Which is why this bill is a complete disaster for the Australian tech industry. Every single software company in Australia just became blackmarked and could be "potentially compromised" by the government and whoever has figured out the governments likely hamfisted and boutique backdoor solutions.
Even someone's little SaaS can be asked to turn up dirt on someone. I literally couldn't comply. I don't write encryption algorithms for a living I just build websites. I can't not encrypt people's data and according to european laws I can't store most of it anyway. Here, gov, have a username, email address, and this blob of encrypted text. Enjoy the insight.
It's getting so hostile to do business in software. At least construction and engineering liabilities are clear cut. I don't even know what my risks factors are anymore and they change every month.
It took longer than expected, but the governments have finally decided it's time to ruin the internet. I am going to go be a carpenter or something.
Do we know of any organised groups who are opposing this? Both of our main political parties are in bed with this disaster so we can’t leave it to the opposition.
You’re clearly smart and lucid. Me perhaps less so but I have some spare time. Who else? Where are they gathering? What can I do?
I’m talking basic communications and publicity stuff, not anything anarchistic. Helping non-tech journalists. Writing articles to help the public understand this stuff. Lobbying MPs.
> I literally couldn't comply. I don't write encryption algorithms for a living I just build websites.
I don't think you'd have to "break encryption" or do anything advanced, the main thing they're looking to ask is to circumvent encryption. For example sending the plaintext password for a specific user from the login form, or OS backdoor, etc., delivered through a special software update just for that user. Additionally the wording of the law does not allow for an inability for you to do it, I believe you would be compelled to hire someone that can.
I believe you are right. What an insane proposition though.
How do you advertise for the position? Lie about the job and then once they are on board the government hits them with the no-tell paperwork? What a shitty person I would have to become to make that happen, and I would have no choice at that point.
Perhaps they would have a saboteur on staff they would be willing to lend. Very hard position to hire for, no doubt.
Yeah, and I guess most contractors would refuse to have anything to do with the project once they found out what was involved.
Actually I'm not sure you could hire a contractor, since you'd probably be under a secrecy constraint and wouldn't be able to tell them what needed to be done.
I recently had some electrician, plumbing and gas work done and the bill was around my contractor rate here in NZ.
Given the politics and bs around the big corps and govt ministries my skillsets fit into (business analyst/pm) a trade has been something I've been considering seriously for a while now. The peace of mind and lack of toxic office cultures is really appealing. They're apprenticeships too, so you're paid as you learn.
My father started his own house painting business when I was born. It's tough work and not great pay, but he loves the peace of mind of being his own boss. I worked with him growing up and can attest that owning your life in this way is actually very liberating.
Being in NZ, I wonder: do you know Mike Rowe, from the American TV show 'Dirty Jobs'? If not I encourage you to research him and the TV show. It's not very often I recommend television.
This law is so entirely bad, it's literally making highly-paid software engineers, who are essential to our way of life, seriously consider revoking their citizenship, leaving the country, working in another field, and encouraging other countries to boycott dealing with Australia entirely.
There's another alternative you maybe haven't considered: give up your Australian citizenship.
This is something I'm seriously considering. I live in Europe anyway, and at this rate I have zero interest in ever living in Australia again. I won't return, and I won't do anything to support Australia in any way, if I have to go down this path.
The Australian government has truly committed a hostile act against its own citizens.
Suppose there is an Australian who works on important and widely used open source infrastructural software, has commit rights, and is compelled to insert a back door by this new law. Well, obviously that would be really bad. But it seems unlikely to succeed; too many eyeballs. Something closed like a mobile communications app in an app store seems like a more plausible target, but we should already have no faith in apps in app stores in the first place, with or without such laws in existence, wherever they come from. Even with "open source" apps, there is no way to know that you're running the same code. More generally, I have no faith at all that a person or company that develops such apps in (insert other country here) is not similarly compromised, even if they don't have an explicit law like that. For example, some countries have secret courts and secret court orders, so who knows? So as an end user I wouldn't personally feel any more secure if Australian developers were banned from participating in projects I care about, and of course that'd be terrible for those developers.
On the other hand, if I were a global company developing proprietary software with development offices in Australia I'd be pretty concerned... and complain loudly and publicly and lay down what the consequences will be. Maybe there could already have been court orders and ways to compel companies to assist at the management level (in probably any country), and maybe there could potentially be moles (from any country) hiding anywhere, but if the more tinfoil hat interpretations are correct this turns every employee on that continent into a mole, and even worse, risks accidental compromises through incompetence (beyond the specific target of a warrant/order/whatever). Right?
In the late 90s I recall hearing of crypto work being done in Australia to avoid the crypto export laws of certain other countries. If I'm remembering that correctly, its software development economy may have benefited in the past from other countries making choices like these, and I suppose it will now suffer. Why would a bank or whatever want to expose itself to that? Australian offices could totally finish up blacklisted for certain software projects.
Maybe you're joking, but this will arguably affect employment prospects for Australian engineers etc. And their acceptance by open-source software projects.
Put it this way: it was passed into law with bipartisan support by both democratically elected legislative chambers of the Commonwealth of Australia.
All it took to convince the representatives and senators was for a submission from the Australian Federal Police that it was necessary to investigate threats over Christmas.
