Covert Contact 82: The Crypto Wars: Update from the Australian Front

Stilgherrian returns to discuss Australia's push for access to encrypted communications and the difficulty of reconciling that demand with the security those systems are meant to provide. We begin with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's July 2017 comments about the laws of Australia and the laws of mathematics, then look beyond the much-quoted exchange to the government's argument for lawful access.

There are real investigative problems behind that argument. Police and intelligence agencies want to reach communications used to plan serious crimes, and ordinary interception may provide only unreadable data. At the same time, weakening a security model can expose everyone who relies on it. We revisit the earlier crypto wars and ask what governments could accomplish by pressuring major technology companies when strong encryption can be developed and distributed elsewhere using open-source software.

Stilgherrian also considers whether the pressure will fall on phones and other devices rather than on encryption itself. Access at the endpoints raises its own questions about who would control that capability, how it would be protected, and what happens when the organizations entrusted with it fail to secure their systems. These are concerns about criminals, companies, and foreign intelligence services as well as government surveillance.

The Australian political setting is an important part of the conversation. We discuss the scrutiny given to national security legislation, the willingness to grant additional powers, and the fragility of assumptions about how those powers will be used. We also look for room between the most uncompromising positions in the debate, including voices with law enforcement experience who question open-ended demands for access.

We do not arrive at a neat solution. The discussion keeps returning to the benefits of stronger security, the genuine costs it can impose on investigations, and the danger of creating an access mechanism that its intended users cannot reliably control.