Privacy in Australia and how it's going out the door

As discussed by the crew in the latest show (episode 242 of destination linux), the blogpost written by Tutanota about the invasive bill, passed by legislators in Australia.

The crew mentioned that where ever you may be on the planet, that this is something to keep an eye out for.
I know for a fact that where i live, there are politicians who wouldn’t mind a bit implementing the same.

Again a big thanks to everybody on the show, for bringing this to our attention!

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So a rogue police officer could perfectly legally put incriminating evidence on someone’s device and then use it as evidence against them?

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For it to be admissible in court there’d need to be a paper trail of changes. I don’t know how tamper proof that internal process is though.

Planting evidence is also nothing new and it’s done by everyone. “swatting” is a modern example of how individuals plant evidence but it doesn’t require that much creativity.

Pretty harrowing development though. “or likely to be used” is pretty much a catchall.

Absolutely, we know this type of thing has happened in the past. Governments who want to silence a deviant can arrange for ‘evidence’ to appear which ruins someone’s reputation or worse. Tools like Magic Lantern which are used as surveillance backdoors regardless of the type of device you use Android or iPhone coupled with laws like this are beyond dangerous for all of us. If anyone is too outspoken and they want to silence them it’s pretty easy to plant some evidence and destroy that persons life. Now they just made it more easily accessible in Australia.

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For reference is it worth reading the concerns over this by Human Rights Law Center

Insufficient safeguards in new surveillance law

as well as Digital Rights Watch.

Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

It is worth pointing out that the current administration ignored a cross-party report on the dangers of such a blanket legislation so, it is not like no one did not raise concerns about it.

Digital invasion of human rights has been happening for many years.
The government has given itself the right to place backdoors in all tech in Australia. Companies/Devs must comply and not speak of it - or go to jail.
Now this surveillance bill has past, their next move is too have all citizens be required to provide complete identification in order to use social media. They will not allow any dissenting voices.
One state premier even has a bill to make ‘ridicule’ illegal .
Laws are passed to make it more difficult to form a new political party. One new party was forming and they have arrested the party leader.
There is no longer any law in Australia! It is run by authoritarian thugs!
Australia is in a state of emergency!
Any white hat hackers out there please do all you can to bring down the government IT network!
The people are suffering and have no escape from this island.

My question is how are the people of Australia going to cross cultural divides to win over the hearts and minds of their neighbors.

This wasn’t just out of the blue, it’s been a series of steps by a Gov’t elected by people who appear to be (on the whole) ok enough with it to not threaten the vote. There’s no amount of throwing proverbial bricks that can win over a country unless the objective is to remain divided.

I pinged a buddy in Australia and here’s what he had to say:

“Funny enough, we have an absurd amount of choice. We have 2 huge parties, 4 or 5 medium sized parties, and tons of small parties. The way our system works means the smaller parties can influence or have power by creating coalitions but our media hammers into the population that if we don’t vote LNP then our economy will burn, our children violated, China will invade, and we will become the next North Korea.”

It sounds like a huge issue with the media couple with laziness of the population to actually do research on other candidates and understand that they might be better alternatives. The media sounds like it’s pushing a lot of propaganda to its citizens and the majority are buying it or are too scared to speak out about it. This is definitely a slippery slope.

I’d go a step further and say that the media IS pushing a lot of propaganda.

For instance, where i live (the heart of Europe) a media company (DPG Media) bought a building on a square in Antwerp. Nothing special, you’d say. Except that this company then had the square renamed from KievitPlein (kievitsquare) to Mediaplein. (Mediasquare). And this by the personal intervention of the mayor himself. (i know from people within). From that day on, not a bad word has been written about the mayor. (who has his bad sides exposed in another, independent paper. They still believe in and practice solid, objective investigative journalism and who are not afraid to say things like they are).

This media company is one of the 2 biggest in our country and you can bet that they push propaganda. Objective journalism has gone out of the window. There’s still around, but the citizens where i live, are lapping it up. Only a few ask questions. Only a few speak out. (that i know of). And they get branded, conveniently i must say, as conspiracy theorists.
It looks like it’s the same in Australia and for that matter, around the world. If you want a trusted source of news, look for the independent channels.
This is indeed, a very slippery slope.

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A lot of times it just needs to look at who’s owning media. The answer in a lot of countries is appalling. It’s like food companies but worse…

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It’s complicated with journalism…

The more journalists cater to important people, the more they tend to get tip offs, interviews, exclusives, business networking, leaked information, invitations to private events and occasionally higher paying jobs.

On the other end you have the buyers of journalism who want some mix of honesty, entertainment, truth and validation.

There’s some balance to be struck because it can be difficult to inform the public if no one will talk to you and if you’re too nice you’ll just be running your audience into brick walls.

Here’s the problem… if journalists can trick buyers into thinking they’re authentic, mislead them on the truth, validate the mistruths they now believe, do it in entertaining ways and make those brick walls they run them into look like someone else’s fault or a virtuous burden of kindness, then journalists can have tons of access and tons of sales.

Assuming that in any population you’ll have people strictly loyal to shortsighted self-enrichment who’ll dominate the industry if allowed and important people can’t be expected to work against their own interests I think the problem really belongs to the buyers of journalism to hold up their end of making these checks and balances of journalism work.

You’re not including a big factor which we were alluding to above : the ownership. You can say whatever you want about freedom of editorial staff, when a newspaper is own by industrial moguls there will conflict of interest. Billionaires don’t buy media out of charity…

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Indeed, that’s why we’re better of with the independant journalists who get sponsored by the people who fund their work, rather than commercial concerns, who have no other motive than selling you stuff, or worse, influence opinions.

An industrial mogul isn’t going to back the production of news that people aren’t listening to or buying any more than a journalist will. It’s the same problem just with an extra layer.

If a citizenry is largely unconcerned with the quality of it’s news the profit incentives will merely create what they do want whether provided by individuals or networks.

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It’s not just an extra layer, it’s an integrated censorship that could prevent some news that would sell well but not suit well with the ownership

Otherwise I completely agree that if we are largely unconcerned by the quality of news the results will be poor at the least

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