this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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[–] ZeroCool@feddit.ch 184 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Andy Yen says draft safety standards ‘would force online services … to access, collect and read users’ private conversations’

What the hell Australia. This isn't gonna magically help you prevent the next Emu war.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 63 points 10 months ago

But it will help them in their corruption and self-enrichment, which is the entire purpose of all attempts to erode civil liberties.

[–] x4740N@lemmy.world 42 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Australia is a country with shit laws as someone who lives in Australia

Life is fine unless you somehow manage to break those stupid laws

For example there was that video of the one guy from Australia who wanted to ban anime, yeah some of our politician's are that stupid

Thankfully anime isn't banned completely but hentai is which I find stupid because it's fictional drawings

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[–] RanchOnPancakes@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

The emu are watching. Waiting. They cannot be stopped.

[–] SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Or Kangawars. Or Toadwars. Or Kangatoadwars becaue you know those bastards are gonna fuck and make a super beast death machine animal...thing.

[–] Drunemeton@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I’d watch the wheels off of “Kangatoadwars!”

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[–] dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world 137 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

It's worse then you think. As a Australian citizen you are required to comply with any order which includes leaking code and introducing back doors. Failure to comply or notifying your employer about the request will result in federal charges with a sentence between 20 to 60 years in prison. The legislation that contains this was passed almost a year ago.

Recently there's been a wave of mass disruptions and data theft in Australia including most of our ports halting operations for a day and one of our largest phone and internet service providers being compromised where millions of peoples personal information like driver licences and passports being leaked.

[–] EatYouWell@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That's a really fucking stupid law. Do we need to worry about Australia becoming fascist?

[–] No1@aussie.zone 50 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] dannym@lemmy.escapebigtech.info 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I don't want to believe this, my brain is refusing to process that statement, I have stared at that article in a state of disbelief for a minute. Surely someone can't be that stupid, right?

I have heard plenty of brain dead arguments by anti-encryption people, but this is by far the stupidest. There is no way, there is just no way that he's so.... I want to say brain dead, but that would imply that there is even a brain there for it to be dead.

Regardless of political affiliation, or even the individual's stance on encryption, surely there can't be a single person that heard that statement and didn't laugh at it, right?

Perhaps the Australian stereotype of being upside down holds some truth, considering his... utterance; he must walk on his hands and constantly get bit by snakes and attacked by drop bears on his daily commute, that's the only explanation for how someone can make such a statement

[–] No1@aussie.zone 6 points 10 months ago

Oh, it's no fun. And we have media concentration issues here too, so you won't get balanced or even a mention of both sides of an issue.

Australia has been the testing ground for implementing Big Brother's spying technology policies. The ones that are often tried later on in the US or UK.

Nearly all of them have passed with full support from the two major parties here. I wish everyone better luck.

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[–] grayman@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

Too late. Already is.

[–] asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago (2 children)

How does that even work? When you push code for a back door it's going to still go through a code review so it's not exactly going to be secret, right?

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[–] sarmale@lemmy.zip 6 points 10 months ago

20year minimum, really? Isnt that also for murder?

[–] Geek_King@lemmy.world 118 points 10 months ago (9 children)

I recently switched my email from gmail to proton mail, because fuck google's.. well... everything. Glad to hear that Proton Mail keeps fighting for privacy!

[–] RanchOnPancakes@lemmy.world 30 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I changed back when google got rid of the free "mail for your domain" and frankly its been a great thing for me. They keep announcing new things that replacing my existing apps.

They have a password manager now that I use. They are finally adding actual fuction to their online drive storage so I can sync files and backup photos.

Its been well worth the price for me. If only they had an office suite lol

[–] EatYouWell@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I really wish their password manager used a serif font, though. That's pretty unacceptable if you're generating secure passwords.

[–] Sproux@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Could you explain why them not using a serif font is bad?

[–] porksoda@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Generally speaking, serif fonts make it easier to distinguish between visually similar characters like o, O, and 0 or 1, I, and l.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah that’s true, but I can’t see why distinguishing is required of a human. I use my password manager to generate and input passwords for me. I don’t even know any of them.

[–] rolaulten@startrek.website 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's not uncommon for the password manager to not be on the same system as where the password is being entered - hence a human needs to type. For example: consumer electronics with their own dinky little screens. Smart TVs/game systems and servers where remote access is not possible (or copy/paste does not work by design).

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[–] randint@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

Please don't use serif fonts for UI elements. Imagine the buttons on your file manager being Times New Roman. (eww.) I think what you're looking for is a monospaced font that's designed to distinguish O/0, I/1/l, etc.

Plug for one of my favorite fonts: https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/mono/

[–] Geek_King@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The only thing I haven't found a good replacement for was how G Drive also handles Office style documents. I make use of that a lot, especially from my phone. But I agree, Proton Mail hasn't been painful one bit.

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago

Seriously? My workplace uses google drive, and many documents are made with word. ... A very common problem is that sometimes someone opens a word doc from the web interface of google drive - which automatically can conveniently opens it with google docs, which totally screws up the formatting and then autosaves it.

(I hate google, and I resent that even after I've removed all aspects of it from my home & personal usage, I still have to use it at work.)

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[–] lambchop@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To everyone saying they've changed to protonmail, check out https://simplelogin.io/ , owned by proton and free for all paying proton members. Unlimited email aliases so you can have a unique email per service. The apps also on fdroid.

[–] totallynotarobot@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Why would I switch from Firefox relay that gives unlimited aliases at 1/4 of the price?

[–] clive@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You dont have to switch but if someone is paying for Proton than they can utilize it for no extra charge

[–] totallynotarobot@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Ooh so if you are already a Proton Other Things subscriber you get the unlimited alias version for free? Because that's an excellent reason.

They should make that more clear in the pricing page.

Thanks!

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[–] 0110010001100010@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm just finishing up that transition myself and glad to hear I made a good choice!

[–] iamanoldguy@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Same, using Proton mail and I am now blissfully Google free. Something else I found the holidays good for is finding out all the old accounts I have floating out there from sites that I interacted with over the years so I can cancel them or change the email if i decide to keep them. But, no more Google! Next on my list is Amazon.

[–] shadowSprite@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm in the (gradual) process of switching all my stuff from Gmail and Google to Proton mail. I really like the mail client and Proton Drive works better on my computers than Google Drive did, but Proton Drive doesn't back up my phone yet and I wish they had an office suite like Google does. I don't put anything important or private on Google docs, but it's useful to be able to access my textbook notes from any of my computers. I haven't used the password manager because I'm using Bitwarden, which I really like.

[–] Newby@startrek.website 4 points 10 months ago (8 children)

They just released photo backups on android

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[–] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago

The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has proposed cloud and messaging service providers should detect and remove known child abuse material and pro-terror material “where technically feasible” – as well as disrupt and deter new material of that nature.

The eSafety regulator has stressed in an associated discussion paper it “does not advocate building in weaknesses or back doors to undermine privacy and security on end-to-end encrypted services”.

I so love these magic wand-waving legislators. "Spy on your users and control what they do on your encrypted platform, but in a way that doesn't break encryption or violate privacy..."

[–] kool_newt@lemm.ee 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The state (i.e. a group of people that claims only they can legally use violence in a given geographic region) is a tool used by the psychopathic hoarder class -- it's purpose is to steal from us (our labor and resources that belong to us all) in relative safety (i.e. protected by state enforcement/police).

Our societal "advancement" can largely be understood in terms of this psychopathic hoarder class become more efficient and effective. Look at amazon.com, is that an advancement over stores or a more efficient way to exploit resources and people and effectively expedite the planet's destruction?

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago (6 children)

We need a robust democracy with strong regulation, not a lack of structure in our society.

[–] battle009@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (5 children)

This. Anarchism is not the way, democratic control is.

Structurelessness only leads to tyranny of another kind. Read Jo Freeman's thoughts on this concept:

https://jacobin.com/2019/09/tyranny-structurelessness-jo-freeman-consciousness-raising-women-liberation-feminism

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[–] QuandaleDingle@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If a corporation won't ruin a good thing, you leave it to government to get the job done.

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago (4 children)

The Australian government would have you believe that we're in the middle of some kind of CP endemic and everyone needs to suffer for it.

This will catch precisely nobody, as the criminals will immediately move to a different platform, of which there are many.

I host my own mail. If the AFP want to inspect it, they'll need a warrant.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The eSafety regulator has stressed in an associated discussion paper it “does not advocate building in weaknesses or back doors to undermine privacy and security on end-to-end encrypted services”.

But privacy and security groups argue the draft standards, as written, could allow the eSafety commissioner to force companies to compromise encryption to comply.

Andy Yen, the founder and chief executive of Proton, told Guardian Australia the proposed standards “would force online services, no matter whether they are end-to-end encrypted or not, to access, collect, and read their users’ private conversations”.

“These proposals could not only force companies to bypass their own encryption, but could put businesses and citizens at risk while doing little to protect people from the online harms they are intended to address,” he said.

A spokesperson for the eSafety commissioner said Inman Grant welcomed feedback on the draft standards – including on the technical feasibility exception.

“Having mandatory and enforceable codes in place, which put the onus back on industry to take meaningful action against the worst-of-the-worst content appearing on their products and services, is a tremendously important online safety milestone,” Inman Grant said.


The original article contains 468 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 60%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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[–] FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

Good. I fully support them. Fuck this shit

[–] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Organisations and groups who want to protect privacy should come up with ways themselves on how to protect their services from certain activities.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You mean like implementing strong data privacy measures and fighting regulators to protect them? That sounds like a good idea to me. If you’re interested, that is what the article is about.

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