Re: [Mtgvenue] Australia and its encryption laws

I live in Brisbane. I have been working continuously online across the
time these laws came into effect.

There has been no significant impact on the local ICT industry, in
terms of use of end-to-end encryption built into product,
self-installed, use of tools like signal, VPNs, GIT, there has been no
ubiquitous reporting of intrusive police action, no canary incidents
worthy of wider discussion.

There is always the possibility this is having an impact under NDA,
but that is true under all economies we consider viable for IETF.

To all intents and purposes, nobody I know in the area we are working
in (governance, standards, technology) has really been adversely
impacted by the laws.

cheers

-George

On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 2:29 AM Eliot Lear <lear@lear.ch> wrote:
>
> Hi Glenn,
>
> On 10.06.21 17:57, Deen, Glenn (NBCUniversal) wrote:
>
> The article is from 2018, so there’s now been several years for any actual fallout to visitors and others to occur.
>
>
>
> In that time has there actually been any legal actions that have actually come to impact visitors to Australia?
>
> That would be very useful to know.  As a reminder, the LLC is expected to look at this issue through the lens of RFC 8718.  Section 2.2 of that document governs venue selection and has this to say about policies:
>
>    Politics:
>       Endorsing or condemning particular countries, political paradigms,
>       laws, regulations, or policies.
>
> The IETF policy is explicitly and emphatically not whether we like the policies of governments around encryption, but whether those policies will materially impact our ability to have a successful meeting.
>
> We also say this:
>
>    Internet Access:
>       As an organization, we write specifications for the Internet, and
>       we use it heavily.  Meeting attendees need unfiltered access to
>       the general Internet and their corporate networks.  "Unfiltered
>       access", in this case, means that all forms of communication are
>       allowed.  This includes, but is not limited to, access to
>       corporate networks via encrypted VPNs from the meeting Facility
>       and Hotels, including Overflow Hotels.  We also need open network
>       access available at high enough data rates, at the meeting
>       Facility, to support our work, which includes support of remote
>       participation.  Beyond this, we are the first users of our own
>       technology.  Any filtering may cause a problem with that
>       technology development.  In some cases, local laws may require
>       some filtering.  We seek to avoid such locales without reducing
>       the pool of cities to an unacceptable level by stating a number of
>       criteria below, one mandatory and others important, to allow for
>       the case where local laws may require filtering in some
>       circumstances.
>
> I would read the term "filtering" to also include preventing people from using the software they wish to use.  But I cannot see whether Australia is doing that.  If people cannot bring encrypting software into Australia, that's a reason not to meet there.  Similarly, if the networking team does not have the technical capability to deliver the meeting based on Australia's laws, that would also be a reason not to meet there.  These pragmatic matters and perhaps similar potential impediments are what the LLC should be looking for at this stage.
>
> For those who would like to take up a policy change about how we select venues, that requires an update to 8718.
>
> Eliot
>
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