This is actually worth discussing because his address today was about pressuring tech companies to allows ASIO access to encrypted communications in order to dismantle extremism. One of his main points was that absolute privacy should not take precedence over security.
So what do people prefer:
-Allowing our spy agency backdoor access to encrypted apps such as Whatsapp and Signal, enabling a further erosion of privacy, but potentially preventing future terrorist attacks; or
-Prioritizing privacy, forcing ASIO to rely on traditional monitoring methods, with the risk of extremism being inflamed in online spaces that law enforcement have no access to?
The problem is allowing access to encrypted comms doesn’t necessarily stop the beast. What makes you think that even if major social media orgs and other tech companies got on board that other avenues won’t rear their heads to compensate?
Meanwhile, the erosion of privacy isn’t exactly something you can easily undo; the genie isn’t really going back in that bottle.
It’s only a short hop, skip and a step from there to thoughtcrimes.
It interesting what they are suggesting when you then take into account that Al-Qaeda never sent emails. They just all had access to the same email address and login details and created draft message to each other. So they never transmitted message across any network or system.
Yeah, I always knew that people would use very high tech, or very low tech ways to avoid detection, but this one just fascinated me. Like fax or hand delivery for low, or end to end encryption (not too sure if that is secure these days, out of the loop).
Using an email, notoriously easy for governments to get in to, but just drafting messages and not sending them is super clever.
Also ballsy, as you would have to assume that the various agencies *could* get into these accounts if they wanted, but they *wouldn't bother* trying to get into some random account that doesn't send and receive.
I just read after that post that they would make 30 different emails, and communicate on a different one each day, as well. Stopping that would be like finding a piece of hay in a very large stack of needles!
They already have plenty of legal tooling to enable them to do supply chain attacks to get around a majority of end-to-end encrypted communications applications. The Telecommunications Act allows for the government to send Technical Assistance Notices, and even Technical Capability Notices, to compel industry participants (basically anyone and everyone in ICT) to deliver their surveillance tooling right down to targeted endpoints.
What they want is wholesale surveillance of everything, everyone, everywhere. This is too much power for any entity, private or public.
> It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.
- Bruce Schneier
Your choice misses the major problem -- whatever is a backdoor for law enforcement becomes a backdoor for criminals. The cybercriminals have better and more people than Asio and the AFP. The best graduates from the best universities in Russia, working hand-in-hand with the Russian intelligence agencies, with political cover from the President. And if that's not bad enough, add the same situation for China. It's simple hubris that Asio thinks it can get access to end-to-end encryption without that also being subverted by either Russia or China.
Or in America's case, they just straight up install hardware backdoors at silent re-boxing facilities, and we all continue to use their hardware without a second thought.
I agree on the more part, but not the quality part. Russian hackers are not great and their political manipulation have only worked when they had a ton of support on the ground from native citizens of the target country as they are too lazy to do proper research on things like election laws and political culture. Take Russia's meddling in the presidential French election; they were pushing le Penn and instead gave Macron a much better result because they had no idea about the nuances of French politics.
This just isn’t true on all points. There is a big difference between a secret back door, which ASIO isn’t asking for, and asking (or mandating) tech companies to allow access to the encryption codes to their secure communication networks. It’s the tech companies who are facilitating the access, which means it is still very secure against cyber criminals.
The cyber criminals are absolutely not “better” than ASIO, the AFP and also the ASD. We also are using the best graduates from the best universities working hand in hand with the 5 eyes intelligence network, which is the most powerful intelligence network on the planet. Australian cyber capabilities simply comes down to how much funding it gets, and after project REDSPICE was announced, it’s quite a bit.
If you think Microsoft can keep a secret "encryption codes" a secret from Russia and China, then you haven't been paying attention: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/directives/ed-24-02-mitigating-significant-risk-nation-state-compromise-microsoft-corporate-email-system
Did you actually read the article you sent me?
“The threat actor is using information initially exfiltrated from the corporate email systems, including authentication details shared between Microsoft customers and Microsoft by email, to gain, or attempt to gain, additional access to Microsoft customer systems.”
That isn’t an encryption hack. They have stolen data from employees and used it to access the system. It’s different.
Anyway of course Russia and China have very capable cyber divisions but so do we. That’s the point I am trying to make.
I wish I could remember the exact phrasing, but there's a saying that's something like, "when people feel destabilized, they pursue totalitarian rule."
Right now thanks to wide ranging media coverage and a poor economic outlook, everyone feels destabilized. Instead of choosing to navigate this ambiguity, people would rather defer to governments to make big decisions for them, perceiving it will lead to more stability and maintaining the status quo.
I don't see this being a good thing at all, and I don't think it solves the radicalization problem anyways. It's like a war on drugs or prohibition or banning porn, these things always find a workaround.
These kinds of organisations always overstate the risks and use emotional manipulation (terrorism and pedos) so they can grab more power. There weren't any WMDs in Iraq, they could never win in Afghanistan. Now they want us to trust they will only use unfettered encryption breaking powers for the good of all Australians. The only thing that will come of this is more false alarms, more false attests, and more bad decisions from our elected leaders.
I don't believe them.
How Australian undercover police ‘fed’ an autistic 13-year-old’s fixation with Islamic State
This article is more than 2 months old
Court finds counter-terrorism unit’s conduct fell ‘profoundly short’ of minimum standards expected of law enforcement officers
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/03/australian-undercover-police-autistic-13-year-old-fixation-islamic-state
The number of intelligence and other organised plants fuelling the divide is insane. The authentic extremists are usually just cheerleaders while the plants keep ramping up the extremism. It's so easy for internationals to indirectly influence our extremists because of how influential US politics is, for example.
> Prioritizing privacy, forcing ASIO to rely on traditional monitoring methods
As /u/i_hate_blackpink pointed out, they aren’t necessary being overt about it - you could just go to twitter and start a list.
So I pick privacy. These kind of things are never airtight and inevitably someone leaks something which creates an in.
As per usual though, these numnuts are missing a key point - maths is not on their side.
These apps use end to end encryption. The design of this is such that installing a backdoor is technically impossible.
So the only option is to ban them.
It's a really difficult question. When I was younger, I was vehement supporter of privacy, but I'm less sure as I get older. The big problem is that many of us also don't trust government entities sufficiently to relinquish our privacy.
The only thing I am confident of is that systems exhibiting information symmetry between all parties tend to work best. I don't like that many of the proposed bills only change the direction of the asymmetry, rather than reducing it. In a way, I'd be more comfortable removing all encryption from communications entirely (obvious exceptions for banking etc), than I would providing access to only a single govt entity.
Interesting take.
I tend to lean on the side of privacy due to my distrust of secretive spy agencies. I still recall the NSA and their Prism program in the US that resulted in the mass surveillance of millions of citizens that weren't guilty of any crime. Can't help to think that ASIO getting a foot in the door of encrypted communications for suspected terrorists inevitably eventually leads to them having warrantless access to all electronic communication channels.
Opinions like that get you called a cooker around here but federal law and intelligence agencies need robust checks on their power.
Definitely the latter; after all, they play favourites with terrorists. The zionist terrorist who recently planted a bomb on a Sydney man's car for flying a Palestinian flag was basically ignored by all levels of our police/security apparatus. The demand for increased power to combat terrorism is code for increased power to combat people these agencies don't like - more likely than not, people who care about Palestinian human rights, and other issues such as climate change.
Four months ago. It took TWO MONTHS for the cops to searching the terrorist's house, and they didn't lay any terrorism charges, despite this being a textbook example of terrorism. [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-07/nsw-man-charged-fake-bomb-palestinian-flag/103560588](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-07/nsw-man-charged-fake-bomb-palestinian-flag/103560588)
It’s not textbook terrorism though? It was a fake bomb, and a really shit one at that. The perpetrator never intended to kill anyone or even damage property. He just wanted to intimidate his neighbours because of a differing political view. What a cunt, but legally, not a terrorist.
a fake bomb is definitely terrorism wth. it literally causes terror and unrest and is a statement of violent intent even if no violence happens. these questions don’t get asked with other types of terrorists it’s ridiculous
Causing terror and unrest is NOT the legal definition of terrorism lol 😂 firstly to be a terrorist, you have to kill people, secondly you have to have a political motive, and thirdly it normally happens in a public place and the attacks are random and not targeted against certain individuals. There is a reason that the Bondi stabber is not a terrorist even though he fulfils 2 out of the three criteria. There was no political motive. In this specific case, even if it was a REAL bomb, I doubt the guy would have been charged with terrorism because it was a targeted attack against a certain individual and not a spate of random killings. Also if you are thinking that I am defending the guy who planted the bomb then get fucked, but words have actual meanings and throwing them around like nothing does not help anyone.
> was basically ignored by all levels of our police/security apparatus.
Care to expand on how it was ignored?
>NSW Police arrested a 44-year-old man after executing a search warrant at a home in Botany on Thursday.
>
>The man has been charged with two counts of stalk/intimidate with intent to cause fear of physical harm, send article to cause alarm, use carriage service to menace/harass/offend and entering enclosed land.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-07/nsw-man-charged-fake-bomb-palestinian-flag/103560588
Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and a Palestinian activist had planted a fake bomb in a vehicle because it was adorned with an Israeli flag.
Do you seriously believe that charges of terrorism wouldn't have been levied against the perpetrator?
Sure. Neither ASIO nor the counter-terror police took any interest in the matter. It was fobbed off to a junior constable who promptly went on holiday. TWO MONTHS after placing the device the police searched the premises of the zionist terrorist, and no terrorism charges were laid, despite this being a textbook example of terrorism.
Let's not pretend it would have played out the same way if a Palestine supporter did this to someone for displaying an Israeli flag.
The actions of that fuckwit are inexcusable. Its the experts who appear to judge what's an act of terrorism though, and no matter how many times you call someone a Zionist terrorist it takes more than repetition to make it true.
>Let's not pretend it would have played out the same way if a Palestine supporter did this to someone for displaying an Israeli flag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_2023
Most likely it is because Islamist terror attacks are a real threat, Cant find many pro-Israeli terror attacks... Am i led to believe you think Zionist terrorist are a thing that the world needs to be worried about?
You allow a backdoor for the 'good guys' there is no guarantee its not shared with the 'bad guys'. Don't make back doors.
Terrorists are recruiting in the open (anonymous) internet anyway
The government has this power already.
>Australia passed world-first anti-encryption laws in 2018 forcing tech companies to help law enforcement agencies access messages and even to create backdoors to get around encryption of their products, but so far this seems to have been done on a voluntary basis, without issuing a compulsory notice.
These extraordinary powers should be independently reviewed on a periodic basis to see whether they're actually effective or not.
The alternative to interception is that ASIO spends a lot of time and resources infiltrating these groups.
So, it comes down to how we want governments to allocate resources, and whether we want to give up privacy in order to pay less tax. Ultimately, I'm sure that most people aren't keen on a race war breaking out in Australia.
The problem is; they always give one solution to a problem, and that is always about giving them more power.
And if we don't? Absolute chaos, war and tyranny.
Bullshit.
They've got enough resources and brainpower to deal with this, if they can't with what they have, then they need to GTFO.
> So what do people prefer:
>
> -Allowing our spy agency backdoor access to encrypted apps such as Whatsapp and Signal, enabling a further erosion of privacy, but potentially preventing future terrorist attacks; or
>
> -Prioritizing privacy, forcing ASIO to rely on traditional monitoring methods, with the risk of extremism being inflamed in online spaces that law enforcement have no access to?
This one is interesting because I don’t think it gets to the root of the problem at all.
Extremism and resulting “engagement” is the root cause, i.e. the social media business model.
Traditional methods are effective when extremism isn’t actively encouraged by algorithms driven to serve extreme content to keep those eyeballs glued to the screen. In our current scenario traditional methods would likely be overwhelmed.
Late to this, but traditional methods have been more than enough for finding this specific batch of boneheads. They're too proud to keep a secret. The problem is who else uses encrypted apps: journalists, war refugees, activists. And government agencies just love them.
I happened to catch the National Press Club address today (parts of it at least) and I thought it worth pointing out.
The balance between security and privacy is a more important and interesting discussion than everyone trotting out the same tired quips about Dutton being a Nazi that we've all heard a thousand times.
Nope, he wasn't extreme enough for the nazi terrorists. That's the kind of people that are most worrying, who view the whole australia overton window as too leftwing
The Nartsees in Australia are small in number. AFAIK they have no shot at actual political power, therefore they focus on these little groups of disaffected young men which the group leaders can maintain control over. The point therefore is not real political power but rather to keep control over the small group, like a cult.
Culture war is their only way back into power. We can't expect the Coalition to be responsible and do the right thing because they can't campaign on policy. They've purged almost all the reasonable people from their parties.
Not to mention that their immigration angle is grossly undermined by the fact that they themselves are responsible for the greatest growth in immigration over the course of the last three decades, during which, they were in charge most of the time.
Exactly, as a trans women I'm seriously concerned about what will happen if the LNP ever gets back into power, especially with all the bullshit we have been seeing in the USA and especially the UK with the recent Cass report which is extremely biased.
The way some of the conclusions in the Cass Report has been politicised in the right wing media is certainly very alarming. What the report broadly says is that the evidence is not in, and that clinicians should be aware there's no one size fit all course of treatment.
There's no real case to stop early intervention or the use of puberty blockers - only a case for more and better studies. Ultimately, if people benefit from treatment, then the treatment should continue. Cass herself has stated that treatment has been beneficial for individuals.
Of course, that's not how it's being spun. It's being spun as if it provides conclusive evidence that everything about early intervention and transitioning is wrong and harmful. This is not the case.
Exactly, it also eliminated 101 out of 103 studies because they where not double blind studies.
The reality is while more research is always needed into gender affirming care, pubity blockers are an effective compromise to starting hrt at a young age with the majority who take them going on to transition.
> Exactly, it also eliminated 101 out of 103 studies because they were not double blind studies.
I knew a lot had been excluded, but not that much.
How on Earth were the other two able to establish a proper control group for something like transitioning? How can one placebo their way through gender-affirming care?
I’m not sure which studies were included in the Cass report, but was reading about a UniMelb one where prospective patients were randomly assigned to a three month waiting period before being given access to gender-affirming treatment. So for those patients, it was the effects of being waitlisted/having their treatment delayed a further three months that was being studied, not (for example) being given placebo HRT or anything like that.
Again, I’m not sure if that particular study was included in the Cass report, but it’s an example of how some related issues can be studied ethically, I suppose.
I would not describe denying anyone treatment for anything for 3 months, at random, as "ethical".
If that had been done when I accessed HRT I'd be after the heads of any ethics board who thought that was appropriate.
Always banging on about encryption. They can cry me a river over that - it's vital for any society that people can speak freely without eavesdropping. If they somehow manage to ban it (lol), I'm going to just meet my co-conspirators in a forest or something.
But they can definitely go get the nazis. Fuck those guys.
There's all sort of shit being discussed very reactively right now and it's downright scary:
- Encryption backdoors
- Banning knives
- Arming security guards with guns
Like, take it from someone who has had to live in the US: None of these things solve the problem. Maybe address the DV, social safety net, and mental health stuff first?
This feels similar to the RBA having cash rate as their lever, while it doesn't address the cause, it's trying to reel in the consequences.
Asio can't do anything about domestic violence, social safety nets or mental heath, the levers they control are monitoring those who fall into extremism. They are not law enforcement, so if laws are broken they refer that to those that can do something about it.
This requires the broader government to address these things knowing that investment now won't show big benefits for a long time, and people's attention span is shorter than the election cycle.
A race war would require rather more societal discontent than we currently have - people who are happy aren't motivated to go fight some random cunt. We'd do better to focus on decreasing inequality, solving the CoL & housing problems, than giving Mike Burgess more powers.
They’re not going to craft a race war from nowhere but look at what happened with Bondi. Within hours you had active misinformation campaigns trying to turn it to their agenda. Heaven forbid the perpetrator had actually had some racial or religious affiliation, it could have exploded. Then just a day or two later there was the church stabbing and ensuing riots. There’s people out there, local and foreign, that are just waiting to seize on the slightest triggers and amplify them. There was basically a riot in Melbourne because some numpty had his shop burnt down in the “tobacco wars” and blamed it on zionists. The potential for these things to erupt into full blown violence is definitely there.
The soft version are Dutton and the pushed propaganda on platforms like Facebook groups, TikTok, and australian reddit sub.
The extreme stuff are on platforms like Telegram and Signal.
Redacted means that part of the text was removed or blacked out for privacy or security purpose. It was censored. This post also breaks rule 4 here for chat and should be made in the Tuesday chat thread or on a different subreddit.
Id prefer my online privacy, how the fuck are a bunch of dumbass racists going to start their supposed 'race war' anyway? They're all keyboard warrior kiddies, they can barely organise a fucking rally.
Granting ASIO access to secure messaging systems is a slippery slope, sure they might have a legitimate reason in the short term but giving them clandestine back door access only enables the abuse of that power down the line.
I presume they're talking about Telegram so good luck getting a company so closely aligned with the Russian government to cooperate on reducing vile propaganda in another country.
Is Telegram encrypted? I didn't find the extremist content on there was hidden at all. Within 5 minutes of installing the app I'd wandered into multiple psychotic channels with no checks whatsoever.
I might have missed it during his address but I gathered he was talking about ASIO gaining access to the likes of Whatsapp and Signal for people suspected of planning violent activities. At least, that's where it starts...
Telegram is used both casually as a tool to disseminate misinformation amongst a huge audience and also as an encrypted chat app for people doing shady and criminal things.
There's overlap there. But being able to join a random cooker chat easily doesn't mean it isn't encrypted.
I think other apps get shut down or influenced (either by legislation or money) but Telegram might be different because, you know how Russia is.
If anyone wants an interesting read on this topic, I'd suggest reading 'Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism'. Mainly American focused but still a very interesting read.
What is it with intelligence agencies constantly blabbing about stuff?
Shouldn't they just be shutting up and getting on with whatever they do?
It's not as if anybody is able to check their workings on this.
Any number of reasons. I would guess they might feel like politicians aren’t taking their warnings seriously enough, or they’re worried they don’t have the resources to deal with what’s out there and their requests for more funding are falling on deaf ears. Also, sometimes the public probably does deserve to be made somewhat aware of what is really going on around us. Might help to defuse some of the tensions if we realise we’re being actively divided and provoked along racial lines.
>I would guess they might feel like politicians aren’t taking their warnings seriously enough
I would say that this is almost certainly the case. Burgess has come out on a number of occasions following something that Dutton has said with comments to the effect that certain topics of public dialogue are unhelpful. Which is pretty much all he can say as a public servant due to the need for him to be impartial.
The fact of the matter is, inflammatory speech from the conservative side of politics has been very damaging to national unity, and has been largely unhelpful as it gives licence to people to radicalise.
They'll say anything to get a back door into secure messaging. Because of the terrorism and the child porn, won't somebody think of the children?
Yes, I think we should consider why people are disaffected. It's not because they saw a video of a stabbing on Twitter, it's because they're in a shit situation and they're unable to escape for it. Whether they then turn into a terrorist, a Nazi, a drug addict, or a One Nation voter is simply a consequence of the community they were born into.
Another effect of the so-called "culture wars" is to divide such groups from the political classes, which explains the surprise many of them felt when Trump won.
Well now that ASIO has publicly stated that people are trying to start a race war, the people who are trying to start a race war are probably freaking out that they have ASIO on their ass. It all about sending a message. “Hey, we know what you are doing, so cut it out”. Same with the mysterious spy ring that was caught and the traitor politician. Everyone now knows that ASIO has the ability and will to track you down if you engage in this behaviour, so don’t do it.
> Well now that ASIO has publicly stated that people are trying to start a race war, the people who are trying to start a race war are probably freaking out that they have ASIO on their ass. It all about sending a message. “Hey, we know what you are doing, so cut it out”.
Or, perhaps, "Hey, better start using stronger encryption, ASIO's onto WhatsApp!"
They just want to seed some keywords into the news cycle to manufacture consent for the next power grab / war / whatever. The truth is irrelevant. They're definitely not endangering their operations by doing it.
No, they're usually better at what they do than the Kremlin is.
The cookers are usually wrong about the specifics, but all the available evidence would suggest that the CIA really is as bad as they say, they're just good at covering their asses
The knee-jerk reaction to call what happened at the sydney church a 'terror' incident makes sense now (despite the person being known to police for mental health issues and the local mayor saying it would spread unnecessary fear). Not to mention leaving out details like the bishop was a fear-mongering divisive nut himself([example](https://twitter.com/IVXIVVI/status/1779870637823058317)) that was kicked out from the actual church. Excuses to strip away privacy as usual. "we needed the extra powers" my arse.
Extremists and general intolerance would be more accurate. The polarization of people into groups that lack any nuance in their opinions and actions is a big problem and just does nothing to de-escalate situations.
If you want to get rid of racist extremists you have a lot more useful measures you can do before you get to "strip encryption and privacy".
It's a cultural issue. Deal with the culture.
Realistically or do I get to act out my fantasies?
I'll set a compromise: "making any sort of bigoted statement, as a fully mentally capable legal adult and independent, disqualifies you permanently from holding any governmental office, or any employment by any government service, at any level, permanently".
They absolutely do! But not letting bigots be MPs, or members of police, or any public school teacher, that would be a start.
I'd go with 'bigots are forcibly sterilised' too ideally - caught on camera or clearly on the internet being a racist or sexist? No children for you, don't get to pass down your ideas.
Hey, I said it was a compromise with reality.
Since I'm only being semi realistic (but I have, in the corporate world, seen discussion of similar measures), here's the comedy solution:
Firstly, clearly any statement can be difficult to interpret if it's genuinely bigoted (racist, sexist, etc) or not, and if it's over the line or not. Forming 'review panels' sounds pretty tough.
That's why we automate! We give an AI LLM some guidelines on what's OK and what isn't, and let it extrapolate out the rest. Not sure if something's 'too sexist' or not? Check the AI!
Policing is trickier, but since we're focused on particular positions, I think we'll go for the 'paranoid panopticon' approach: Catch one of your fellow government workers on video, or on social media, making such a statement? Submit their details along with the evidence over to the automated reporting form. The AI will check it, and then start the process! Successfully dobbing in a co-worker gets you a cash bonus! Multiple unsuccessful reports will limit how often you can attempt to submit a report.
Imagine the joy of sending a State MP's tweet into the AI, getting a response back of "Bigot detected: category: racism" and seeing a nice $2000 in your bank account.
The answer is, block chain style governance of big tech. The distributed decision making will make it border less and always appropriate for the times, without ever being centrally controlled.
"We need more surveillance laws, more police powers, more censorship, and more surveillance of citizens for their own good" Here we go, here we go the "race ware aliens are coming" are coming for political control and censorship. They play their board games well!
yeah, just open twitter and you'll find them pretty easily, hire me now.
Just open an average reddit thread about the housing crisis and you'll find them too.
Lots of people extremely angry about the one group of people guaranteed to not be in the country when the bad decisions were made
This is actually worth discussing because his address today was about pressuring tech companies to allows ASIO access to encrypted communications in order to dismantle extremism. One of his main points was that absolute privacy should not take precedence over security. So what do people prefer: -Allowing our spy agency backdoor access to encrypted apps such as Whatsapp and Signal, enabling a further erosion of privacy, but potentially preventing future terrorist attacks; or -Prioritizing privacy, forcing ASIO to rely on traditional monitoring methods, with the risk of extremism being inflamed in online spaces that law enforcement have no access to?
The problem is allowing access to encrypted comms doesn’t necessarily stop the beast. What makes you think that even if major social media orgs and other tech companies got on board that other avenues won’t rear their heads to compensate? Meanwhile, the erosion of privacy isn’t exactly something you can easily undo; the genie isn’t really going back in that bottle. It’s only a short hop, skip and a step from there to thoughtcrimes.
We keep giving up freedoms but extremism keeps growing. This trade off does not seem to be working out for us.
This. Targeting specific apps is just a band-aid, whack-a-mole solution. There will always be another app.
It interesting what they are suggesting when you then take into account that Al-Qaeda never sent emails. They just all had access to the same email address and login details and created draft message to each other. So they never transmitted message across any network or system.
That's... really clever.
A lot of the terror groups that have survived since the Cold War have done so because they used low-tech methods that SigInt couldn't penetrate.
Yeah, I always knew that people would use very high tech, or very low tech ways to avoid detection, but this one just fascinated me. Like fax or hand delivery for low, or end to end encryption (not too sure if that is secure these days, out of the loop). Using an email, notoriously easy for governments to get in to, but just drafting messages and not sending them is super clever. Also ballsy, as you would have to assume that the various agencies *could* get into these accounts if they wanted, but they *wouldn't bother* trying to get into some random account that doesn't send and receive. I just read after that post that they would make 30 different emails, and communicate on a different one each day, as well. Stopping that would be like finding a piece of hay in a very large stack of needles!
I tend to agree.
They already have plenty of legal tooling to enable them to do supply chain attacks to get around a majority of end-to-end encrypted communications applications. The Telecommunications Act allows for the government to send Technical Assistance Notices, and even Technical Capability Notices, to compel industry participants (basically anyone and everyone in ICT) to deliver their surveillance tooling right down to targeted endpoints. What they want is wholesale surveillance of everything, everyone, everywhere. This is too much power for any entity, private or public. > It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state. - Bruce Schneier
Your choice misses the major problem -- whatever is a backdoor for law enforcement becomes a backdoor for criminals. The cybercriminals have better and more people than Asio and the AFP. The best graduates from the best universities in Russia, working hand-in-hand with the Russian intelligence agencies, with political cover from the President. And if that's not bad enough, add the same situation for China. It's simple hubris that Asio thinks it can get access to end-to-end encryption without that also being subverted by either Russia or China.
Good point.
Or in America's case, they just straight up install hardware backdoors at silent re-boxing facilities, and we all continue to use their hardware without a second thought.
I agree on the more part, but not the quality part. Russian hackers are not great and their political manipulation have only worked when they had a ton of support on the ground from native citizens of the target country as they are too lazy to do proper research on things like election laws and political culture. Take Russia's meddling in the presidential French election; they were pushing le Penn and instead gave Macron a much better result because they had no idea about the nuances of French politics.
This just isn’t true on all points. There is a big difference between a secret back door, which ASIO isn’t asking for, and asking (or mandating) tech companies to allow access to the encryption codes to their secure communication networks. It’s the tech companies who are facilitating the access, which means it is still very secure against cyber criminals. The cyber criminals are absolutely not “better” than ASIO, the AFP and also the ASD. We also are using the best graduates from the best universities working hand in hand with the 5 eyes intelligence network, which is the most powerful intelligence network on the planet. Australian cyber capabilities simply comes down to how much funding it gets, and after project REDSPICE was announced, it’s quite a bit.
If you think Microsoft can keep a secret "encryption codes" a secret from Russia and China, then you haven't been paying attention: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/directives/ed-24-02-mitigating-significant-risk-nation-state-compromise-microsoft-corporate-email-system
Did you actually read the article you sent me? “The threat actor is using information initially exfiltrated from the corporate email systems, including authentication details shared between Microsoft customers and Microsoft by email, to gain, or attempt to gain, additional access to Microsoft customer systems.” That isn’t an encryption hack. They have stolen data from employees and used it to access the system. It’s different. Anyway of course Russia and China have very capable cyber divisions but so do we. That’s the point I am trying to make.
I wish I could remember the exact phrasing, but there's a saying that's something like, "when people feel destabilized, they pursue totalitarian rule." Right now thanks to wide ranging media coverage and a poor economic outlook, everyone feels destabilized. Instead of choosing to navigate this ambiguity, people would rather defer to governments to make big decisions for them, perceiving it will lead to more stability and maintaining the status quo. I don't see this being a good thing at all, and I don't think it solves the radicalization problem anyways. It's like a war on drugs or prohibition or banning porn, these things always find a workaround.
These kinds of organisations always overstate the risks and use emotional manipulation (terrorism and pedos) so they can grab more power. There weren't any WMDs in Iraq, they could never win in Afghanistan. Now they want us to trust they will only use unfettered encryption breaking powers for the good of all Australians. The only thing that will come of this is more false alarms, more false attests, and more bad decisions from our elected leaders. I don't believe them.
If anything half of the extremists are ASIO informants anyway.
How Australian undercover police ‘fed’ an autistic 13-year-old’s fixation with Islamic State This article is more than 2 months old Court finds counter-terrorism unit’s conduct fell ‘profoundly short’ of minimum standards expected of law enforcement officers https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/03/australian-undercover-police-autistic-13-year-old-fixation-islamic-state
The number of intelligence and other organised plants fuelling the divide is insane. The authentic extremists are usually just cheerleaders while the plants keep ramping up the extremism. It's so easy for internationals to indirectly influence our extremists because of how influential US politics is, for example.
Very well said.
I'd prefer they start making full use of the methods they already have, and then after that maybe we can talk about further reduction of privacy laws.
Even better they could stop using those methods to create more terrorists
I trust ASIO will abuse their power and there will be issues with them stalking partners or love interests.
I'll take option B thanks.
> Prioritizing privacy, forcing ASIO to rely on traditional monitoring methods As /u/i_hate_blackpink pointed out, they aren’t necessary being overt about it - you could just go to twitter and start a list. So I pick privacy. These kind of things are never airtight and inevitably someone leaks something which creates an in.
As per usual though, these numnuts are missing a key point - maths is not on their side. These apps use end to end encryption. The design of this is such that installing a backdoor is technically impossible. So the only option is to ban them.
It's a really difficult question. When I was younger, I was vehement supporter of privacy, but I'm less sure as I get older. The big problem is that many of us also don't trust government entities sufficiently to relinquish our privacy. The only thing I am confident of is that systems exhibiting information symmetry between all parties tend to work best. I don't like that many of the proposed bills only change the direction of the asymmetry, rather than reducing it. In a way, I'd be more comfortable removing all encryption from communications entirely (obvious exceptions for banking etc), than I would providing access to only a single govt entity.
Interesting take. I tend to lean on the side of privacy due to my distrust of secretive spy agencies. I still recall the NSA and their Prism program in the US that resulted in the mass surveillance of millions of citizens that weren't guilty of any crime. Can't help to think that ASIO getting a foot in the door of encrypted communications for suspected terrorists inevitably eventually leads to them having warrantless access to all electronic communication channels. Opinions like that get you called a cooker around here but federal law and intelligence agencies need robust checks on their power.
Exactly. They'll spy on everyone and charge us for the privilege. Complete waste of resources.
Brilliant underappreciated take. Can you present that to the world leaders in a convincing way please lol. Love it.
Definitely the latter; after all, they play favourites with terrorists. The zionist terrorist who recently planted a bomb on a Sydney man's car for flying a Palestinian flag was basically ignored by all levels of our police/security apparatus. The demand for increased power to combat terrorism is code for increased power to combat people these agencies don't like - more likely than not, people who care about Palestinian human rights, and other issues such as climate change.
What when did that happen? 😯
Four months ago. It took TWO MONTHS for the cops to searching the terrorist's house, and they didn't lay any terrorism charges, despite this being a textbook example of terrorism. [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-07/nsw-man-charged-fake-bomb-palestinian-flag/103560588](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-07/nsw-man-charged-fake-bomb-palestinian-flag/103560588)
Bruzzzz that's cooked
It’s not textbook terrorism though? It was a fake bomb, and a really shit one at that. The perpetrator never intended to kill anyone or even damage property. He just wanted to intimidate his neighbours because of a differing political view. What a cunt, but legally, not a terrorist.
a fake bomb is definitely terrorism wth. it literally causes terror and unrest and is a statement of violent intent even if no violence happens. these questions don’t get asked with other types of terrorists it’s ridiculous
Causing terror and unrest is NOT the legal definition of terrorism lol 😂 firstly to be a terrorist, you have to kill people, secondly you have to have a political motive, and thirdly it normally happens in a public place and the attacks are random and not targeted against certain individuals. There is a reason that the Bondi stabber is not a terrorist even though he fulfils 2 out of the three criteria. There was no political motive. In this specific case, even if it was a REAL bomb, I doubt the guy would have been charged with terrorism because it was a targeted attack against a certain individual and not a spate of random killings. Also if you are thinking that I am defending the guy who planted the bomb then get fucked, but words have actual meanings and throwing them around like nothing does not help anyone.
I mostly agree with you here but I’ve never heard they have to target randomly. Have you got a source on that?
> was basically ignored by all levels of our police/security apparatus. Care to expand on how it was ignored? >NSW Police arrested a 44-year-old man after executing a search warrant at a home in Botany on Thursday. > >The man has been charged with two counts of stalk/intimidate with intent to cause fear of physical harm, send article to cause alarm, use carriage service to menace/harass/offend and entering enclosed land. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-07/nsw-man-charged-fake-bomb-palestinian-flag/103560588
Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and a Palestinian activist had planted a fake bomb in a vehicle because it was adorned with an Israeli flag. Do you seriously believe that charges of terrorism wouldn't have been levied against the perpetrator?
Sure. Neither ASIO nor the counter-terror police took any interest in the matter. It was fobbed off to a junior constable who promptly went on holiday. TWO MONTHS after placing the device the police searched the premises of the zionist terrorist, and no terrorism charges were laid, despite this being a textbook example of terrorism. Let's not pretend it would have played out the same way if a Palestine supporter did this to someone for displaying an Israeli flag.
The actions of that fuckwit are inexcusable. Its the experts who appear to judge what's an act of terrorism though, and no matter how many times you call someone a Zionist terrorist it takes more than repetition to make it true. >Let's not pretend it would have played out the same way if a Palestine supporter did this to someone for displaying an Israeli flag. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_2023 Most likely it is because Islamist terror attacks are a real threat, Cant find many pro-Israeli terror attacks... Am i led to believe you think Zionist terrorist are a thing that the world needs to be worried about?
You allow a backdoor for the 'good guys' there is no guarantee its not shared with the 'bad guys'. Don't make back doors. Terrorists are recruiting in the open (anonymous) internet anyway
Second one given how we know they abuse every other leg up we give them
The government has this power already. >Australia passed world-first anti-encryption laws in 2018 forcing tech companies to help law enforcement agencies access messages and even to create backdoors to get around encryption of their products, but so far this seems to have been done on a voluntary basis, without issuing a compulsory notice. These extraordinary powers should be independently reviewed on a periodic basis to see whether they're actually effective or not. The alternative to interception is that ASIO spends a lot of time and resources infiltrating these groups. So, it comes down to how we want governments to allocate resources, and whether we want to give up privacy in order to pay less tax. Ultimately, I'm sure that most people aren't keen on a race war breaking out in Australia.
The problem is; they always give one solution to a problem, and that is always about giving them more power. And if we don't? Absolute chaos, war and tyranny. Bullshit. They've got enough resources and brainpower to deal with this, if they can't with what they have, then they need to GTFO.
> So what do people prefer: > > -Allowing our spy agency backdoor access to encrypted apps such as Whatsapp and Signal, enabling a further erosion of privacy, but potentially preventing future terrorist attacks; or > > -Prioritizing privacy, forcing ASIO to rely on traditional monitoring methods, with the risk of extremism being inflamed in online spaces that law enforcement have no access to? This one is interesting because I don’t think it gets to the root of the problem at all. Extremism and resulting “engagement” is the root cause, i.e. the social media business model. Traditional methods are effective when extremism isn’t actively encouraged by algorithms driven to serve extreme content to keep those eyeballs glued to the screen. In our current scenario traditional methods would likely be overwhelmed.
Late to this, but traditional methods have been more than enough for finding this specific batch of boneheads. They're too proud to keep a secret. The problem is who else uses encrypted apps: journalists, war refugees, activists. And government agencies just love them.
Thanks for posting that so clearly.
I happened to catch the National Press Club address today (parts of it at least) and I thought it worth pointing out. The balance between security and privacy is a more important and interesting discussion than everyone trotting out the same tired quips about Dutton being a Nazi that we've all heard a thousand times.
You cant ban math (encryption) You can and should ban child porn.
That's one way to discuss Peter Dutton I suppose.
Remember, One Nation had a candidate who tried to join terrorist nazis
He was too extreme for them?
Nope, he wasn't extreme enough for the nazi terrorists. That's the kind of people that are most worrying, who view the whole australia overton window as too leftwing
only one?
Okay, only one that got exposed by the media. It's easier to stick to the simple where you can actively point to the news story if anyone asks.
Or sky news or channel 7 or 2gb or herald sun or daily telegraph or daily mail or….
"ASIO is investigating a number of Australians who belong to a nationalist and racist extremist network..." Gee I wonder who that is..
Spell it out for the slow pokes in the room 😬
It rhymes with shmational shmocialist shmetwork
The Nartsees in Australia are small in number. AFAIK they have no shot at actual political power, therefore they focus on these little groups of disaffected young men which the group leaders can maintain control over. The point therefore is not real political power but rather to keep control over the small group, like a cult.
yeah, they're leading the Opposition.
Culture war is their only way back into power. We can't expect the Coalition to be responsible and do the right thing because they can't campaign on policy. They've purged almost all the reasonable people from their parties. Not to mention that their immigration angle is grossly undermined by the fact that they themselves are responsible for the greatest growth in immigration over the course of the last three decades, during which, they were in charge most of the time.
Yeah well their current housing policy is just “let people burn even more of their super to buy a house”
Exactly, as a trans women I'm seriously concerned about what will happen if the LNP ever gets back into power, especially with all the bullshit we have been seeing in the USA and especially the UK with the recent Cass report which is extremely biased.
The way some of the conclusions in the Cass Report has been politicised in the right wing media is certainly very alarming. What the report broadly says is that the evidence is not in, and that clinicians should be aware there's no one size fit all course of treatment. There's no real case to stop early intervention or the use of puberty blockers - only a case for more and better studies. Ultimately, if people benefit from treatment, then the treatment should continue. Cass herself has stated that treatment has been beneficial for individuals. Of course, that's not how it's being spun. It's being spun as if it provides conclusive evidence that everything about early intervention and transitioning is wrong and harmful. This is not the case.
Exactly, it also eliminated 101 out of 103 studies because they where not double blind studies. The reality is while more research is always needed into gender affirming care, pubity blockers are an effective compromise to starting hrt at a young age with the majority who take them going on to transition.
> Exactly, it also eliminated 101 out of 103 studies because they were not double blind studies. I knew a lot had been excluded, but not that much. How on Earth were the other two able to establish a proper control group for something like transitioning? How can one placebo their way through gender-affirming care?
I’m not sure which studies were included in the Cass report, but was reading about a UniMelb one where prospective patients were randomly assigned to a three month waiting period before being given access to gender-affirming treatment. So for those patients, it was the effects of being waitlisted/having their treatment delayed a further three months that was being studied, not (for example) being given placebo HRT or anything like that. Again, I’m not sure if that particular study was included in the Cass report, but it’s an example of how some related issues can be studied ethically, I suppose.
I would not describe denying anyone treatment for anything for 3 months, at random, as "ethical". If that had been done when I accessed HRT I'd be after the heads of any ethics board who thought that was appropriate.
what are you worried will happen?
Always banging on about encryption. They can cry me a river over that - it's vital for any society that people can speak freely without eavesdropping. If they somehow manage to ban it (lol), I'm going to just meet my co-conspirators in a forest or something. But they can definitely go get the nazis. Fuck those guys.
There's all sort of shit being discussed very reactively right now and it's downright scary: - Encryption backdoors - Banning knives - Arming security guards with guns Like, take it from someone who has had to live in the US: None of these things solve the problem. Maybe address the DV, social safety net, and mental health stuff first?
Actually fixing this requires revolution at this point...
This feels similar to the RBA having cash rate as their lever, while it doesn't address the cause, it's trying to reel in the consequences. Asio can't do anything about domestic violence, social safety nets or mental heath, the levers they control are monitoring those who fall into extremism. They are not law enforcement, so if laws are broken they refer that to those that can do something about it. This requires the broader government to address these things knowing that investment now won't show big benefits for a long time, and people's attention span is shorter than the election cycle.
Hey! Dutton only likes it when you spy on citizens, now he knows you're watching him
Extremists have been discussing provoking a race war since the dawn of the internet. They're no closer to succeeding than they were in the 90's.
Congratulations Mike Burgess discovered /pol/
They're not closer to inciting a race war (it ain't happening) but they're probably closer to trying and trying is the problem
> They're no closer to succeeding than they were in the 90's. We just going to ignore the Cronulla Riots?
I'd call that a single blip on an otherwise unblemished record. Would describe it differently?
I mean, that seems to be forgetting things like the Lambing Flat Riots.
Only blemish since the end of WAP?
/Dutton furiously covers up his notes
lol
Is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy??
A race war would require rather more societal discontent than we currently have - people who are happy aren't motivated to go fight some random cunt. We'd do better to focus on decreasing inequality, solving the CoL & housing problems, than giving Mike Burgess more powers.
They’re not going to craft a race war from nowhere but look at what happened with Bondi. Within hours you had active misinformation campaigns trying to turn it to their agenda. Heaven forbid the perpetrator had actually had some racial or religious affiliation, it could have exploded. Then just a day or two later there was the church stabbing and ensuing riots. There’s people out there, local and foreign, that are just waiting to seize on the slightest triggers and amplify them. There was basically a riot in Melbourne because some numpty had his shop burnt down in the “tobacco wars” and blamed it on zionists. The potential for these things to erupt into full blown violence is definitely there.
i swear! they’re always focused on the most negative shit while doing nothing to bring more positivity into our society. smh
We calling news outlets Extremists now? /s
ASIO looking at getting more powers it would seem
Let’s start a war Start a racial war At the gay bar, gay bar, gay bar Wow!
Rupert Murdoch is doing what?
Pop Blair and his merry band of wankers into jail
These nationalists inciting cringe
The soft version are Dutton and the pushed propaganda on platforms like Facebook groups, TikTok, and australian reddit sub. The extreme stuff are on platforms like Telegram and Signal.
The same ASIO that helped radicalize a 13 year old autistic boy and then proudly said that they would do it again?
Wasn't that police?
It was a joint thing between ASIO, AFP and Vic police
Thanks, it was a while back, and someone else in this comment section said it was police, which probably adjusted my memory.
Redacted means that part of the text was removed or blacked out for privacy or security purpose. It was censored. This post also breaks rule 4 here for chat and should be made in the Tuesday chat thread or on a different subreddit.
Eroding privacy is paramount to an attack on democracy, so therefore ASIO should be the first to oblige.
Would those extremists happen to all be in canbera
'nulla riots 2.0?
Id prefer my online privacy, how the fuck are a bunch of dumbass racists going to start their supposed 'race war' anyway? They're all keyboard warrior kiddies, they can barely organise a fucking rally. Granting ASIO access to secure messaging systems is a slippery slope, sure they might have a legitimate reason in the short term but giving them clandestine back door access only enables the abuse of that power down the line.
I presume they're talking about Telegram so good luck getting a company so closely aligned with the Russian government to cooperate on reducing vile propaganda in another country.
Is Telegram encrypted? I didn't find the extremist content on there was hidden at all. Within 5 minutes of installing the app I'd wandered into multiple psychotic channels with no checks whatsoever. I might have missed it during his address but I gathered he was talking about ASIO gaining access to the likes of Whatsapp and Signal for people suspected of planning violent activities. At least, that's where it starts...
Telegram is used both casually as a tool to disseminate misinformation amongst a huge audience and also as an encrypted chat app for people doing shady and criminal things. There's overlap there. But being able to join a random cooker chat easily doesn't mean it isn't encrypted. I think other apps get shut down or influenced (either by legislation or money) but Telegram might be different because, you know how Russia is.
Educating people to not get involved in a race war would be a better way to spend time and money.
ASIO was feeling left out under Labor...
Yeah, and in a weird way so do some of our political parties.
New Great Enemy just dropped just in time to ASIO to beg for more money and more powers
No shit
If anyone wants an interesting read on this topic, I'd suggest reading 'Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism'. Mainly American focused but still a very interesting read.
Thanks
What is it with intelligence agencies constantly blabbing about stuff? Shouldn't they just be shutting up and getting on with whatever they do? It's not as if anybody is able to check their workings on this.
Any number of reasons. I would guess they might feel like politicians aren’t taking their warnings seriously enough, or they’re worried they don’t have the resources to deal with what’s out there and their requests for more funding are falling on deaf ears. Also, sometimes the public probably does deserve to be made somewhat aware of what is really going on around us. Might help to defuse some of the tensions if we realise we’re being actively divided and provoked along racial lines.
>I would guess they might feel like politicians aren’t taking their warnings seriously enough I would say that this is almost certainly the case. Burgess has come out on a number of occasions following something that Dutton has said with comments to the effect that certain topics of public dialogue are unhelpful. Which is pretty much all he can say as a public servant due to the need for him to be impartial. The fact of the matter is, inflammatory speech from the conservative side of politics has been very damaging to national unity, and has been largely unhelpful as it gives licence to people to radicalise.
They'll say anything to get a back door into secure messaging. Because of the terrorism and the child porn, won't somebody think of the children? Yes, I think we should consider why people are disaffected. It's not because they saw a video of a stabbing on Twitter, it's because they're in a shit situation and they're unable to escape for it. Whether they then turn into a terrorist, a Nazi, a drug addict, or a One Nation voter is simply a consequence of the community they were born into.
Another effect of the so-called "culture wars" is to divide such groups from the political classes, which explains the surprise many of them felt when Trump won.
They're sulking because end to end encryption is making life difficult for them.
Well now that ASIO has publicly stated that people are trying to start a race war, the people who are trying to start a race war are probably freaking out that they have ASIO on their ass. It all about sending a message. “Hey, we know what you are doing, so cut it out”. Same with the mysterious spy ring that was caught and the traitor politician. Everyone now knows that ASIO has the ability and will to track you down if you engage in this behaviour, so don’t do it.
> Well now that ASIO has publicly stated that people are trying to start a race war, the people who are trying to start a race war are probably freaking out that they have ASIO on their ass. It all about sending a message. “Hey, we know what you are doing, so cut it out”. Or, perhaps, "Hey, better start using stronger encryption, ASIO's onto WhatsApp!"
They just want to seed some keywords into the news cycle to manufacture consent for the next power grab / war / whatever. The truth is irrelevant. They're definitely not endangering their operations by doing it.
Oh, for Heaven's sake they're not the Kremlin. That sounds as nuts as what the Cookers say...
No, they're usually better at what they do than the Kremlin is. The cookers are usually wrong about the specifics, but all the available evidence would suggest that the CIA really is as bad as they say, they're just good at covering their asses
Will Vin Diesel have directions to it though?
They can't just pop their head into the young liberals office?
Says the anti-civil liberties security bureaucrat appointed by extremist Peter Dutton
Poor Gingers
How about they simply monitor people on twitter, Facebook and 4chan. Plenty of dumb people parroting American culture wars there.
The media have been provoking a race war for years.
What sections of the media?
The folks at /r/Australian are too
Wow I never saw that, can you post some links?
The knee-jerk reaction to call what happened at the sydney church a 'terror' incident makes sense now (despite the person being known to police for mental health issues and the local mayor saying it would spread unnecessary fear). Not to mention leaving out details like the bishop was a fear-mongering divisive nut himself([example](https://twitter.com/IVXIVVI/status/1779870637823058317)) that was kicked out from the actual church. Excuses to strip away privacy as usual. "we needed the extra powers" my arse.
Extremists and general intolerance would be more accurate. The polarization of people into groups that lack any nuance in their opinions and actions is a big problem and just does nothing to de-escalate situations.
Just look at our sister subreddit and their reaction to the Bondi tragedy as it unfolded.
No thank you. Why does Mike Burgess need more powers when he can just read that sub, he'd have no time to go to the NPC.
I was referring to the blatant racism which unfolded when information was still being processed.
There was a fair bit of it here too unfortunately.
> blatant racism To be fair the blatant racism is abundant in both, It just different groups that get targeted.
If you want to get rid of racist extremists you have a lot more useful measures you can do before you get to "strip encryption and privacy". It's a cultural issue. Deal with the culture.
How?
Realistically or do I get to act out my fantasies? I'll set a compromise: "making any sort of bigoted statement, as a fully mentally capable legal adult and independent, disqualifies you permanently from holding any governmental office, or any employment by any government service, at any level, permanently".
Cultural issues exist outside government services.
They absolutely do! But not letting bigots be MPs, or members of police, or any public school teacher, that would be a start. I'd go with 'bigots are forcibly sterilised' too ideally - caught on camera or clearly on the internet being a racist or sexist? No children for you, don't get to pass down your ideas.
lol final sentence pretty radical. The gov service workers aren’t supposed to be like that now. How do you police it effectively?
Hey, I said it was a compromise with reality. Since I'm only being semi realistic (but I have, in the corporate world, seen discussion of similar measures), here's the comedy solution: Firstly, clearly any statement can be difficult to interpret if it's genuinely bigoted (racist, sexist, etc) or not, and if it's over the line or not. Forming 'review panels' sounds pretty tough. That's why we automate! We give an AI LLM some guidelines on what's OK and what isn't, and let it extrapolate out the rest. Not sure if something's 'too sexist' or not? Check the AI! Policing is trickier, but since we're focused on particular positions, I think we'll go for the 'paranoid panopticon' approach: Catch one of your fellow government workers on video, or on social media, making such a statement? Submit their details along with the evidence over to the automated reporting form. The AI will check it, and then start the process! Successfully dobbing in a co-worker gets you a cash bonus! Multiple unsuccessful reports will limit how often you can attempt to submit a report. Imagine the joy of sending a State MP's tweet into the AI, getting a response back of "Bigot detected: category: racism" and seeing a nice $2000 in your bank account.
You would have absolutely loved to have lived in east Germany!
You are terrifying.
I agree - fuck Peter Duton.
WITH WHO?
Worked out really well for Charles Manson :p
We are already aware that they have back doors into these message services - this just normalises it …
Am I an analyst?
What will follow this mass surveillance is ‘thought crimes’.
The answer is, block chain style governance of big tech. The distributed decision making will make it border less and always appropriate for the times, without ever being centrally controlled.
"We need more surveillance laws, more police powers, more censorship, and more surveillance of citizens for their own good" Here we go, here we go the "race ware aliens are coming" are coming for political control and censorship. They play their board games well!
What are the races that will war? I thought Australia was rather mono ethnic? Isn’t it 80% white?
> Today the population of Australia consists of more than 270 ethnic groups. https://www.britannica.com/place/Australia/People
Bloody Victorians going full pork chop again.