[LINK] re: ACS Canberra Branch Conference 2007

[Tom Worthington]

I wrote  Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:08:19 +1100:

>The ACS Canberra Branch Conference 2007 is on this Thursday ...

This was an exceptional conference. We had a Ministerial 
announcement, an insight to secure Customs systems, police on e-crime 
and details of how a high tech executive runs a family online. Some 
highlights below (version with hypertext links at 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/03/report-on-acs-canberra-branch.html>):

TECHNOLOGISTS IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST, MR PHILIP ARGY FACS ACS PRESIDENT

Phil Argy said that simple word was needed to describe what ICT 
people do. His suggestion was "technologist" with a selectable 
adjectives in front of it, such as "software".

He then went on to talk about regulation of the ICT profession. He 
used the example of programing a robot for safety and argued this is 
an application where professionalism is clearly needed. He suggested 
that Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" influenced the movie "2001 a 
Space 
Odyssey" 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29> with 
the fictional HAL 9000 computer 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000>. They are explicitly quoted 
in the later film "I Robot" 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%2C_Robot_%28film%29>, which is 
loosely based on Asimov's  stories 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Robot>. Roger Clarke wrote a two part 
paper on the application of the laws to computing 
<http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/SOS/Asimov.html>.

Phil when on to use an analogy with the push for environmental 
sensitivity in business, arguing employing a professional will show 
your business is supporting ethical business. Environmental issues in 
ICT turned out to be a theme which several speakers raised during the 
conference. Perhaps the ACS should be supporting environmental 
concerns in the ICT business. Computers and telecommunications (and 
the air conditioning for them) use a significant amount of energy in 
business. Routers, broadband modems, and computer in the home are 
also consuming more electricity. We might even earn some carbon 
credits from energy reduction moves.  ;-)

Phil's quick definition of ethics was: "doing the right thing even 
when no one looking". He used the example of including a secret code 
in software to stop it if the customer does not pay.

His third argument for professionalism was that ICT professionals are 
needed to support Australian exports. He argued that in three to five 
years time India and China will need to import ICT expertise and 
Australians were welcome.  He gave the example of China getting10M 
new mobile phones a month (I saw this first hand on a visit to 
Beijing <http://www.tomw.net.au/2003/bws/>). This of course assumes 
that the Chinese economy does not collapse later this year, as 
predicted by George Friedman 
<http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2007/1849915.htm>.  ;-)

* THE FUTURE OF ONLINE CITIZEN-GOVERNMENT ENGAGEMENT IN AUSTRALIA, 
THE HON GARY NAIRN MP, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR EDEN-MONARO AND SPECIAL 
MINISTER OF STATE

The Minister <http://www.smos.gov.au/> mentioned his former career as 
a professional surveyor and made parallels with the ICT profession He 
said how that profession had regulation for 100 years, with 
reciprocal licensing across all Australian states and NZ.

The Minister has responsibility for AGIMO <http://www.agimo.gov.au/>. 
He said he has had a battle with other minsters to get their 
departments to use the central government web site run by AGIMO for 
their advertising campaigns. AGIMO mentioned this initiative at a Web 
Standards Group meeting some months ago. Instead of each agency using 
a different  web address in advertising campaigns, the one standard 
address is used, with the campaign acronym on the end 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/egovernment/#servicepoint>.

The Minister said the Australian Government Entry Point 
<http://www.australia.gov.au/about-this-site> has 400,000 people a 
month visiting (which sounds low to me).

The Minister gave the FunnelBack search engine a plug (spinoff from 
CSIRO) <http://funnelback.com/index.html>. He mentioned a geo-spatial 
test on the web site <http://test.australia.gov.au/maps.htm>. I gave 
the service a quick try and it seems to work okay. It gives you a map 
of government services:

"We would appreciate your comments regarding the usefulness or 
accuracy of the map content; map features you would like to see; how 
easy it is to use the maps; or any other aspect of the Service 
Locator Trial. You can complete the Service Locator Trial Survey to 
provide your feedback."

The Minister said that geo-spatial data sets need to be coordinated 
to help with environment issues, particularly water conservation. 
This issue came up in Dr Markus Buchhorn's talk later in the day at 
the ANU 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/03/sustainability-of-research-data-in.html>. 
He should chat with the Minister on how to use the technology for 
water conservation in the Eden-Monaro. ;-)

The Minister mentioned the "single signon" for online government 
services 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/egovernment/#servicepoint>. 
This was demonstrated at a WSG meeting some time ago. It would be 
useful and raises some significant technical and security issues, but 
far fewer than the Access Card 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/03/access-card-forum-12-march-canberra.html>.

The Minister mentioned the shortage of ICT people in the public 
service and the 75 apprentices in nine agencies. This is a good 
scheme, provided the apprentices do actually go on to get education 
and are not lured into just full time work due to the skills shortage 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/egovernment/skills.shtml>.

At the end of his talk the Minister surprised the audience by 
announcing eight principles for ICT-enabled citizen engagement. There 
was no media release or document with the announcement, but I gleaned 
some details from the AGIMO web site: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/03/government-principles-for-ict-enabled.html>.

There was then a question time:

Pat Barrett, Senior Fellow at the ANU and former Australian 
auditor-general, asked about retention of the apprentices in the 
public sector, and what would stop them getting jobs in companies 
after they were trained. The Minister replied this was being 
considering it, but skilled staff would benefit Australia, even if 
they were lost to the public sector.

I then asked: "Minister, there is a limited trial of  electronic 
voting planned for the next election 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2006/12/e-voting-for-australian-elections.html>. 
So I set the ethics of this as an assignment for my computer students 
at the ANU 
<http://cs.anu.edu.au/students/comp2410/assignments/a1/assignment1.pdf>. 
In the process I noticed that the Australian Electoral Commission 
does not appear to have made much progress setting up for the trial. 
Are you confident they are giving the project sufficient priority?"

The Minister replied there were to be two trials: one for Defence 
personnel, working via a Defence secure network and one for disabled 
people at 30 booths around Australia. He emphasized these are no 
Internet voting trails. He said it better be ready as he is the 
responsible minister. The AEC is aiming to be ready by 4 August, 
which is the earliest plausible election date.

Someone then asked about the public's confidence in the security of 
single signon. He replied that education was needed, as the security 
of the online systems was in many cases much higher than current 
paper based systems and much better than commercial ones.

The minister did a very credible job, showing a grasp of the topics 
and willingness to answer some tricky questions and answer them well.

* A NEW ERA FOR CUSTOMS IT, MR MURRAY HARRISON, CHIEF INFORMATION 
OFFICER, AUSTRALIAN CUSTOMS SERVICE

Murray Harrison started his talk by demonstrating the security of his 
password protected Windows Visa Laptop and flash drive. He showed how 
the new customs system will allow secure access for officers around 
Australia. I was a little skeptical of the demonstration and would 
not put that level of faith in this technology.  He gave as a example 
using the system in a QANTAS airport lounge. I laughed at this point 
and he asked why, so I asked him if staff were going to be trained in 
keeping their information secure, given a senior military officer 
suffered embarrassment after leaving sensitive information in an 
airport lounge. He said this was being done in conjunction with 
system introduction. Perhaps Customs need to make a bulk purchase of 
lanyards to secure their electronic security tags 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/03/real-uses-for-flash-drive-lanyards.html>. 
;-)

Murray talked about what Customs were planning to do with ICT in the 
future, but did not go into detail. This contrasts with his 
presentation to the 2004 conference, when he discussed the 
"Implementing the Customs Cargo Management Reengineering System" in 
detail <http://www.acs.org.au/act/conference/harrison.htm>. That 
project now seems to be largey over the criticism it suffered 
<http://www.acs.org.au/news/211005a.htm>

* SHERYLE MOON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AUSTRALIAN INFORMATION 
INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION THE 5TH UTILITY, MS SHERYLE MOON MACS, CHIEF 
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AIIA

Sheryle talked about AIIA initiatives with industry and government, 
including those to address the skills shortage. She mentioned the 
CSIRO water saving shower which "hollows out the water" 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/03/bubble-shower-saves-water.html>. 
She also she mentioned energy use by computers as an environmental 
issue and NICTA's work on water management technology.

Sheryle mentioned the high rate of use of communications in modern 
families, with spouses e-mailing, phoning and SMSing to remind their 
forgetful partners of tasks. I have arranged for Sheryle to talk at 
ANU next week 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/02/ict-industry-in-australia-canberra-21.html>. 
A team of students is programming a GPS smart phone, so perhaps they 
target it at family applications:


"... the built in phone would refuse to take any calls while your car 
was in motion. The automated voice response system would say on your 
behalf "Yes dear, I am on his way to pick up the kids, ETA is 2 
minutes. I have parking slot 3 reserved in the school queuing system. 
Press 1 if you want me to get some milk on the way home, press 2 for 
bread ...". ;-)


From: <http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2006-June/067002.html>

* THE FUTURE TRENDS AND CHALLENGES OF HIGH TECH CRIME INVESTIGATIONS, 
FEDERAL AGENT NIGEL PHAIR, TEAM LEADER AUSTRALIAN HITECH CRIME CENTRE

Nigel gave the most entertaining talk of the morning, with diagrams 
generated by the intelligence analysis software used by crime 
investigators to track online attacks <http://www.ahtcc.gov.au/>.

About then the battery started to go in my laptop and I decided to 
sit back and enjoy the event.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml