Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697632730606.pdf (Australia)
Dear Committee, I am writing this to express issues with the AA Bill.

The proposal in the bill to allow a way for law enforcement to see encrypted data cannot be done in a safe way and should be repealed immediately.

Firstly, and most importantly, there exists no way that data that is encrypted to be seen by one party with another party without seriously compromising security.
While the minister believes that there won’t be a backdoor this is impossible due to the way encrypted messaging services are built.

Services like WhatsApp, and Signal have strong keys that are not known by these services and instead by individual users which is what makes them secure.

To get the data off these services, one must either crack the math which takes a long time an attempt can make the service less secure.
This is usually done with backdoor and will probably be done that way as noted by this article (https://www.accessnow.org/what-we-think-you-should-know-about-australias-new-encryption- bill/).
I also note that this talk and article by Klaus Schmeh has proven in 50 cases where encrypted data was requested, 25 were solved without needing to break or bypass encryption and in the 3 cases where law enforcement could not solve the case and find a way to bypass or break encryption there was 0 evidence that the cases were solvable by bypassing or breaking encryption.

Secondly, why did you refuse political corruption watchdogs like ICAC from seeing this data.

Are the politicians hiding something?


Remember the quote “If you have nothing to hide you have nothing fear” said by Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Tim Morris in relation to metadata retention.

What are politicians hiding that can’t be accessed with this bill.

This data will probably be leaked by someone eventually through the backdoor.

Lastly, why do you guys want to cripple the Australian economy.
Our tech industry is a big part of our economy and we have some of the smartest minds in the tech industry.

This bill compels companies based in Australia, companies operating in Australia, an Australians who work in Australia or overseas to help the government or face jail time.

This undermines trust in Australian tech workers.

A worker could be fired for helping the government because he or she compromised the assets of a company.

Can that worker then sue the government for getting him fired?
I am not an economist by any means but a resource rich country must transition from a resources based economy eventually as the resources run out.

Dubai is a great example of this, using its oil money to build a new economy based around tourism.

Does Australia have a plan to move on from a resource based economy in the future.

With the tech industry only growing, can Australia’s economy not be crippled by this bill.
Can the future of the students studying or considering studying it, computing or software in universities be in Australia and not in China or other countries.

I implore the committee to recommend that the committee repeal this bill immediately.

Regards, Review of the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018Submission 19 Review of the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018Submission 19