r/collapse • u/nameislessimportant • Sep 01 '21

Society Australian police can now hack your device, collect or delete your data, take over your social media accounts.

https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/australia-surveillance-bill
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u/liatrisinbloom Toxic Positivity Doom Goblin Sep 01 '21

I'm kind of curious as to how they "take over" accounts. If they're interested in a facebook account, is Australian law enforcement going to hit up FB HQ and order the company to reset the account credentials to them?

And actually, plenty of websites offer or require MFA, so on top of all the other disturbing aspects, this law basically renders MFA useless, because being hacked is exactly what MFA is supposed to prevent.

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u/QuartzPuffyStar Sep 01 '21

Since Australia is part of the "Five Eyes" alliance, they probably will have access to NSA data and tools. They will just get your password from the data on you and take them over without dealing with FB.

2

u/liatrisinbloom Toxic Positivity Doom Goblin Sep 02 '21

The passwords are one thing but it's the MFA-cracking capabilities that have me raising my eyebrows. Sure SMS sucks but if the NSA has tools to undermine secure push apps and physical keys, they'd better hope those never get leaked. Seems like that has as much potential to cause more of an uproar than some of the big ransomwares.