Search

Begin New Search Topic Science and Technology Publishing Institution Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)

11. The future of assistance to law enforcement in an end-to-end encrypted world

Author:
Tom Uren
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Domestic telecommunications companies assist law enforcement by the lawful interception of otherwise private communications when presented with a valid warrant. This has been a powerful tool to combat crime. In the 2019–20 financial year, for example, 3,677 new warrants for telecommunications interception were issued, and information gained through interception warrants was used in 2,685 arrests, 5,219 prosecutions and 2,652 convictions. That was in the context of 43,189 custodial sentences in the same year. But law enforcement and security officials assert that the usefulness of ‘exceptional access’, as it’s called in this paper, has declined over time as strong encryption has become increasingly common. Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director-General Michael Burgess has stated that encryption ‘damages intelligence coverage’ in 97% of ASIO’s priority counter-intelligence cases. The problem of increasingly powerful encryption degrading the usefulness of exceptional access is often referred to as ‘going dark’. The Australian Government has committed to the reform of Australia’s electronic surveillance legislative framework.5 Although its discussion paper mentions encryption only in passing,6 we can expect that encryption and going dark will be a topic of debate as reform is considered. This paper contributes to that debate by examining how firms that provide digital communications services can provide assistance to law enforcement even as strong encryption is increasingly common. Although exceptional access is primarily concerned with evidence collection, it may be better in some cases to focus on crime prevention, when it comes to achieving society’s broader aim of safety and security. This may be especially true for serious offences that cause significant harms to individuals, such as child exploitation and terrorism.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Law Enforcement, Cybersecurity, Police, and End-to-End Encryption
Political Geography:
Australia and Global Focus

12. Artificial intelligence and policing in Australia

Author:
Teagan Westendorf
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
ASPI’s Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement Program is delighted to share its new Strategic Insights report, Artificial intelligence and policing in Australia by Dr Teagan Westendorf. Digital technologies, devices and the internet are producing huge amounts of data and greater capacity to store it, and those developments are likely to accelerate. For law enforcement, a critical capability lagging behind the pace of tech innovation is the ability and capacity to screen, analyse and render insights from the ever-increasing volume of data—and to do so in accordance with the constraints on access to and use of personal information within our democratic system. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are presenting valuable solutions to the public and private sectors for screening big and live data. AI is also commonly considered and marketed as a solution that removes human bias, although AI algorithms and dataset creation can also perpetuate human bias and so aren’t value or error free. This report analyses limitations, both technical and implementation, of AI algorithms, and the implications of those limitations on the safe, reliable and ethical use of AI in policing and law enforcement scenarios. This publication closely examines usage of AI by domestic policing agencies to model what success looks like for safe, reliable and ethical use of AI in policing and law enforcement spaces. It also explores possible strategies to mitigate the potential negative effects of AI data insights and decision-making in the justice system; and implications for regulation of AI use by police and law enforcement in Australia. AI ‘algorithms’ or ‘models’ promise to: enable high volumes of data processing at speed, while identifying patterns human judgement is not capable of; supercharge knowledge management while (supposedly) removing human bias from that process; and operate with ethical principles coded into their decision-making. This ‘promise’, however, is not a guarantee.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Police, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning
Political Geography:
Australia

13. Artificial intelligence: your questions answered

Author:
Kathy Nicholson and Adam Slonim
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
This collection of short papers developed by the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML) at the University of Adelaide and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) offers a refreshing primer into the world of artificial intelligence and the opportunities and risks this technology presents to Australia. AI’s potential role in enhancing Australia’s defence capabilities, strengthening alliances and deterring those who would seek to harm our interests was significantly enhanced as a result of the September 2021 announcement of the AUKUS partnership between the US, the UK and Australia. Perhaps not surprisingly, much public attention on AUKUS has focused on developing a plan ‘identifying the optimal pathway to deliver at least eight nuclear-powered submarines for Australia’. This AIML/ASPI report is a great starting point for individuals looking to better understand the growing role of AI in our lives. I commend the authors and look forward to the amazing AI developments to come that will, we must all hope, reshape the world for a more peaceful, stable and prosperous future.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
Australia

14. Digital government services. Building for peak demand.

Author:
Tom Uren
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, the myGov website was overwhelmed by a demand surge from citizens seeking to rapidly access digital services. In 2016, the online Census (eCensus) suffered a series of relatively small distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. While they didn’t overwhelm the platform, the attacks ultimately resulted in the eCensus being taken offline. What do these two examples have in common, and what lessons should we learn to ensure more robust digital government services? To answer those questions, this paper will examine five points: The nature of the DDoS attacks The CIA (confidentiality, integrity and availability) triad model for digital security How to predict demand How to respond to unpredictable demand The structure of reliable data systems
Topic:
Government, National Security, Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, and Digital Policy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15. ASPI - Embassy of Japan 1.5 Track Dialogue on Responsible Behaviour in Space

Author:
Malcolm Davis and Khwezi Nkwanyana
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Earlier this year, ASPI and the Embassy of Japan in Australia convened a hybrid workshop on responsible behaviours in space; a concept which has emerged as a key focus of the international space policy community. At the workshop, participants discussed the stable and sustainable use of space and management of security challenges in space, and ways to define responsible behaviour in space, including through UN General Assembly Resolution 75/36. Participants at this workshop included academics, practitioners, government representatives, military personnel and legal experts from Australia, Japan, Britain and Southeast Asia. This workshop and report were sponsored by the Embassy of Japan in Australia.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Diplomacy, National Security, Science and Technology, and Space
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, and Australia

16. Deterrence through denial: A strategy for an era of reduced warning time

Author:
Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Australia now needs to implement serious changes to how warning time is considered in defence planning. The need to plan for reduced warning time has implications for the Australian intelligence community, defence strategic policy, force structure priorities, readiness and sustainability. Important changes will also be needed with respect to personnel, stockpiles of missiles and munitions, and fuel supplies. We can no longer assume that Australia will have time gradually to adjust military capability and preparedness in response to emerging threats. In other words, there must be a new approach in Defence to managing warning, capability and preparedness, and detailed planning for rapid expansion and sustainment. This paper addresses those issues, recognising that they’re a revolutionary break with the past era of what were much more comfortable assumptions about threats to Australia. Considering the complexity of the issues involved, we have identified further areas for research, including at the classified level.
Topic:
Defense Policy, National Security, Science and Technology, and Deterrence
Political Geography:
Australia

17. Mapping China's Tech Giants: Reining in China’s technology giants

Author:
Fergus Ryan, Audrey Fritz, and Daria Impiombato
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Since the launch of ASPI ICPC’s Mapping China’s Technology Giants project in April 2019, the Chinese technology companies we canvassed have gone through a tumultuous period. While most were buoyed by the global Covid-19 pandemic, which stimulated demand for technology services around the world, many were buffeted by an unprecedented onslaught of sanctions from abroad, before being engulfed in a regulatory storm at home. The environment in which the Chinese tech companies are operating has changed radically, as the pandemic sensitised multiple governments, multilateral groups and companies to their own critical supply-chain vulnerabilities. The lessons about national resilience learned from the pandemic are now being applied in many sectors, including the technology sector, where a trend towards decoupling China and the West was already well underway. As the geopolitical rivalry between the US and China has heightened, both sides increasingly see any reliance on the other for strategic commodities, such as rare-earth minerals and semiconductors, as dangerous vulnerabilities.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Bilateral Relations, Geopolitics, COVID-19, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
China and Australia

18. Mapping China's Tech Giants: Supply chains & the global data collection ecosystem

Author:
Samantha Hoffman and Nathan Attrill
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Most of the 27 companies tracked by our Mapping China’s Technology Giants project are heavily involved in the collection and processing of vast quantities of personal and organisational data — everything from personal social media accounts, to smart cities data, to biomedical data. Their business operations—and associated international collaborations — depend on the flow of vast amounts of data, often governed by the data privacy laws of multiple jurisdictions. Currently, however, existing global policy debates and subsequent policy responses concerning security in the digital supply chain miss the bigger picture because they typically prioritise the potential for disruption or malicious alterations of the supply chain. Yet, as we have defined it in this report, digital supply-chain risk starts at the design level (Figure 1). For the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the designer is the Chinese party-state, through expectations and agenda-setting in laws and policy documents and actions such as the mobilisation of state resources to achieve objectives such as the setting of technology standards. It’s through those standards, policies and laws that the party-state is refining its capacity to exert control over companies’ activities to ensure that it can derive strategic value and benefit from the companies’ global operations. That includes leveraging data collection taking place through those companies’ everyday global business activities, which ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) described in the Engineering global consent report. Technology isn’t agnostic—who sets the standards and therefore the direction of the technology matters just as much as who manufactures the product. This will have major implications for the effectiveness of data protection laws and notions of digital supply-chain security.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, Data, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
China and Asia

19. The impact of quantum technologies on secure communications

Author:
Robert Clark, Stephen Bartlett, Michael Bremner, Ping Koy Lam, and Timothy Ralph
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
This ASPI report examines the impact of quantum technologies on secure communications. It provides an overview of the key technologies and the status of the field in Australia and internationally (including escalating recent developments in both the US and China), and captures counterpart US, UK and Canadian reports and recommendations to those nations’ defence departments that have recently been released publicly. The report is structured into six sections: an introduction that provides a stand-alone overview and sets out both the threat and the opportunity of quantum technologies for communications security, and more detailed sections that span quantum computing, quantum encryption, the quantum internet, and post-quantum cryptography. The last section of the report makes five substantive recommendations in the Australian context that are implementable and in the national interest. A key message on quantum technologies relates to urgency. Escalating international progress is opening a widening gap in relation to Australia’s status in this field. It is critical that, in addition to its own initiatives, the Defence Department transitions from a largely watching brief on progress across the university sector and start-up companies to a leadership role—to coordinate, resource and harness the full potential of a most capable Australian quantum technologies community to support Defence’s objectives.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Science and Technology, Communications, and Quantum Computers
Political Geography:
Australia

20. Somebody might hear us: Emerging communications security technologies

Author:
Andrew Davies
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Militaries have been trying to keep their communications safe from prying eyes for centuries. But they have also sought to be able to communicate as quickly as possible and as widely as possible with their own forces. Those requirements are in tension with one another. Today, militaries can communicate globally over increasingly capacious data pipes. But the same technological evolution that allows them to do that has also given would-be eavesdroppers new and powerful tools to collect and exploit signals. In this report, author Dr Andrew Davies explains the principles of secure communication and uses some examples of emerging technologies to illustrate what the next generation of secure communications might look like.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, Communications, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Australia