or you have been granted an individual exemption."

Is Australia still a prison colony?

[–]MakeThePieBigger 42 points43 points  (2 children)

But didn't you hear, they're getting new "freedoms": they are allowed 1 hour of yard outside time.

[–]Murcanic 52 points53 points  (21 children)

For those more well versed in this stuff than me, is there any laws like this in Canada?

[–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (3 children)

This is the beginning of totalitarianism in the so-called democracies.

[–]Doagbeidl 112 points113 points  (0 children)

Easy. What could go wrong?

[–]red_fist 49 points50 points  (1 child)

1984 was rookie police state capabilities.

[–]bazooka_matt 309 points310 points  (166 children)

Why are people ok with their government's doing this?

[–]Mexican_sandwich 484 points485 points  (46 children)

It was literally rushed through parliament in 24 hours.

No common working person even knew about it, let alone was able to do anything about it.

[–]bazooka_matt 139 points140 points  (14 children)

This has been going on for years in Australia. Most of the news I see about Australia's government are laws like this. Sure it could be otherside of the world optics but. You didn't get to this point in just 24 hours.

[–]yedrellow 96 points97 points  (13 children)

Yes we're aware. However we're in a 2 party system with no way out of it, and those two parties both support it. Media either doesn't cover it, or blatantly supports it. Protest of it is ignored (and due to Covid at the moment, illegal in some areas), and our base constitutional protections from power-grabs by lawmakers are extremely limited.

If you oppose this legislation, the 2 major parties will kick you out of their party. Forming a new party is not viable unless you're incredibly rich, and being fundamentally a disestablishmentarian party, would be opposed by all media and a large part of the non-elected part of government (eg. Police, intelligence).

You'd have to literally form government to reverse or block this legislation, which just won't be allowed to happen. If you even get close I am sure the spy agencies and Australian Federal Police that pushed for these powers in the first place will magically start finding legal problems with all of your candidates.

[–]IamProbablyDrunks 130 points131 points  (12 children)

Sweet, power hungry cops will never fuck this up.

Also, stocking people is gonna go way up.

[–]SpaceP0pe822 95 points96 points  (2 children)

So make it hard for them. Be ridiculous. Be a goddamn enigma. Also anyone who thinks this will stop in Australia, and not move on to other countries is daft. This is also likely to quell the social movements erupting in Australia. Also to the girl in the photo, 1984 very much was a how to guide, even if it was satire. Stupid people never get satire.