Released on behalf of the US, UK, Canada & NZ the Australian government has decided it will carry the torch for thinly veiled threats to tech companies whom they want to:

…create customized solutions, tailored to their individual system architectures that are capable of meeting lawful access requirements.

Now they’ve also begun warning that there could be repercussions for failing to provide the access their after essentially saying they’ll just make up laws to enforce it:

…we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions,”

It’s interesting that Australia’s essentially falling on the sword here on behalf of everyone else, or more precisely the US & UK. Perhaps pumping out press-releases “down under” come under less global scrutiny, perhaps its a pat on the back for standing up and telling the world we have no respect for the laws of mathematics. Either way they refuse to call it a back door, ignore the gross misuse and abuse by government employees of existing systems, let alone this new one and play down the huge privacy implications every citizen is affected by.

Source: ‘Five Eyes’ governments call on tech giants to build encryption backdoors — or else | TechCrunch

TPG and Vodafone Hutchison Australia have announced that they will proceed with their merger to form a telecommunications giant that they say will have an enterprise value of approximately AU$15 billion.

Sing it..

Two strong hearts,
We stick together like the honey & the bee,
But we’ll be called TPG!

Poised to become Australia’s 2nd largest telco in the next five years. Optus potentially getting the ass by a compatriot of it’s Singaporean parent.

Source: TPG and Vodafone Australia to merge into AU$15b telco named TPG | ZDNet

Under the legislation, tech companies would have to: remove protections on devices; give law enforcement agencies the design specs of their devices; install software on a device when asked; provide access to devices; and help agencies build their own systems.

The draft legislation was introduced by cyber security minister Angus Taylor and is open for submissions until September 10th. The sitting government is aiming to have it introduced by years end but will struggle to do so given its sensitive nature in affectively removing an individuals right to privacy and thus likely being submitted to a committee for review.

Under the legislation companies who do the right thing will be compensated for their time, however for those that don’t, expect a fine of up to a lazy A$10m.

For individuals, failing to unlock your device or decrypt any information requested by the powers that be, you’ll face a A$500k fine or a lazy 5 years in jail for “simple offences” or 10 years for crimes deemed “serious”.

Source: You Could Go To Jail For 10 Years For Refusing To Unlock Your Phone

Cricket Australia has sacked a female employee after she campaigned for abortion reform on social media, telling the woman that concerns she had insulted the Tasmanian government were central to her dismissal.

Due to the closure of the last publicly run abortion clinic in Tasmania Angela Williamson, whom was working as the manager of public policy & government relations for Cricket Australia, was forced to travel to Melbourne for a termination.

The mother of three had criticised the Tasmanian government in a series of tweets beginning in January of 2018 and was told they’d “damaged [her] relationship with the government”.

Cricket Australia has confirmed that the matter is now in the hands of each party’s legal teams and has made a statement saying that whilst they “respect an individual’s right to their opinion” they expect “employees will refrain from making offensive comments that contravene the organisation’s policies.”

Personally, my takeaway from the statement is that Cricket Australia doesn’t believe women should have publicly available local options for pregnancy terminations in the state of Tasmania.

Source: Cricket Australia sacks worker over series of tweets about abortion

…it is believed that the breach also captured name, address, email and date of birth information provided by electors when applying for an express vote at the recent State and Legislative Council elections.

In case you haven’t heard online form creator “Typeform” had an extreme data breach recently where a “partial backup” of their data fell into the wrong hands.

The file contained details from a range of Typeform clients that are now being informed on a daily basis.

Tasmania’s electoral commission (TEC) appears to be another of those clients using five forms on their website collecting a variety of data including sensitive private information when applying for an express vote.

The TEC believe this breach affects approximately 4000 voters and is reviewing it’s data collection methods and use of third party services.

Source: Tasmanian voters caught in data breach – Security – iTnews

The federal opposition wants to create its own NBN service guarantee that would see NBN Co fined every time contractors missed appointments or made installation errors.

Labor’s argument is that right now retail providers of internet and communication services are held accountable by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) whence the NBN reports to no one.

This is true but it’s also a little skewed. Retail providers aren’t fined for missing appointments at the moment. They never have been and more often than not customers grit their teeth and bare it with many not even know the TIO exists.

Referring issues to the TIO is a process that anyone can do and I encourage those hitting road blocks with a telco to do so however it doesn’t result in instant fining either.

While I’m the first in line to pile shit on the Liberal MTM NBN, Labor’s announcement here is a bit of smoke designed to capture disgruntled voters and likely to implemented in a way that isn’t as black and white – if at all.

That’s politics in a nutshell really isn’t it?

Source: Labor wants to fine NBN Co for bad service – Telco/ISP – iTnews