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…says the Australian government. They are accusing Microsoft of protecting child abusers by including powerful encryption in Windows 7. A member of the Australian government working with “cyber-safety” is outraged that Microsoft is including powerful encryption in Windows 7, better known for its touch screen support:
They seem unaware Bitlocker, Microsofts’ file encryption application, is anything but new: It was actually introduced in Windows Vista which was released 3 years ago. Australian “cyber law experts” are now demanding laws which would allow the state to lock up evil encryption users who fail to share their keys with the state. |
Australian police themselves can already obtain warrants to secretly install key loggers, but cannot jail people for refusing to reveal encryption keys – they seek laws emulating those of the UK, where refusal to decrypt information for police is a serious crime. Under the UK’s draconian Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, police potentially have the power to lock up people who refuse to hand over keys to data they believe to be encrypted, but just how this works when encrypted data is indistinguishable from random noise is something courts have yet to establish. Americans too find their Constitutional rights subverted when it comes to encryption – in 2009 a judge ordered a man to turn over his encryption keys, ruling after a lengthy series of appeals that this did not constitute self-incrimination, which is protected against by the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution.
Thwarted snoopers will doubtless howl all the harder when stenography, where it is all but impossible to demonstrate that encrypted data is even present, becomes more accessible. Technology also exists which allows a any number of dummy keys to be given to authorities, capable of unlocking fake files in order to thwart such laws, whilst allowing the real encrypted file to go unmolested. Both of these technologies pose severe problems to such laws, although it seems unlikely this will discourage further attacks on civil liberties by those keen to extend their powers by appealing to child protection hysteria.
However, Microsoft has previously been caught hiding backdoors in its encryption for the benefit of government snoopers, so if you don’t wanna get trapped for viewing pictures of 17 year old shirtless boys (which are CP nowadays if the pose is just a bit too sexy) you should rely on Open Source products like TrueCrypt. [via Sankaku Complex]
As an American citizen I’d frequently imagined that laws in the EU were much less stifling than those here, but I’ve recently come to understand they’re, at times, just as bad or worse. Thanks for the informative, though sad, news.
Or just use Linux and, during setup, choose to encrypt your /root or even just your /home partitions. This uses LUKS encryption, and encrypts everything on the partition, including the partition header which houses the filesystem journal and which typically includes all the names of files on a system (which is why per-file encryption is not all that helpful).
The forced giving up of keys is law in New Zealand too.
With high-speed broadband it is getting more and more possible to store encrypted data “offshore”, i.e. somewhere else on the net, which could be remotely mounted into your file system. On disclosing the “wrong” decryption key anything you wished to be kept “private” could be erased or moved on to yet another location. VPN would hide where you were connecting to.
im not very wise in the whole computer terminology, so what is encryption? oh yeah your blog is awesome it is my favorite:) and all of the pervys like me aha;) should stalk me on twitter.com/francisseverus hehe im pretty sure thats the only reason it was created for, wasnt it? luv ya.
Encryption means that the data on your computer get – well, encrypted ;) — so that you need a password to see the files saved on your hard drive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_encryption_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueCrypt
maaaan, Australia used to be cool… Now its boring and impersonal like the rest of the world…
Total rubbish. I use encryption for a lot of things, including mirc activities. Definitely not a peado :)
meh Microsoft already saves msn conversations dating back years and hands those over to the gov why shouldn’t they hand over your encryption keys to your files too!
/sigh this whole “pedos wouldn’t exist if CP didn’t” will never end until every country is required to have censorship programs installed on their computers like they do in China atm
Soon the days of freedom of speech and expression on the internet will be completely gone.
I never heard about that MSN thing. Do you have any sources for that?
When I was like 15 or so I was stupid and got into stuff with botnets and general bad stuff like that with a friend of mine (obviously not the same but still) last year an FBI agent showed up to said friends house with MSN transcripts of us talking about that stuff, I’m 20 now so those were like 4-5 years old, not much came of the situation as I’m not from the US and said “friend” blamed it all on me lol
obviously there’s a big difference between that situation and CP/Pedos but I wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t snooped into MSN conversations over pedo stuff as I’m sure that’s considered more serious than the petty childish crap I used to be into…
You may be right, but given that MSN conversations all occur in the clear they could have snooped on your conversations about as easily as they can snoop on email. Skype famously encrypts its conversations from end to end to stop snooping, but just as famously provides backdoors for government agencies to decrypt those conversations. If you want encrypted chats (a bit OTT in my opinion), you have to use an open protocol like Jabber/Googletalk (XMPP) with (open source) SSL encryption. As for email, there’s always PGP.
To have been able to snoop on James’ conversation, they would have had to have known that his conversations were worth watching, which would make it seem unlikely that they would do something about it 5 years later.
The MSN network probably has enough spare storage lying around to store years worth of conversations per user…
Well, actually we can be jailed for not handing over our keys in Australia. It has always been that way. Don’t hand them over when asked and you are in contempt of court.
The CP hysteria is a red herring. Governments are really afraid of their own people and spy as a form of defense against their own populations. It is also used to take down or discredit any opposition. None of this is justified. your computer should be private. This will only get much worse when data mining becomes the norm. Data mining will be able to isolate groups within a population through association alone. In the US they want to bypass judge’s warrants because you cant get a warrant to search through an entire population and that is what they want to do. Data mining is a danger far worse that electronic images. Data mining is tyranny!
Maybe when everyone can know everything about everyone, none of it will be worth knowing?
Big Brother Is At It Again Down Under…
Last night on an Australian TV talk show, we had not one, but two political big wigs and the rest of the distinguished panel, expressing their distaste for, ‘Wowsers.’ An Australian term for puritanical kill joys.
The panellist’s comments were in reply to a question, regarding the censorship of a nude sculpture of a little boy, It forms part of an open air show in Bondi, a seaside resort in New South Wales. The organisers started to panic when they remembered another notorious media beat-up some time ago.
An internationally famous and well respected photographer, Bill Henson, had a one man show closed down because he was exhibiting nude shots of under age girls and boys. The artist and the gallery owner were facing child pornography charges and even our prime minister, Kevin Rudd, expressed his opinion on prime time TV, saying he found images of naked kids ‘Disgusting.’ The usual reactionary TV prudes were screaming for Henson’s blood, on-line polls showed that 85% of joe public wanted Henson’s head on a pike too.
Eventually sanity prevailed and everybody, including Bill Henson were left to get on with their lives. No court room dramas, no experts attempting to explain the glaring difference between fine art and base pornography.
Anyway, back to the latest so called ‘child porn’ farce…
The organisers said the cute little boy could stay in their precious sculpture show… But he must wear a pair of modest speedos…
I’d piss myself laughing if it wasn’t so pathetic, so gutless, so philistine, so idiotic. And these guys want to host an art show… Not one that I would want to see.
This is nothing new. During WW2, The British Parliament passed a law placing every British subject’s LIFE, PROPERTY and TALENT at the disposal of the Crown. King George VI had more lawfully acquired power than Adolf Hitler. BTW, to my knowledge, that law has never been repealed.
Which law?
First, I am a law abiding citizen of the USA, I served her honorably in the military, I swore to protect our constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; It seems to me that our constitution has more domestic enemies than foreign during these contemporary times. My government has lost its way, i think, and the true devastating damage will not be realized until it is too late. To me, my gov. acts like children whom play games together and every few minutes or so, a child changes the rules to fit their agenda of being the winner. But there is no winner when the constitution of a country gets trampled on by its leaders. King George did this in the 18th century and it caused him to lose the Americas. I believe that the red herring dealing with the use of ‘child protection’ has been being used since the late 1980’s and has since mushroomed to allow the attacks on our individual freedoms. Just this week an agency of the Homeland Security, charged with protecting the privacy of our citizens, were scrutinized by some members of the Congress for doing just the opposite. That Director, said that her mission was ‘unclear’ to her(LOL). Also this week, the US Supreme Court refused to hear a case which involves ‘informants’ who turned in a suspected drunk driver. The court of appeals said that an informants word, whether reliable or not, is never enough probable cause to pull the person over and check them and their car for suspected drunk driving and dismissed the case. This ruling can and will be used for all sorts of searches that invade a person’s privacy. I myself loth the fact that my privacy is invaded upon eachday by numerous sources…foreign and domestic. I believe the whole world needs to take a step back, take in a deep breath of air, and rethink what is driving this madness to stop ‘porn’ and all its outcomes. Also I believe that sexual devience is the cash cow of the world psychiactric community. Before sexual legislation was enhanced by all countries that psychaictric profession was never one of monatary gain for its professionals, since the enhancements, money pours into that profession, yet the real psychologically sick people are still treated like crap….So try to get the psychaitrists to see any point of view that dosent line their pockets is useless. They are masters in the use of fear will control the masses. What has to be done, I think, is to get our leaders to see the truth and for them to stop listening to Dr.s and start seeing things as they really are.. Thanks
so what do you do now? discard your oath? or join the many that are preparing to fight. remember the only answer to 1984 is 1776.
A pedophile is a person, who use encryption software.
or
The only person, who use encryption software, is a Pedophile.
So it’s easier for the police to find all of them.
i use best crypt…neva gonna give up my key coz i can’t…it is randomly generated…as for the password, oops i forgot it…the government is grasping at straws trying to prove things that aren’t there…
might as well say, sin would never have existed before sinners, goverment is the worst kind of evil…
How predictable that Josh would yet again take a pop at the UK with his ill informed myths. Security cameras are a good thing. They DO stop crimes and you DON’T have a right to privacy in public, believe it or not. It is not draconian make people give over there encrypted files if you suspect they are breaking the law. Paedophilia is a bad thing that can traumatise children for life. Surely you cannot prefer the rights of those that look at it and make it to the children? I digress. You just hype this up too much. The police aren’t going to hack into your computer when they feel like it, have nothing to hide and you’ll be fine.
1. This article wasn’t written by me if you can see by the credit link 2. Yeah, those cameras help to solve crimes. About 0,2 % more than before, very impressive, really -_- and 3. you might not have noticed yet but that’s not about CP, they just use that to get laws installed that they used against people who consume drugs, download mp3s and so on.
Weird, when i read the piece above I could have sworn it said Australia.
/shrug
Oh, and… you do realise that this very site is seen as a child pornography site by the Aussie Government don’t you Barky? Which sort of means… as you post here… that your IP is now on record with your ISP as having visited it.
Should your police force obtain your ISP’s logs and see you came here then please expect a knock at 4am just before your door has been kicked down.
Unfortunately “have nothing to hide and you’ll be fine.” no longer holds for you, you DO have something to hide.
Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free….. ‘In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then, they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew … Then they came for the Catholics. I didn’t speak up then because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up’. Reverend Martin Niemoller, German Lutheran pastor arrested by the Gestapo in 1937.
I don’t know which left-wing politicians you are talking about but at least in Europe and the US it’s the right-wings who are taling away one civil right after another, not the left.
in the U.S. we have only 2 partys the state allows democrate-communist -left, republican-fascist-right. there is no diferance between adolf bush and barack hitler. they are both the same filthy swine. they both preach less taxes/government, but it always grows and grows and grows. left-wing is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. right-wing uses fear and hate to rule and rape. and while everyone fights over which to support the 1%plutocracy that rules the world gets richer/more control. but getting back to subject encyption is used for many other things than sexual like financial or medical privacy. not to mention domestic revolt. the U.S. seeks to control all of this….. “Need” now means wanting someone else’s money. “Greed” means wanting to keep your own. “Compassion” is when a politician arranges the transfer. – Joseph Sobran
Barky claims that looking at childrens pictures, even cartoons, may traumatize them for life?
You have to think though that this most likely isn’t aimed at hunting out low level ”pedophiles” but people who are responsible for actual high level crimes like assaulting babies and shit that appears on the internet. Contrary to popular belief, Australian Police do have better things to do then hunt down the average 4chan user.
That’s what they said in Germany too: Then they started to search houses for the download of a SINGLE mp3 because the content mafia is using the laws for whatever they want.
Same thing for the PATRIOT act in the US: It was for terrorists but nearly all they do with it is hunting down low profile drug users.
It’s pretty easy to hide your keys here. If you consistently deny all knowledge of encryption on your machine you cannot be prosecuted.
I wouldn’t be quite so optimistic… the prosecution has to prove that you had the encryption keys, but whether they have done so is for a jury (or magistrate) to decide. If the jury doesn’t like you (i.e. they think you are a pedo, or – more realistically in the case of many of the poster’s here – have been “abusing children” by distributing self-porn), they will probably be more easily persuaded by the prosecution than the defence.
On The Subject Of Dangerous Pedophiles And The Protection Of Our Vulnerable Children…
It seems that not a day goes by without another Pedo story on Australian TV. Monday on the ABC, saw a notorious pedophile, Denis Ferguson, being interviewed, supposedly to get his side of the story.
Of course nobody believed his sad story, or his assertions of innocence. He flatly refused to accept treatment for his criminal behaviour inside prison, where he was serving a 14 year sentence for improper dealings with a minor, and this says a lot about him and real child abusers, as opposed to people who read books like, ‘Lolita’ and think naked cupids are cute.
Interestingly, the story really began when Denis Ferguson left prison and was again, as the media put it, ‘Free to abuse your child, my child, anybody’s child.’
It is easy to ridicule puritanical wowsers because they condemn cupids with their naughty little dangly bits, to crack up when said wowsers seriously suggest sticking fig leaves on said dangly bits. Dressing little boy sculptures in speedos is a bad joke, but some traumatised child being raped by a criminal nutter is deadly serious.
It is hard to condemn hysterical mobs who leave coffins outside his door. Who hound him from one state to another, one neighbourhood to another. Not in my back yard, cry the mob… Presumably they don’t mind if he operates in somebody else’s back yard.
There is a new Australian law that says the courts can indefinitely incarcerate people like Denis Ferguson, if they pose an ongoing threat to children. Lock child molesters up and throw away the key seems to be the final solution.
Then we can all sleep peacefully in our beds… Until the media get bored with global warming and go looking for another scary, child molesting monster.
Some opinions from residents in Queensland…
http://www.qldstreetscene.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11861
If all who are using enryption are pedos, so…
…all politicans must be, too?
Why do THEY need encrypted mobile phones, which they ordered a lot of?
Why do organizations like FBI usw encryption?
…
My computer and the data in it are MY property, no one will ever have the allowing of me to look in it.
I don’t even have to have illegal data, but I don’t want people to look at MY data without me wanting it.
Politicans fear the people and they should do it really if they don’t stop being shitheads with an iq of 5, which only reaches to breath and speak, not to think.
Every day at least one new fucking stupid idea (nowadays they even don’t need faked statistics for million, they only say: terrorists/pedo (they don’t even know the difference of pedo and child molester/abuser)/or for the sake of the children), they don’t even need arguments) comes out of an politicans mouth, I think the world would be better without most of them.
In Brazil we have the same question.
So if I encrypt my things i’m a pedo?
No way, really. i’m a musician, i’m trying to finish my book, my lyrics.
And i encrypt it, so i’m a pedo?
Thats not the point, if you want to catch the pedo, you’ll do it.
My things are complety made for ME! if I want anyone to see it, i’ll show then.
So start to arrest everyone who download a mp3 on internet, you’ll arrest 99,9 of my country!!!
Microsoft want a better OS for who use it. Just this simple!