Random Politics

[Lightspeed]

Ratepayers from around NZ unite for more clout with govt

People with money want more power. Who would have thunk.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by pxpx

Just don't tick the "I'm a terrorist" box, yes?

Bullshiiiiit

[crocos]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Ratepayers from around NZ unite for more clout with govt

People with money want more power. Who would have thunk.

I guess the question I have for you is: Do you want this happening in an open and public way where at least those that are not ratepayers have the opportunity to at least see what is happening, or do you like the current mostly behind closed doors set-up where not even ratepayers (other than the well connected ones) have any influence?

[pxpx]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...ectid=12132076

the game is afoot

[DrTiTus]

Now we have to give NZ Customs our password/fingerprint access for our devices if they ask - or face a $5000 fine and have our device "forensically searched"

[Ab]

"trust us, we won't ask unless we need to"

"if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear"

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by pxpx

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...ectid=12132076

the game is afoot

Nice. Weeding the garden of slack landlords.

[fixed_truth]

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern: Labour will not support NZ First's 'NZ Values' bill

Ardern joins a range of others who have voiced opposition to the proposed bill.

National Leader Simon Bridges called the bill "headline-grabbing nonsense".

New Zealand Refugee Council President Arif Saeid does not support the proposal, neither does the Human Rights Commission.

Well that's that...until post election negotiations

[Ab]

Exactly. What Jacinda wants or does not want is hardly significant, she doesn't control the government.

[crocos]

[Lightspeed]

^^ Epic/disturbing.

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

Now we have to give NZ Customs our password/fingerprint access for our devices if they ask - or face a $5000 fine and have our device "forensically searched"

Border officials searched roughly 540 electronic devices at New Zealand airports in 2017.

I'm curious what kind of justification was offered in these cases. It's a small percentage of all travellers, but how were these particular travellers determined.

[Nich]

Jesus, really?

Way to make everyone irrational and emotional.

"He's guilty, I just know it in my gut."

Fuck. that.

...

anyway, I came here to post this:
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/natio...0-customs-fine

Which is equally fucked up. Read another way: "The price of privacy is $5,000"... If I was a terrorist, being funded by Saudi Arabia, do you think as well as funding my pilot's training, accommodation, and food they could also pay my fines for me so customs will leave me alone?

I guess I'll be travelling with a factory-reset phone from now on.

[Ab]

I will never ever ever unlock a device for a government agent without a court-ordered search warrant.

[Nich]

A friend's business idea inspired by this:

Value your privacy, don't want to cause a scene at customs? Download our "Ordinary Citizen Data Pack". It's a 4gb download of thousands of photos of Avocado Toast, Home Renovations, and other mundane life activities. It also includes an AI-generated history of boring text message and email histories. Now you can submit to a digital strip search and give them the biggest fucking haystack to search through."

[crocos]

Originally Posted by Ab

I will never ever ever unlock a device for a government agent without a court-ordered search warrant.

The answer to that is they now can confiscate the device. Because... they felt like it I guess?

[crocos]

It's more than a tad fucked. Chances are white people are gonna be fine (white privilageeee!!), unless you've got a bushy beard, or are too attractive, or... but there's the chance it'll be either submit to unlocking the device (laptop, tablet, phone, etc) so they can freely do a forensic search, or it gets confiscated, potentially putting you out thousands of dollars, with an up-to $5k fine on top of that if it goes through the courts.

Be clear: Despite the alarmism It's not Customs that would impose the fine.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by crocos

The answer to that is they now can confiscate the device. Because... they felt like it I guess?

Value of my privacy > replacement cost of device

But yeah, fuck you very much Jacinda.

[Lightspeed]

I think the idea is that you lose your device and the hax it to get to your sweet tender data.

I'm very curious to find out the justifications currently used where devices have been searched. What could they be looking for and how would they know to look?

[Ab]

And they won't do the searching in real time. It'll be "unlock your phone please sir, thank you we'll be back in 5 mins" (take phone out back, ghost it to an image) "thank you for your patience sir, have a nice day" (image gets copied to the Big Data Store where some machine learning pattern matching magic happens and who knows what after that)

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

I'm very curious to find out the justifications currently used where devices have been searched. What could they be looking for and how would they know to look?

Anything. Maybe the campaign agency the governing party has just hired wants to start building profiles of likely voters based on personal correspondence or the other people in your networks before the next election. Maybe a donor to the party currently in government wants to work out the likelihood of you developing cancer and sell those predictions to insurance companies. Maybe five years down the track after your messy divorce someone who knows someone in the police force wants to find out what your domestic arrangements were at the time of the breakup.

[Nich]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

I think the idea is that you lose your device and the hax it to get to your sweet tender data.

I'm very curious to find out the justifications currently used where devices have been searched. What could they be looking for and how would they know to look?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmir.../#78ef4da076d2

Reasonable and Appropriate Justifications for Digital Strip Search #92: You See a Bitcoin in a Passenger's Bag

Regarding the omission of Cloud-based data:
Here's a thought, they are making us warm and fuzzy about them NOT searching through our data in the cloud because, well, they have already 0wn3d that.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

Anything.

I mean specifically, in the ~500 incidents where people were digitally searched at NZ's border last year.

Does this kind of thing fall under the purview of the OIA? Probably not is my guess. Is there an ombudsman who can investigate?

[DrTiTus]

Here's the relevant legislation before we make assumptions:

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/p...LM7039503.html

[Lightspeed]

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/...tage-laid-bare

I find this infuriating:

Between 2010 and 2016 (the latest available figures), those enrolled in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) dropped by 5690, from 14,585 (EFTS) to just 8895. During this period, New Zealand’s population grew by around 400,000. Those who completed ITE dropped from 5010 to 3665.

[Juju]

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

Here's the relevant legislation before we make assumptions:

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/p...LM7039503.html

So they can only search if they have reasonable cause that you are doing naughty things, and they can only search things physically on the phone's memory/storage - not on the cloud.

[Lightspeed]

I can't think of anything on the day that would give an agent reasonable cause to search your devices. I have to assume that the cases where a search did take place that the agents had prior knowledge of you and are taking the opportunity to do the search.

Which makes me think of secret investigations and lists.

[Cyberbob]

Originally Posted by Juju

So they can only search if they have reasonable cause that you are doing naughty things, and they can only search things physically on the phone's memory/storage - not on the cloud.

They also don't have to disclose what that reasonable cause is.

[Ab]

There will be all sorts of loopholes.

Data in the device may be searched (...) if a Customs officer has reasonable cause to suspect that—
(i)
a person in possession of the device has been, is, or is about to be involved in the commission of relevant offending:

relevant offending means—
(a)
the importation or exportation of any prohibited goods; or
(b)
an offence under this Act; or
(c)
the unlawful importation or exportation of any goods

Five-Eyes nations to force encryption backdoors
The governments of Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand have made the strongest statement yet that they intend to force technology providers to provide lawful access to users' encrypted communications.

"Sir I see you have an iPhone, I now have reasonable cause to suspect that you are not using a Five-Eyes-approved operating system, please step aside, this will just take a moment"

[Cyberbob]

Like most airport security policies or measures in general, it's only going to inconvenience legitimate travelers.

Actual criminals would put all their data into a throwaway dropbox account before they go, delete the app, then reinstall and resync once they land in the destination.

You could say that their reasons for allowing this processing of digital devices has nothing to do with criminals and all to do with police state, but then your tinfoil hat would set off the metal detector at airport security.

[Lightspeed]

(b)
an offence under this Act; or

I don't understand what this means. What's counts as an offence?

[Nich]

Originally Posted by Cyberbob

You could say that their reasons for allowing this processing of digital devices has nothing to do with criminals and all to do with police state, but then your tinfoil hat would set off the metal detector at airport security.

Why build a gate when it's so easy to just walk around it? What is the point of more bureaucracy in this instance except to just test for compliance and willingness to agree to slightly more controls?

[DrTiTus]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

I don't understand what this means. What's counts as an offence?

If you go into the contents page, you can search for Offence and find a bunch of things littered throughout, and defences for them too. Basically anything Customs-y you can think of.

[Ab]

(b)
the device or data may be copied, reviewed, or evaluated (including by means of previewing, cloning, or other forensic methods); and

(f)
the device must be returned to the person entitled to its possession at the conclusion of the search (unless evidence of relevant offending is found)

I don't see anything anywhere about all your information being deleted at the conclusion of the search. If they clone your device assume that your info is retained for ever whether you get the device back or not.

Oh yeah, and NZ shares with the other Five Eyes nations too.

/tinfoil
/seriouslythough

[DrTiTus]

I can be fairly paranoid, but I don't think it's a blatant "Police state" move. I mean, sure, it definitely contains traces of swine, and it's an erosion of rights/liberty, but it's not just a "let's see if they'll accept it" type of move.

I think it's just law makers making laws that they think grant them enough power to defeat these blasted cellphones and the encryption (since they know encryption takes a lot of resource to brute force). This is their $5 wrench, or this case, a $5000 financial wrench.

As for your data being kept, in an initial search:

(e) any temporary files created by a technology aid must be immediately deleted when the search is complete (unless the device is detained for a full search);

[Ab]

Well if they're going to be retained they're obviously not temporary are they?

[DrTiTus]

You realise that the NZ Police PHOTOCOPIES your SMS messages to use as evidence, right?

This is the level of competence we are talking about. They aren't out back rooting your phone with the latest 0-day.

I conducted my own "investigation" when my computers got seized because the officer assigned to me wasn't familiar with Linux.

If they don't follow process you can get off charges. I doubt your life is worth backing up for eternity. And if it's not forever....

[Ab]

OK, I may have had tongue in cheek a little bit

[pxpx]

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

when my computers got seized

Story time plz!

[spigalau]

Originally Posted by pxpx

Story time plz!

DrTiTus has just been outed as Krim Dot Con :P

[Delphinus]

any transmitting functions on the device must be disabled, wherever possible, before the search of data in the device; and

Is it possible to configure Windows (or other OS's) to block login/decryption unless an internet connection is present? That would mean if your device is in flight mode, they cannot access it even with your password you've handily provided?

[Lightspeed]

I don't know what the standard for encryption is these days since TrueCrypt claimed it wasn't secure. But it sounds sensible to be able to configure encryption to use a private key from an arbitrary location.

It's an interesting idea.

Anyone know what is the standard for encryption these days?