[AusNOG] Assistance and Access Bill moves to PJCIS

Wed Nov 28 16:11:33 EST 2018

Paul,
Yes and no. 'The rights of service providers to manage their own affairs'
should be subject to the rule of law. With the important qualification that
per the Dec'n Human Rights, any intrusion by the state of private property
(both a service provider's code base and data centres are private property)
must be necessary, proportionate, and subject to the rule of law. Service
providers have a right to insist that any intrusion is specific, non
arbitrary, and for due process, should not be subject to determination by
Law Enforcement, but should be a question for, and appealable to, the
judiciary. Service providers (and 3rd parties) should be adequately
compensated for any damage done to their interests because of Law
Enforcement malfeasance or misfeasance.

Much of what's considered legitimate activities in the Bill is subject to
arbitrary interpretation by Law Enforcement, or sufficiently vague that Law
Enforcement has an open license. A rule based system is predicated on
everybody knowing what the rules are, a priori, and then going from there.
The vague and open ended drafting of the Bill allows Law Enforcement ample
scope to make it up as they go (to the point, illegally obtained evidence
would still be admissable).

Kind regards

Paul Wilkins

On Wed, 28 Nov 2018 at 12:05, Paul Brooks <pbrooks-ausnog at layer10.com.au>
wrote:

> On 28/11/2018 10:27 am, Paul Wilkins wrote:
>
>
>
> I do think (and it's not a generally popular position) that the internet
> does need to, and is going to be, regulated. This doesn't however justify
> measures that are unnecessarily invasive of citizens' rights, such as right
> to privacy and the right of service providers to manage their own affairs.
> I support the need for law enforcement to have powers to pursue terrrorists
> and serious crime in the context of increasing use of encryption, but this
> isn't that bill.
>
> Apart from 'the rights of service providers to manage their own affairs',
> this is spot on. ('right of service providers to manage their own affairs'
> has never been a thing, service providers have always been subject to
> regulation and external management, and the recent ACCC, ACMA and TIO
> crack-downs on RSPs in the name of improving end-customer experience is
> more of this - much as the current Banking Royal Commission has came from
> boards and executives thinking there was 'rights of banks to manage their
> own affairs' to the detriment of banking customers - but this is a
> digression)
>
> Worth looking through the most recent Paris Call for Trust and Security in
> Cyberspace released at the IGF held earlier this month.
>
>
> https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/digital-diplomacy/france-and-cyber-security/article/cybersecurity-paris-call-of-12-november-2018-for-trust-and-security-in
>
> https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/paris_call_text_-_en_cle06f918.pdf
>
> and some words from Andrew Sullivan, President of the Internet Society on
> the same topic:
>
>
> https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2018/11/we-wont-save-the-internet-by-breaking-it/
>
> "It is, of course, true that governments should protect their citizens,
> and that they are the only ones in a position to offer such protections. It
> does not follow that every protective measure a government tries is one
> that will work. Some of them may even do harm.
>
>
> .....
>
> None of this, of course, means that every regulation that could possibly
> touch something connected to the Internet is automatically wrong. Many
> services that we use on the Internet (virtually every social media service,
> for instance) are closed systems that really operate *on top of* the
> Internet. It is possible that effective social responses to some of the
> challenges arising from those systems can be addressed in part through
> appropriate regulatory frameworks. But hasty action, unilateral movement,
> and attempts to legislate values along national lines are as likely to
> break the Internet as they are to address social issues arising from
> Internet use.
>
>
> There is absolutely a place for national regulation of Internet activities
> - nobody can expect the government to take a hands-off approach. We have
> that now at the most fundamental level in the way that IP addresses and
> domain names, as forms of electronic addressing, are ultimately conducted
> under the authority of DOCA, devolved to be operated by APNIC and auDA
> respectively under license.
>
> Similarly, governments will seek to regulate the things that people do on
> top of the Internet, to protect the people say from online bullying,
> posting revenge-porn photos, anti-SPAM measures - much as they do for
> telephone services, such as the DoNotCall Register. To expect otherwise is
> unrealistic. Some of it is actually good to have.
>
> The important thing is that this community helps the government get the
> regulation, and level of regulation right - including of course pointing
> out how and where they're getting it wrong, as in this Bill, or when they
> try to propose a technology solution to a social behaviour problem.
>
> Paul.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> This Bill represents gross overreach, and has grave deficiencies in its
> drafting across governance and accountability for the use of police powers,
> beyond the adverse economic impacts for Australia consequent to undermining
> security. I'm fairly certain too at some point it will be argued the vague
> drafting grants law enforcement a mandate to gather carrier metadata
> <https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=7dec86a0-3a58-4d53-b0b4-6df5c918335e&subId=660759>
> and establish mass surveillance.
>
> The Bill should be set aside, but I fear the PJCIS will try to stitch
> together some sort of compromise leaving Australians with very diminished
> citizen rights compared to Europe.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Paul Wilkins
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, 28 Nov 2018 at 08:56, Mark Newton <newton at atdot.dotat.org> wrote:
>
>> Their real target is the same as it was in the 2008-2010 censorware
>> fight:
>>
>> They want to make it clear that this is not territory which is
>> unregulated; that they can and will interfere with it if and when it suits
>> them.
>>
>> I doubt they even know how and when that interference will happen at this
>> stage. But that isn’t important. It’s all about the agencies sticking their
>> thumb onto an industry segment and saying, “We’re in charge of this.”
>>
>>    - mark
>>
>>
>>
>> On 28 Nov 2018, at 8:25 AM, Robert Hudson <hudrob at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 27 Nov 2018 at 16:04, Mark Newton <newton at atdot.dotat.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 23, 2018, at 4:46 PM, Robert Hudson <hudrob at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 at 14:47, Paul Brooks <pbrooks-ausnog at layer10.com.au>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In theory no - this bill doesn't weaken encryption, and explicitly
>>>> doesn't allow any
>>>> changes that would weaken encryption.
>>>>
>>>
>>> They say that - but I don't believe them.  I don't think they even
>>> understand what they're suggesting (or if they do understand, they're
>>> relying on others not understanding, or not caring).
>>>
>>>
>>> I think it’s dangerous to assume they don’t know what they’re asking for.
>>>
>>
>> To clarify - I was speaking of the politicians.
>>
>>>
>>> MPs probably don’t know, that’s true. But they aren’t the source of
>>> these Bills: No has ever climbed out of bed in the morning and thought,
>>> “Y’know what ASD needs? Unencrypted access to SnapChat. Let’s make it
>>> happen.”
>>>
>>
>> I agree entirely.
>>
>>>
>>> MPs also aren’t in charge. PJCIS reliably decides whatever the
>>> bloody-hell ASIO and ASD want them to decide. The belief that there are a
>>> bunch of level-headed independent-minded politicians *making decisions* is
>>> crazy, there’s never been any evidence that that’s true.
>>>
>>
>> I think you may have missed highlighting the ludicrous notion of *level-headed
>> independent-minded politicians*.  I'd put a smiley there, but the
>> current state of our political leadership (if one could call it that) is so
>> abysmal that it's no laughing matter.
>>
>>>
>>> These Bills are drafted by the intelligence agencies themselves, and
>>> they know precisely what they’re demanding, they know precisely what the
>>> flow-on effects will be, and they’ve judged that for their own purposes,
>>> the cost/benefit analysis works in their favor.
>>>
>>
>> This is the bit that I don't get.
>>
>> They *must* know the effective outcomes of the TAN/TCN/TAR activities is
>> to introduce systemic weakness in the encryption processes they touch.  The
>> attack vectors against encryption (be it data at rest or data in flight)
>> are so narrow (given that they're asking for this, we can, I believe,
>> safely assume that they're not able to brute force things at this stage) as
>> to effectively mean "a way to retrieve the keys" or "a back door" - both
>> processes, once established, immediately introduce exactly the kind of
>> weaknesses the proposed bill supposedly protects against (noting the
>> incredibly low standard of proof that needs to be produced here).
>>
>> And even when they manage to convince Apple, Google, Samsung, etc to hand
>> over unlock keys to phones, and convince Facebook et al to either introduce
>> back doors or back-channels into their messaging apps (they must know the
>> folly of asking a carrier to do anything with an encrypted bit-stream -
>> maybe the focus on carriers is to try to get them to inject unlock code
>> into the bloatware they load on phones), they *must* know that they simply
>> won't magically gain access to communications between criminals (by
>> whatever measure you define criminal, be it terrorist, paedophile,
>> organised crime, etc - anyone who is rightfully the focus of legitimate
>> law-enforcement activity) because any of them with the ability to tie their
>> own shoes will immediately switch to communications processes and systems
>> that are not subject to this bill.
>>
>> The net result of this bill, like previous thought bubbles as the
>> Internet paedophile filter ("oh noes, Australians can't consume child porn
>> any more, oh well, we'd best wind up our little industry now, without the
>> tiny market that is Australia, we're clearly no longer viable"), will be to
>> send the real criminals, the ones smart enough to do real damage, deeper
>> into the places they're hard to find - they will just be driven further
>> underground, with no material impact on their ability to carry out their
>> goals.
>>
>> So, what benefit to the intelligence agencies get?  The power to track
>> terrorists not capable of finding the safety switch on an AK-47?  We seem
>> to be able to do that already, so I'm not sure that's something we can
>> accuse them of wanting.  Do they want to spy on law-abiding citizens (which
>> is contrary to the scope of their operational focus for some of them) - Is
>> this their real target?
>>
>>
>>> The possibility that the cost/benefit analysis works against other
>>> people is also well understood, but they choose to not distract the
>>> argument by engaging on that point. Bring it up as much as you like, they
>>> just ignore it and talk past it.
>>>
>>> For the last decade, there have been arguments about this stuff that
>>> have been based on the belief that the Government is too dumb to know what
>>> it’s asking for, and that reason will prevail if we just explain it to them
>>> with the facts.
>>>
>>> In case nobody’s noticed, that approach hasn’t worked, and there’s no
>>> indication that it will ever work.
>>>
>>
>> I only carry this point because I believe it helps to highlight what the
>> REAL desired end-state may be.  Because of the technical detail, this won't
>> help to catch competent criminals.  It won't help to catch incompetent ones
>> either (because they largely already give themselves up through stupidity
>> and shithouse OpSec).  So who is left as the target?
>>
>>>
>>> This community has spent years wasting its time by communicating facts
>>> to them that they already know, and don’t care about.
>>>
>>
>> I still don't think the politicians really get it - but I do take the
>> point that faced with taking advice from the departments they preside over,
>> or the public and/or industry associations, when there's simply no negative
>> to ignoring the latter groups, means that we're not going to get listened
>> to.
>>
>>>
>>> They also don’t care about compromises: If you give them 50% of what
>>> they want, they’ll come back 18 months later and demand the other 50%.
>>> That’s how they’ve always worked (cf: data retention: The AA Bill is the
>>> grab bag of stuff the A-G couldn’t ask for last time. And if they don’t get
>>> it all this time, they’ll be back in 2021 for the next tranche)
>>>
>>
>> I totally agree with this.  What the agencies don't get now, they'll
>> simply play the long game and get later.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Victory on these matters will never be won by having an argument based
>>> on the assumption that they need experts to explain facts and technology to
>>> them. The only way victory will be achieved is politically: There needs to
>>> be blowback, asking for more will need to cause them pain before they’ll
>>> stop.
>>>
>>
>> So, this needs to become an election issue - it's the only thing the
>> politicians understand.  We either need to convince the opposition or the
>> (ever growing) cross-bench that not only will supporting this legislation
>> lead to them not receiving votes in the next election, or that, more
>> specifically, opposing it will result in more vaults (offer the carrot,
>> rather than the stick?).  And make them realise that changing their mind
>> later will result in us changing our minds.
>>
>> Or we form a political party (or we directly infiltrate an existing one)
>> and push a very specific agenda against this sort of thing.
>>
>> By all accounts, we have until May 2019.
>>
>>
>>>   - mark
>>>
>>>
>>>
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