EEVblog Tweet: Australia needs a #BillOfRights now, this has gone too far.

[Halcyon]

This thread is in response to this tweet by Dave: https://twitter.com/eevblog/status/1179343840735576064

Now, I fully expect this thread to go off the rails with the Americans thinking this is absolutely ridiculous and the Chinese thinking "is that all?". But hear me out...

Australia already has half-baked laws which "compel" serious criminals, facing serious charges to reveal their passwords. Those laws have largely failed, mainly because the penalties for non-compliance are far less than the penalties they would face if convicted of those other charges. So they just cop the lesser penalty. Honestly, it's a joke. Without going into any protected details, a lot of time and money is spent defeating 2FA and security on devices used by criminals when they refuse to provide passwords, because they have to. All things considered, law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world are pretty successful at this however all it does is delay the legal process.

Now this article seems to be the other end of the spectrum. In terms of the proposed changes, personally, I have no issue with law enforcement and similar agencies doing this (for serious matters). I am not including Border Force agencies in this. For trivial matters, further consultation is needed, perhaps only under a court order might that kind of thing be allowed.

At the end of the day, don't deal in drugs, don't murder people, don't threaten to blow up buildings and don't exploit children for sexual gratification, if you do, then you deserve everything that's thrown at you.

[RoGeorge]

I want to tell you my password, but I forgot it!   

[ebastler]

In terms of the proposed changes, personally, I have no issue with law enforcement and similar agencies doing this (for serious matters). I am not including Border Force agencies in this. For trivial matters, further consultation is needed, perhaps only under a court order might that kind of thing be allowed.

You mean, the proposed (or current?) Australian law allows the police to decide on their own to demand a password, or hack someone's device?! No court order required??

[Halcyon]

In terms of the proposed changes, personally, I have no issue with law enforcement and similar agencies doing this (for serious matters). I am not including Border Force agencies in this. For trivial matters, further consultation is needed, perhaps only under a court order might that kind of thing be allowed.

You mean, the proposed (or current?) Australian law allows the police to decide on their own to demand a password, or hack someone's device?! No court order required??

Current legislation is that if the device is seized lawfully, then Police are entitled to do anything to extract data from that device, even if that means taking measures to crack or otherwise discover the password, or bypass security mechanisms entirely. If the data exists outside the device (i.e.: hosted somewhere on the internet) and the seizure does not relate to a search warrant, a court order or other legal authority is required.

[tom66]

I don't care if it means some criminals don't get convicted, the individual has an absolute right to privacy. The police have the freedom to compel you to release the information, and the penalty for failing to do so could be similar to the charge in question, but that is as far as it should go.

[magic]

You guys mean: don't get accused of killing people or dealing drugs and all will be OK?

I will try my best

[Halcyon]

I don't care if it means some criminals don't get convicted, the individual has an absolute right to privacy. The police have the freedom to compel you to release the information, and the penalty for failing to do so could be similar to the charge in question, but that is as far as it should go.

Even if that person is among the worst human beings on earth? Would you be advocating for their right to privacy if they kill or molest a member of your family?

The problem with sentencing to "similar" offences basically means they are being jailed for an offence they are being accused of (but not yet found guilty of).

[Mr. Scram]

Even if that person is among the worst human beings on earth? Would you be advocating for their right to privacy if they kill or molest a member of your family?

The problem with sentencing to "similar" offences basically means they are being jailed for an offence they are being accused of (but not yet found guilty of).

Basic rights apply to everyone which includes the most atrocious criminals. That's what basic rights mean.  That most people would prefer to see the criminal who killed or molested a family member flogged or worse doesn't mean that flogging or worse are proper or effective punishments. We've moved beyond emotional and medieval punishment for a while now and that's a good thing.

[tom66]

Even if that person is among the worst human beings on earth? Would you be advocating for their right to privacy if they kill or molest a member of your family?

The problem with sentencing to "similar" offences basically means they are being jailed for an offence they are being accused of (but not yet found guilty of).

Yes, unfortunately.

The police cannot demand to look at your encrypted data. That is your private right to prohibit the access to that.

The police could charge someone on other offences. For example a child molester, could be found on the basis of witness testimony, rather than the information on his hard drive that may be encrypted.  A judge would account for the unwillingness to provide access in their sentencing, which may go against the defendant.

Basic rights apply to all, no exceptions, because as soon as you make exceptions, you're on a slippery slope to having your rights taken away.

[Mr. Scram]

Yes, unfortunately.

The police cannot demand to look at your encrypted data. That is your private right to prohibit the access to that.

The police could charge someone on other offences. For example a child molester, could be found on the basis of witness testimony, rather than the information on his hard drive that may be encrypted.  A judge would account for the unwillingness to provide access in their sentencing, which may go against the defendant.

Basic rights apply to all, no exceptions, because as soon as you make exceptions, you're on a slippery slope to having your rights taken away.

An unwillingness to provide access shouldn't be accounted for any more than an unwillingness to admit a crime. Suspects should have to right to not incriminate themselves.

[RoGeorge]

I don't care if it means some criminals don't get convicted, the individual has an absolute right to privacy. The police have the freedom to compel you to release the information, and the penalty for failing to do so could be similar to the charge in question, but that is as far as it should go.

Even if that person is among the worst human beings on earth? Would you be advocating for their right to privacy if they kill or molest a member of your family?

Yes, even then.  What you are describing is just an emotional situation.

At the end of the day, don't deal in drugs, don't murder people, don't threaten to blow up buildings and don't exploit children for sexual gratification, if you do, then you deserve everything that's thrown at you.

Even if there are examples where power agencies, governments or political figures did just that?

The thing is, do not blindly trust the established power.  Do not give up everybody's civil rights for an "what if" hypothetical "more safety".

My grandpa was
- born under a king
- enrolled in WWII fighting on the Germany's side
- then Romania changed sides, and now my grandpa was fighting in the same WWII against Germany
- at some point he was literally buried alive in the trenches by an enemy tank
- then the war ended and the communists took his land, his carriage and his 2 horses
- then his cow give birth and my grandpa went to his former backyard, harvest about 40 pcs. of milk maze corn and feed the cow because he thought there was not enough milk for the newborn cattle
- he was arrested, and convicted to prison for stealing corn from the communist property, and again, that corn was from his former land, still plowed and planted by his own hands
- in the prison somebody cut his tongue, for speaking the truth
- fast forward 50 years later, the communist regime felt, democracy and capitalism took over
- all he worked and built again, this time as communist property, was sold for pennies or simply dismantled by liquidators

I know anecdotal stories are not proofs.

My point is, never blindly trust the power.  Governments and power changes during a lifetime, and they'll just use you for whatever goal they have at the moment, pretending at all time they care about you.

Never give up your civil rights.

[CaptCrash]

A couple of questions regarding how you have phrased your points.
I think we are both in agreement that the existing and new proposed laws have gone too far.

However I would like to understand, how you think the exceptions you have listed below are reasonable.
The reason I ask this is not to create an argument or to attack you (sorry if my questions below are quite blunt and appear like I'm attacking your post, its not my intention, but I want to get the point across.).
I'm asking so I can understand why you think in this manner (I have a couple of people who I work with who hold similar views and I find it very odd, so I'm taking the opportunity to ask).

Australia already has half-baked laws which "compel" serious criminals, facing serious charges to reveal their passwords.

How is someone a serious criminal when they have mealy been accused of something?
It concerns me that you have presented that these laws only apply to criminals.
When in actuality the laws apply to everyone who is merely accused of a crime but they have yet to be found/plead guilty or acquitted.

Those laws have largely failed, mainly because the penalties for non-compliance are far less than the penalties they would face if convicted of those other charges. So they just cop the lesser penalty.

There again appears to be bias in your statement.
The accused involved are not necessarily criminals at this point in time, they have merely been accused of something.

If someone is charged with breaking a law and then found guilty/or plead guilty they are only guilty of that offense (eg. not providing passwords).  Nothing else.  I do not know if this is a criminal offense or not, so again the use of "criminals", is possibly misleading (or accurate as the case maybe).

Assuming the law enforcement body has an appropriate court order to recover data, there is nothing stopping the law enforcement body to continue to attempt to recover data as well.

The courts can and do grant the right (to search - Cybercrime Act 2001 No. 161, Items 12 and 28 and The Crimes Act), if sufficient cause can be provided.  They are the appropriate body to have such a power, not the police or any other law enforcement body, the type of case has nothing to do with this and its very concerning to think that you consider the severity of accusation to change the protections/rights of the accused.


I understand that your points above, are not exactly the opposite of mine.  But I am interested in why you keep using the terminology of "criminal", when you are referring to someone accused of a crime, but not found guilty?

I have no issue with law enforcement and similar agencies doing this (for serious matters).

That you are presenting the idea that the seriousness of the accusation has a bearing on an individuals rights/protections is very concerning.

If someone is being accused of a crime it is not the same as being found guilty of a crime.  These are two very different things and needs to be treated as such.  There is no justification of a reduction in a persons rights/protections on the basis of an accusation.

Why is it that you think the person accused of a crime not entitled to the same protections as everyone else?

For trivial matters, further consultation is needed, perhaps only under a court order might that kind of thing be allowed.

And again, no matter the situation an accusation of a crime is not the same as being found guilty of a crime.

A court is the only body that should be able to make this determination.  It allows all parties involved to put forward their case, defense to be provided and a reasonable body (the court) to make a determination in all cases.

At the end of the day, don't deal in drugs, don't murder people, don't threaten to blow up buildings and don't exploit children for sexual gratification, if you do, then you deserve everything that's thrown at you.

This is the problem, right here, with the pretense that someone accused of a crime should be treated in a manner different to others.

The issue is not about people who have been found guilty of dealing in drugs, murdering people, threatening to blow up buildings and exploiting children for sexual gratification.  We are talking about people who are innocent of all of the charges at the time of the search event and you appear to be ok with having their rights/protections taken away before they are convicted of anything or a reasonable case can be put before a court to require the disclosure of information?


I'm sorry that it comes across that I have cherry picked items from your post and somewhat questioned them out of context of the greater post you provided, but it all goes to my overall question.

Why do you think "potential criminals" should be treated differently before they are found guilty?

Thanks in advance, should you choose to respond.

[wilfred]

Will Dave let you get away with a politics thread if it references his twitter feed? This is one way to find out.

[rjp]

The thing about bill of rights discussions is that they happen in a bipartisan way, across all the political spectrum, not just the small section of it that you personally like.

In the current climate, the thread on this forum about SJW lunacy might end up covering the new bill of rights aswell.

I dont trust much of Australias political class to come up with a decent list of rights and this particular one would only be championed by the weakest wing of the liberal party and some libertarian loons, I cant see it happening.

so thats a "no" from me.

[MyHeadHz]

This thread is in response to this tweet by Dave: https://twitter.com/eevblog/status/1179343840735576064

Now, I fully expect this thread to go off the rails with the Americans thinking this is absolutely ridiculous and the Chinese thinking "is that all?". But hear me out...

As an American, that is absolutely ridiculous.  However, the American ideals that everyone thinks about are just ideas, and America doesn't even follow them.  The Constitution says we cannot be denied the enumerated rights 'without due process,' which has been interpreted to mean unless a judge says so- such as being held without charge, even though we have right to be freed within a set period of time unless actual charges are filed to be tried in court.  There are people all over the US held "in contempt of court" indefinitely (sometimes years) without charge by judges' orders because they forgot passwords or similar things.  In other words, guilty until proven innocent.

Many are also unaware of the border exception.  There are no rights to privacy or certain other protections in border areas.  The problem is that the definition of border area is so huge it incorporates such things as pretty much the entire state of California, for example.

So the US laws sound even worse than the law you mentioned.  At least there are limits to the fines/punishment there.

There are many other examples here.  The US is not the righteous paradise it is in the marketing pamphlets.  Worsening authoritarianism seems to be a natural progression of all governments, with no exceptions that I'm aware of.

[SparkyFX]

Even if that person is among the worst human beings on earth? Would you be advocating for their right to privacy if they kill or molest a member of your family?

People make mistakes - all the time and in all regards, especially if things get emotional, an accusation alone is a pretty low bar to cross and this always deserves a second thought what if it hits the wrong (innocent) person. Sometimes an investigation alone can ruin peoples careers. Some bureaucracies also tend to use even unjustified labeling to enable the use of such methods, just out of principle and as a means to an end - to work around themselves.

[themadhippy]

The police cannot demand to look at your encrypted data. That is your private right to prohibit the access to that.

youve not heard of ripa then? its not just the police who have the power to do this in the uk,but a whole host of other "public bodies"

[RoGeorge]

My proposal is to grant the government unconditional rights to attack any encryption and allow the courts to take such evidence

There is an encryption called "one time pad", which is trivial, simply a XOR bit by bit between a true random key and the message.  Both the sender and the receiver exchanged the same key before.  The key is at least as long as the message.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad

Such an encryption is unbreakable.  The thing is, with such an encryption scheme ANY possible text (of the same length as the original message) can be reconstructed, not only the original message, by simply choosing a convenient key instead of the real key.  In conclusion one might be accused of absolutely anything.

I'm afraid other encryption schemes might fall into this category.  I doubt encryption is a bijective function.  Wrong keys might return other messages for other encryption schemes, too, same as seen with the one time pad, but I didn't studied this problem.

[RoGeorge]

My concern was that, if brute force attacks are allowed as court evidence, then encrypted messages might be decoded into something else that one never said, thus one might be wrongly accused.

For example one encrypts "Don't tell my boss I left the meeting earlier" and it can be decoded by brute force (intentionally or by mistake) as "The master password for all nukes is".  Thus, one gets wrongly accused.

[Halcyon]

A couple of questions regarding how you have phrased your points.

Australia already has half-baked laws which "compel" serious criminals, facing serious charges to reveal their passwords.

How is someone a serious criminal when they have mealy been accused of something?

Those who have previous convictions are criminals. Depending on their crimes and punishments, they relinquish certain rights or freedoms in society. Whether it be by way of bail conditions, electronic monitoring, inability to enter or live in certain areas, not being able to own or possess firearms etc... etc... This exists today.

Those laws have largely failed, mainly because the penalties for non-compliance are far less than the penalties they would face if convicted of those other charges. So they just cop the lesser penalty.

There again appears to be bias in your statement.
The accused involved are not necessarily criminals at this point in time, they have merely been accused of something.

If someone is charged with breaking a law and then found guilty/or plead guilty they are only guilty of that offense (eg. not providing passwords).  Nothing else.  I do not know if this is a criminal offense or not, so again the use of "criminals", is possibly misleading (or accurate as the case maybe).

If you as an accused person goes and kills someone, you know what you've done. You know what the penalties are and you roll the dice or deliberately withhold information from investigators in hope that something that incriminates you doesn't see the light of day.

I have no issue with law enforcement and similar agencies doing this (for serious matters).

That you are presenting the idea that the seriousness of the accusation has a bearing on an individuals rights/protections is very concerning.

It absolutely does. If someone is accused of a serious criminal offence then it is and should be handled different to someone who has stolen alcohol from a bottle shop or committed common assault on another person. You can't lump all crimes in the same bucket. This is why we have summary, indictable and serious indictable offences. There are laws in place in Australia, the UK and possibly the USA that whilst you have a right to silence, under certain circumstances if you exercise that right, it can damage any defense you give later in court.

Why is it that you think the person accused of a crime not entitled to the same protections as everyone else?

Because not all crimes are equal.


I find it fascinating the differing views on this. I guess I'm in a unique position where I see the other side of humanity and the direct impact these laws have. 99% of people don't have the same perspective.

I believe laws should be made for the greater good, if that means impinging on some individual rights to privacy, so be it. I appreciate everyone's opinions. There is no easy answer to this and it's a very careful balancing act. Absolute privacy or absolute openness don't work. There needs to be a compromise.

[james_s]

I don't care if it means some criminals don't get convicted, the individual has an absolute right to privacy. The police have the freedom to compel you to release the information, and the penalty for failing to do so could be similar to the charge in question, but that is as far as it should go.

Even if that person is among the worst human beings on earth? Would you be advocating for their right to privacy if they kill or molest a member of your family?

The problem with sentencing to "similar" offences basically means they are being jailed for an offence they are being accused of (but not yet found guilty of).

Absolutely. Better to let 1,000 guilty people walk free than to imprison one innocent person. Punishing the guilty is nice, but it's not nearly as important as protecting the innocent. Already we have too many problems with people being guilty until proven innocent by the general public.

[Halcyon]

Already we have too many problems with people being guilty until proven innocent by the general public.

Fortunately, it doesn't matter what the general public think, what matters is what the courts think and what the legislation allows. The number of innocent people being wrongfully found guilty of offences in countries like Australia is so minuscule, that I can't think of a single recent example.

[Rick Law]

Already we have too many problems with people being guilty until proven innocent by the general public.

Fortunately, it doesn't matter what the general public think, what matters is what the courts think and what the legislation allows. The number of innocent people being wrongfully found guilty of offences in countries like Australia is so minuscule, that I can't think of a single recent example.

What the general public think matters a lot.  If some girl at work pass the word that the job applicant (being interviewed) wolf whistled at her when he first saw her, I bet you that applicant wont get the job regardless whether that really happened or not - and wolf whistle is perfectly legal.

From various press and youtube clips from actors, if you are a conservative in Hollywood, you can pretty much expect to be unemployed.  Regardless of whether you are a conservative or not, I suspect you would agree it is perfectly legal to be a conservative.

So legality is one thing, what people think matters a great deal as well.

[soldar]

I believe laws should be made for the greater good, if that means impinging on some individual rights to privacy, so be it.

You are not alone in this belief. The government of China agrees with you. And the UK. And America. And probably a lot of other countries like Saudi Arabia, etc.

[krish2487]

And there in lies the issue. "Good" is really subjective and conditional to who is sitting in the throne of power.




Quote from: soldar on Today at 07:28:51 am

>Quote from: Halcyon on Yesterday at 10:41:48 pm

I believe laws should be made for the greater good, if that means impinging on some individual rights to privacy, so be it.

 

You are not alone in this belief. The government of China agrees with you. And the UK. And America. And probably a lot of other countries like Saudi Arabia, etc.