Displaying items by tag: Encryption

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton has spoken publicly for the first time since quitting Facebook — which acquired the encrypted messaging app for US$22 billion in 2014 — but apart from some intricate detail, has revealed nothing apart from what emerged when the news of his leaving the social media giant broke in June.

During the past two weeks, a clear message has been sent to the Australian Government from all sectors of the national community. The people of Australia want the government to take their unacceptable authoritarian anti-encryption bill and cremate it.

A group of privacy and rights organisations have called on Australian politicians to reject the encryption bill which was introduced into Parliament last week, as it creates insecurity by design which will get in the way of Australian companies who seek to do business in European markets.

The Australian Labor Party has termed "unacceptable" the government's introduction of its encryption bill into Parliament on Thursday, just 10 days after public submissions to the draft ended and with no response released to stakeholders.

Global software industry advocate BSA, the software alliance, has urged the Australian Government to include in its encryption bill a judicial oversight and challenge mechanism in order to ensure that any new powers given to law enforcement are not abused.

Victoria Police's counter-terrorism boss Ross Guenther has announced plans to fly drones above crowds at major events.

The Communications Alliance, which represents the entire telecommunications industry in Australia, has signalled that it intends to lead a charge to have the Government's proposed anti-encryption bill quashed.

The Australian Labor Party appears to be hesitant about ruling out support for the government's Assistance and Access Bill, a draft of which was put up for comment on 14 August.

Australian Greens' Digital Rights spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John says he is thrilled that some of the world's big technology firms have put the privacy of their users ahead of their own profits by condemning the Federal Government's Assistance and Access Bill.

Monday is the last day on which Australians can submit their statements of support or opposition to the proposed Assistance and Access bill which seeks to force people or organisations to allow access to encrypted communications.

Digital rights organisation Electronic Frontiers Australia has urged Australians to comment on the government's draft encryption bill and ask Parliament to avoid mandating backdoors in applications that provide encryption.

The governments of the Five Eyes countries — the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — have warned tech companies that they must voluntarily enable access to products sold in these five countries, else they will be forced to do so in cases deemed necessary.

The US Government is going after Facebook in a bid to get the social media giant to break the encryption on its Messenger client, in order that it can gain access to voice data reportedly needed for a crime investigation – something that Australian Government will have no difficulty doing once its new cyber law is passed.

Internet Australia has raised serious privacy and security concerns about the Australian Government’s proposal to introduce a new cyber encryption law, warning the draft law seeks unprecedented expansion of powers to access citizen’s devices.

The communications and telecommunications industry has welcomed the Australian Government’s release for public consultation of the draft telecoms assistance and access bill – otherwise dubbed the Encryption Bill.

The Australian Greens appear to be unimpressed with the Federal Government's new cyber law, saying that it would "completely undermine the point of end-to-end encryption and the privacy of every single Australian’s personal information online".

A group of 17 companies and organisations has signed an open letter asking the Australian Government not to promulgate a law forcing technology companies to decrypt secure communications for the purposes of law enforcement.

Australian-listed Internet of Things technology company Xped has secured a US$500,000 IoT deal to develop a new physical security token with UK company Heuresy Labs.

The FBI has grossly exaggerated, on more than one occasion, the number of digital devices it cannot access due to encryption, claiming a figure of 7800 when the actual figure was between 1000 and 2000.

European researchers have been forced to advance the announcement of what they claim are vulnerabilities in commonly used encryption technologies used in email after the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung carried a report about their research which had been originally embargoed for release early Wednesday morning Australian time.