[7000skeletons]

I know Australians like to joke about how they have an Old Man Government that likes to pass legislation about things it doesn't really understand, but even by the lofty standards it's set this is ridiculous. And I shouldn't act too smug, either, given some of the chatter that's come from a number of different Home Secretaries here in the UK.

At what point are these people going to wrap their heads around the concept that there's no way to implement these sorts of policies without compromising security?

[grolimpio]

I wish it was just a joke... over here, the same politicians will tell you that "clean coal" is the future and the solution to "clean" the planet (no, it's not another dirty joke).

Actually, our current Prime Minister brought a "nice big hunk of black coal" to the House of Representatives one day (before he became the Prime Minister).

Back to technology, the company responsible for our national broadband (NBN Co), has bought 21 million metres of copper cable (enough to wrap around Australia one and a half times). That's our "high-speed" broadband network.

But hey, one of our previous prime ministers still thinks that high-speed Internet is to watch porn only, so there was no need to replace the old and inefficient copper with fibre.

At this point, I don't know if this is an Old Man Government or an Old Man Country, because enough people vote for these politicians, so they stay in power.

[mmjaa]

>At what point are these people going to wrap their heads around the concept that there's no way to implement these sorts of policies without compromising security?

You make the mistake in thinking they're ignorant of how much security they are compromising. The language of these bills is not designed to cover up incompetence - its designed to cover up competence.

You see, the Australian government knows full well what it's doing. What it is depending on, is that the Australian people don't have a clue - and really, they don't. Sure, a few sectors are well enough educated on the subjects to raise objections - but Australian politics has never allowed minority voices to be heard, and people raising objections to heinous Australian policies are easily silenced - Australian politics is designed to disallow such from happening.

The way to view this whole episode, is with much cynicism and disgust at the way the Australian people are manipulated. It is one of the most captive western audiences, most easily influenced by a powerful media industry, and everything that is being done in Australia to make forced decryption possible is just a test for the broader market - the USA and Europe - that will be attacked next.

[7000skeletons]

Yeah, I'm probably giving them the benefit of the doubt in assuming that they're being stupid rather than outright malicious. The same is likely true here in the UK, given that they've had tech experts yelling at them for years about how you can't add some sort of exclusive backdoor access to software. Still hasn't stopped the last two Home Secretaries (one of whom is now the Prime Minister, at least for now) trying to force companies to create them.