This isn't the step that gets us to a dystopian future, but it is so cheap and convenient for government to take programs like this and expand them every single time there is a crisis that it may as well be assumed to be coming if people don't kick up a stink each and every time.

We don't need perfect safety. We've can't have perfect safety. Having perfect, technologically enforced safety will create systems that will become corrupted and evil with a high, high likelihood. I don't want the government to have the ability figure out who I'm talking too at all; I'd rather we went in the exact opposite direction of this app and put legal barriers in place to them even asking. COVID-19 is horrible, but it will pass. This tracking strategy will not.

Absolutely damn correct brother! 10/10.

Parent also forgot to mention mandatory data retention laws. All isps must retain history of internet traffic for ¿2 years.

That telephone numbers are used in this app should also be regarded as a breach of the referendum we had about the Australia Card back in the 80's. (It is illegal to tie citizens to a number for the sake of tracking, which is exactly what this does...). Which is why scomo (Scott Morrison, the PM) is asking for this app to be voluntary.

Yuh, has there ever been one? If so where and when? (I've been around quite some years now and I've never seen one anywhere.)

Correct! Once we had two camps, you either voted for one or the other. That's all gone now, Identity Politics unfortunately killed the simple life off years ago.

Perhaps it has something to do with the bloody-mined, overly-timid sheep that continually vote these bastards into government year after year—despite the current surfeit of draconian law.

Don't forget there's been no stomach to rock the boat in this country for decades and also we haven't had an effective Opposition for many years.

For example: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/23/gover...

The fact that law enforcement even asked for this would be to many people completely unacceptable.

It's why, despite their efforts to assuage people, so many people will not trust this government.

The backdoor legislation means that at a later date, after the code is released, they could request a backdoor to the app and _no one_ could talk about it. All the legal provisions are there.

It beggars belief that the police see COVID-19 as an opportunity in such an overt manner - but you can bet the security services see it as an opportunity in a much more circumspect manner.

I don’t believe that the people pushing this knowingly have bad intentions, but all the last decades have taught is “never give an inch.”

No it doesn't. All evidence of their proclivities is from the past. It means they have form, a record, of bad behaviour.

Remember how the use of the Tax File Number was going to be strictly limited? And have you noticed you cannot scratch your bum without quoting it now?

Mission creep is a thing.

My own impression from observing his public behaviour is that Scott Morrison is a lying liar who tells lies when convenient to himself.

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

If we're talking Australia. If the US, well... Civil War.

But to the sentiment of the comment, I completely agree. That is explicitly why we need the "burn the system down" type of people that I mentioned. they bring to light these kinds of topics and considerations.

No, it didn't. The bill had language specifically intended to address these concerns. Read the bill [0]. The relevant part is under Part 15 > Division 7 > 317ZG, which you can also see at [1].

This section explicitly forbids the government from requesting that a provider "build a systemic weakness, or a systemic vulnerability, into a form of electronic protection". It also forbids the government from asking a provider to preserve such a weakness.

It also explicitly indicates that this definition includes:

- "a reference to implement or build a new decryption capability in relation to a form of electronic protection"

- "a reference to one or more actions that would render systemic methods of authentication or encryption less effective"

So no, the government did not pass a bill that allows them to request encryption backdoors.

These weren't even amendments made later, this language was present from the very first version of the bill [2].

The reporting around this was simply atrocious and made me lose a lot of respect for news sources I'd otherwise have thought were respectable. Just read Wired's article:

"Systemic vulnerability means a vulnerability that affects a whole class of technology, but does not include a vulnerability that is selectively introduced to one or more target technologies that are connected with a particular person," the Australian law says. In other words, intentionally weakening every messaging platform out there with the same backdoor wouldn't fly, but developing tailored access to individual messaging programs, like WhatsApp or iMessage, is allowed."

They cherry-pick a quote from part of the legislation but just so happen to ignore the rest of section 317ZG, which invalidates their claims.

Other publications were even worse, they couldn't even point to which parts of the law were objectionable.

If you would like to disagree with my assertions, please provide evidence-based claims, as I have.

[0]: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018C00495

[1]: http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ta1997214...

[2]: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislat...